Availability of the Control-of-Variables Strategy in Early Adolescence: Elicitation Techniques Revisited

Abstract

Adolescents in grades 7 and 9 were given two presentations of a set of Piagetian-inspired control-of-variables (COV) tasks and an extended post-test. Between the first two administrations, subjects in each of five conditions were either given specific prompts (i.e., some version of a pair-choice task or a control task). Use of the COV-strategy increased significantly (p < .0001) from first to second administration. However, the controlling variables strategy was elicited independent of the type of pair comparisons students were exposed to. And contrary to earlier re-search, the control group also improved on the task. It is concluded that any exposure to a control-of-variables task seems to lead to improved performance. Somewhat unexpectedly, boys outperformed girls on the controlling variables tasks. Possible origins of the findings including motivational and experiential factors are discussed.

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