Wood

• Background: What did Bruner believe?

  • Children are natural problem solvers
  • Skill acquisition is hierarchical and organised
• Background: What is 'scaffolding'?

  • Interventions from a tutor involves scaffolding which allows child to solve problems or achieve a goal beyond their capability without help
  • Tutor can control aspects of a task beyond the child so they can focus on aspects they are able to handle
  • Different modes of thinking are not age dependent like Piaget
  • Wood argued children have to be able to recognise what a situation would look like before being able to produce the steps to solving it without help
• Background: What did Clinchy find?

  • In a game of 20 questions, children recognised the difference between a good and bad strategy
  • However could not produce good strategies or good questions themselves without help
• What was the aim?

  • To study the process of skill acquisition and problem solving in a natural tutorial session and the interactive and instructional relationship between the developing child and their elders
• What was the method?

  • Controlled observation in a lab environment
• What was the sample?

  • 30 children aged 3, 4 and 5 years old
  • Middle to lower class families in Massachusetts USA
  • Children's parents responded to ads asking for volunteers - parents volunteered them (ethics)
  • Child accompanied by parents to individual session lasting between 20 - 60 mins
• Describe the task in Wood's study

  Set tasks that met several criteria:

  • Fun
  • Easy enough for child's current capabilities but complex enough to extend each child
  • Task was to construct a pyramid from a set of jumbled blocks - high ecological validity
• What was the main procedure?

  • Tutor was one of the researchers and the goal was to allow every child to do as much themselves as possible
  • Each child was tutored individually (control) and sat at a small table with 21 blocks spread out on it
  • Given 5 minutes of free play and afterwards the tutor took 2 blocks and demonstrated how they could be joined together as a pair
• What 3 possible responses by the child did the tutor tailor behaviour to?

  1. Child ignores tutor and continues to play, tutor would demonstrate how to join blocks again
  2. Child selects blocks themselves and tries to assemble using method like tutor but misses out parts, tutor would compare models (own correction)
  3. Child took blocks presented to construct themselves, tutor corrected any mistake

  • Tutor would only intervene if child stopped building or got into difficulties (reduce distress)
• Describe the scoring system of constructions

  Each act of construction classified:

  • Assembled after tutor presented (assisted)
  • Assemble after selecting themselves (unassisted)
  • Manipulating assembled blocks after tutor indicated (assisted)
  • Manipulating assembled blocks after selecting themselves (unassisted)
• How was tutor intervention classified?

  • Direct assistance
  • Verbal error prompt
  • Verbal attempt to get child to make more constructions
• Describe how Wood's study is reliable

  • All behaviour was categorised and has inter-rater reliability of 94% between 2 observers working independently on 594 videotaped events (videotaped as can miss behaviour)
• Describe the results in terms of constructions

  Total construction acts:

  • Medians were similar showing no significant difference in overall activity between age groups

  Pairing acts:

  • 3 year olds had the lowest percentage so 3 year olds need the most help in problem solving as no 3 year old put 4 blocks together but 4 and 5 year olds did

  Reconstructions:

  • 3 year olds took blocks apart and put them back together 67% of the time but when incorrect construction they put it back together again 14% of the time
• Describe the results in terms of tutorial and tutor help

  Tutorial help:

  • Younger children needed more tutorial help, 3 year old 65% constructions unassisted and 5 year old 88% constructions unassisted

  Tutor help:

  • Older children don't need tutor help but more tutorial help
  • 4 and 5 year olds had greater proportion of verbal assistance than 3 year old

  Tutor type interaction:

  • No. of direct intervention dropped by half from 3 to 4 and half again from 4 to 5 showing 5 year olds more independent
  • Balance of tutorial helping shifted from showing to telling from 3 to 4 years old
• Conclusions: Scaffolding

  6 steps:

  1. Recruitment - get attention & stick to task
  2. Reduction in degrees of freedom - tutor simplifies task to reduce no. of acts needed
  3. Direction maintenance - enthusiasm & keep task in front of eyes
  4. Marking critical features - tutor highlights most relevant features of task
  5. Frustration control - tutor supports child through stress but avids too much dependence
  6. Demonstration - tutor models task for child to imitate
• Conclusions: Comprehension precedes production

  • 3 year olds not as successful as 4 year olds at completing tasks but knew the difference between correct and incorrect constructions
  • Meaning results show comprehension precedes production as 3 year olds able to recognise correct solution before they could provide it
• Conclusions: Tutor different roles relating to age

  • Younger children not as ready to be tutored so tutor had to encourage them to complete tasks by demonstrating or tempting them
  • 3 year olds - captivator of their interests and keeping task in front of them
  • 4 year olds - prodder and corrector, identifying discrepencies between efforts and task requirement
  • 5 year olds - confiner and checker of operations - less need for tutor as child ages