Beyond Accuracy: Children’s Correct and Incorrect Strategies on Early STEM Tasks Provide Insights into Cognitive Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Problem-solving strategies vary across development and relate to early cognitive and academic skills (Siegler & Lemaire, 1997; Geary, 2011; Laski et al., 2013). Despite this, far more research uses children’s accuracy scores, rather than strategy use, as a measure of success on STEM tasks.

The papers presented here examine children’s strategies on various STEM tasks and their relation to learning outcomes. The first paper examined four- to six-year-olds’ strategies on a basic pattern task. Sophisticated strategies focused on two dimensions (shape and size) rather than one dimension, and the use of these strategies was positively related to subsequent pattern performance. The second paper examined kindergarteners’ strategy use on a Base-10 counting task. For those who recognized unit boundaries (e.g., switching from ones to tens), their exact place value knowledge predicted calculation skills. However, for those who did not recognize unit boundaries, their approximate place value knowledge predicted calculation skills. The third paper examined effects of tablet-game training conditions (working memory focused, math focused, combined, control) on addition strategy use and found gains in accuracy and strategy use for kindergarteners in the combined condition. The final paper examined block building behaviors during a model replication task and found that (a) children’s alignment of structure and checking while building facilitated performance, and (b) Chinese children produced fewer errors than children from other backgrounds.

These studies demonstrate the utility of investigating children’s strategy use: children’s strategy choices can elucidate the processes underlying task performance and reveal how complex cognitive skills develop.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• Giulia Alexandra Borriello, Indiana University - Bloomington

Individual Presentations

• Developmental Differences in Children’s Strategies and Errors on a Repeating Pattern Task - Presenting Author: Giulia Alexandra Borriello, Indiana University - Bloomington; Non-Presenting Author: Emily Fyfe, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Kindergartners’ Mastery of the Base-10 Representational System Predicts Place Value Understanding and Later Calculation Skills in Second Grade - Presenting Author: Corinne A. Bower, California State University - Los Angeles; Non-Presenting Author: Kelly Sue Mix, University of Maryland - College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Linda B. Smith, Indiana University - Bloomington

• “Because I just knew it!”: Examining Kindergarten Children’s Development and Use of Addition Strategies - Presenting Author: Mary DePascale, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Susanne M. Jaeggi, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Geetha B. Ramani, University of Maryland - College Park

• Children’s Real-Time Behaviors during a Model Replication Task - Presenting Author: Daniel Suh, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Jake McCallum, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Catherine S Tamis-Lemonda, New York University