Garrett Lange

Motivation and Self-Regulation as Predictors of Achievement in Economically Disadvantaged Young Children

Abstract The primary purpose of the present study was to better understand the roles of motivation and self-regulated task behavior for early school achievement differences among young, economically at-risk and not-at-risk children. Of the at-risk participants, 43 were 5-6-year-olds and 42 were 7-8-year-olds. Of the not-at-risk participants, 21 were 6-year-olds, and 21 were 8-year-olds. Results of the study showed that child-and-teacher-reported motivation levels were comparable among the at-risk and the not-at-risk children. However, the at-risk children showed poorer abilities to regulate their task attention than the not-at-risk children did. In addition, younger at-risk childrens achievement scores were predicted by their levels of attention-regulation abilities. Results are discussed in relation to the importance of at-risk childrens attention-regulation skills.

Relationships between study organization, retrieval organization, and general and strategy-specific memory knowledge in young children

The present study examined relationships between young childrens memory knowledge and their use of taxonomic and color memory organization. Forty-eight 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds were administered metamemory tests of organization-strategy knowledge and general memory knowledge, and were tested on two study-recall tasks before, and two study-recall tasks after, training in the use of color or taxonomic organization. Study organization (grouping) scores were low before training, but improved significantly in post-training tasks. Training effects were less pronounced for retrieval organization (clustering) and did not occur for item recall. Relationships between taxonomic study and retrieval organization were apparent only for the 7-year-olds, while relationships between color organization at study and retrieval were not apparent at any age level. Relationships between metamemory, strategy-use, and recall proficiency were evident on some tasks for 7-year-olds, but not for younger children. Although teacher ratings of the childrens mastery orientations were also found to be related to recall proficiency for the older subjects, specific strategy knowledge was a more consistent correlate of strategy use and amount recalled.

Relationships among metamemory, motivation and memory performance in young school-age children

This study examines relationships among young childrens metamemory, effort attributions and memory-task performance. Eighty-one second and third graders participated in the study. The children were administered two study-recall memory tasks using potentially clusterable items, and questionnaires to assess memory-knowledge and effort attributions. Four path models predicting item recall, specifying strategy use at study and at recall as endogenous variables and memory knowledge and effort attributions as exogenous variables, were compared. The best-fit model specified both (1) a direct effect of metamemory on item recall, and (2) a direct effect of metamemory and effort attributions on the use of a clustering strategy during the study period, and thus an indirect effect on item recall. Additionally, the findings add support to the argument that the effects of memory influences may be culturally linked.

Logo Mastery and Spatial Problem-Solving by Young Children: Effects of Logo Language Training, Route-Strategy Training, and Learning Styles on Immediate Learning and Transfer

This study examines childrens abilities 1) to learn to program with a single keystroke, ten command Logo system enabling them to produce multiple command sequences to solve on-screen problems, 2) to learn two new strategies (direct and indirect route strategies) requiring the use of two levels of programming difficulty measured via average times, keystrokes, and errors, 3) to transfer screen-based Logo training to the solution of spatial problems in another learning setting, and 4) to demonstrate whether there are any individual differences in the effectiveness of Logo learning for children who have different learning orientations (field independent versus field dependent and/or reflective versus impulsive). Twenty-four four- and five-year-old children served as subjects in the study. Data from the study showed: 1) that mastery of the Logo language is not a necessary condition for young children to think and problem-solve within a Logo environment, 2) that successful problem-solving within a Logo environment is predicated on a childs use of an age-appropriate Logo programming system, 3) that even very young children can be taught spatial-conceptual strategies with which to operate within a Logo environment, 4) that young children can transfer Logo-environment knowledge to other problem-solving settings, and 5) that field independent children seem to have a slight advantage both in their initial learning of Logo and in their transfer of Logo learning to another problem-solving setting. Some of the present results are interpreted according to Watson and Buschs model of the development of Logo programming and problem-solving skills in children [1].

Instructing Young Children in the Use of Memorizing Strategies: Effects at Study and Recall

This study examined preschool childrens abilities to apply a newly learned organizational study-recall strategy in posttraining tasks that employed stimulus items from different media and that were administered by an unfamiliar experimenter. Forty-eight 4- and 5-year-old children were assigned to training and control conditions that alternated the presentation of pictures and objects on baseline, training, and test tasks. Same-medium tasks required children to study and recall items of the same stimulus medium (pictures or objects) as that depicting items in the training tasks. Different-medium tasks required performance with items presented in the alternate medium. Training included demonstration and practice in using a study-sorting strategy to organize the stimuli, encouragement to apply the strategy in new tasks, presenting a rationale for using the strategy, giving feedback about the effectiveness of using the strategy, and providing incentive for effortful performance. Subjects in the training groups showed marked increases in the use of sorting activities in posttraining tasks but failed to show corresponding significant improvements in item recall.

Part-whole transfer and organization in children's and adults' multitrial free recall

Abstract The effect of age-related differnces in the use of recall organization on the amount of recall and the properties of recall-acquisition patterns obtained in a multitrial part-whole transfer task was investigated among subjects in grade levels 1, 4, 7, and college (ages 6.5, 9.6, 12.6, and 19.7 years, respectively). Half of the subjects receiving relevant and irrelevant part lists sorted stimuli before recall trials; other subjects studied the items as they were presented, one at a time. Relevant part list learning was equally facilitative for all age groups regardless of presentation condition, and despite the greater amounts of recall organization found among college subjects. All age groups showed trial-to-trial improvements in whole-list recall; however, only the college subjects showed corresponding improvements in clustering, and all age groups had high rates of fluctuation in the composition of their recall from trial to trial. It was concluded that while even the limited amounts of spontaneous recall organization found among children are sufficient to enhance recall, organization is not a necessary condition for recall improvement and not the primary means by which children throughout the preformal-operations period increase their recall of unrelated stimuli over trials in a free-recall task.

The effects of category distinctiveness and stimulus relations on young children's use of retrieval clustering strategies.

The influence of category distinctiveness and the associative relatedness of within-category items on young childrens use of an organizational clustering strategy at retrieval was examined. Children from preschool and Grades 1 and 3 studied and recalled 9-item sets of pictured items representing either distinctive categories (e.g., numbers, letters, animals) or standard categories (e.g., furniture, clothing, animals). Half of the children at each grade level and in each category-type condition received category exemplars that were high associates. The results showed that each of the grade levels exhibited above-chance clustering for the distinctive categories but not for the standard categories. However, preschool participants attained above-chance clustering only for high-associate items, suggesting that their retrieval may have been driven automatically by natural word associations inherent in the stimuli. For older participants, above-chance clustering obtained for the low-associate as well as for the high-associate items, suggesting that they may have engaged in strategic retrieval activity.

Study Organization, Recall Organization, and Free Recall in Reflective and Impulsive Children

Relationship between measures of childrens study organization, recall organization and free-recall proficiency were investigated. First- and fourth-graders (total N = 94 boys and girls) having reflective and impulsive conceptual tempos performed a sorting-recall task. Although older and reflective children showed high levels of recall and clustering in recall, age and conceptual tempo differences were reduced substantially when recall and clustering means were adjusted for variation in the deliberateness and ease with which Ss derived sorting organizations for to-be-recalled stimuli at study. The results were discussed in reference to study-deficiency and retrieval-deficiency hypotheses of age differences and individual differences in childrens post-sort recall performance.

A Note on Young Children's Recall-Memory Proficiency with Strange and Familiar Experimenters

Abstract In the present study, seventy-two 4- and 5-year-old children were administered three object-recall tests on different occasions: one test was administered by an unfamiliar female experimenter in an unfamiliar testing room, one was administered by the childs preschool teacher in an unoccupied area of the classroom, and one was administered by the childs mother at home. The order in which children were tested in the three contexts, and the order in which stimulus sets were assigned to each test-order condition, was counterbalanced. Half the children were tested immediately after stimulus presentation by the unfamiliar experimenter before they were tested later in the day by the three testers. Comparisons showed that the childrens delayed recall scores were very similar in the three testing contexts and that, for pretest subjects, the rates of recall decline from the immediate to the delayed tests were comparable regardless of who administered the delayed test. The results fail to support supposi...

Young Children's Use of Spatial Cues to Organize and Recall Object Names

This experiment was designed to determine whether children between 4 and 8 years old make use of spatial cues to organize and facilitate their retrieval of object names in a free-recall task. Twenty boys and 20 girls at each of 3 grade levels (preschool, 1, and 3) were individually shown 9 small toy objects (either categorizable or unrelated) presented in a randomly arranged circular array. Three stand-up pictures of a bed, a couch, and a storage cabinet served as pretend hiding places for the presented stimuli. After a brief viewing period, the experimenter removed the objects from the childs view, left the location props in place, and asked for recall. Analyses of recall and clustering (ARC) scores showed significant grade-related improvements for item-recall scores and spatial-retrieval clustering scores, but not for taxonomic clustering scores. Spatial clustering scores were significantly above chance for 1st- and 3rd-grade children, but taxonomic clustering scores remained at chance levels for all grades.