The short-term longitudinal study on the developmental change of problem solving ability in Korean infants
AUTHOR : 배기조,성현란,조윤경
INFORMATION : page. 93~110 / 2005 Vol.12 No.2
ABSTRACT
The purpose of present study was to investigate the developmental change of the goal-directed problem solving among Korean infants through a longitudinal design. To measure the problem solving ability, two kinds of tasks were used: means-ends task and action planning task. In the means-ends problems, infants were presented with a desired toy that was just out of their reach on the far end of a cloth support. In the action planning problems, we presented a spoon on a holder that raised it off the table\'s surface. Young children\'s strategies were evaluated as they grasped and used the spoon. The results were as follows. The means-ends task using the cloth support showed a significant performance differences difference between 10- and 12-month-old infants, and 12-month-old infants\' score was higher than that of 10-month-old infants. The percentage of right hand-preference among infants was 76.4 in the 10 month age group, 77.2 in the 12 month age group, and 85.5 in the 15 month age group, respectively, revealing that right hand-preference was prevalent in the 10 month age group. With regard to the method of spoon grasping, there was no significant difference as a function of age, in the whereas there was a significant difference in the condition(easy > difficult). Yet, there was a significant difference in terms of conveying the spoon into their mouth according to age(10- < 12- < 15-month-old-infants) and conditions(easy > difficult). There were partially positive correlations between means-ends and action planning tasks. The significance of the present study was to investigate the developmental change of the problem-solving ability through two familiar tasks.