Puzzling Boys and Girls (Gender Differences in Problem-Solving in Preschoolers through Puzzles) [electronic resource] / Svetlana Tchernigova.
This study investigated gender differences in preschoolers' problem solving. Ten boys and 10 girls from the same preschool class with a median age of 4 years 1 month from multicultural middle class families participated. Children were presented with a separate novel form board puzzle designed f...
Saved in:
| Online Access: |
Full Text (via ERIC) |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1995.
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | This study investigated gender differences in preschoolers' problem solving. Ten boys and 10 girls from the same preschool class with a median age of 4 years 1 month from multicultural middle class families participated. Children were presented with a separate novel form board puzzle designed for young children each day for 3 days in a standardized order. Children were later asked to explain how to do a puzzle for a friend in the class. Experimental sessions were recorded on videotape. Children's speech during puzzle completion was recorded and coded for two forms of social and six forms of inner speech. Puzzle-solving performance was coded according to five motor behavior categories. Several gender differences were reported: (1) Girls were more likely than boys to complete all the puzzles; (2) Boys were more likely than girls to use trial and error and had shorter latencies to begin puzzle completion, whereas girls tended to look for clues and related their prior knowledge to the puzzle to develop a strategy; (3) Boys were more likely than girls to use social speech during pauses between motor acts; (4) Speech did not occur as often as in previous studies, and task success was not associated with private speech, especially for girls, the verbalizations actually accrued within a series of failed or nearly failed activities mostly for boys; (5) Girls were more persistent than boys; (6) Girls were better able than boys to verbalize their strategies both to the experimenter and to a classmate. (Includes 1 table and 2 figures. Contains 14 references.) (KDFB) |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | ERIC Document Number: ED396845. |
| Physical Description: | 25 p. |