Stability and change in longitudinal water-level task performance.
Three longitudinal samples of children (N = 481), 8 to 16 years old, were assessed 3 times at yearly intervals on 8 water-level items. The within-child change in task performance over age is viewed as a stochastic process of the child changing or remaining in 1 of 3 latent (strategy) states: (a) bottom-parallel responders, (b) random responders, or (c) accurate responders. A random-effects binomial mixture distribution is used to model performance at each age. Change over age is gauged by a stochastic transition model. Although there was improvement in task performance over age, the more general finding is that strategy stability, not change, is most typical.
Thomas
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Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802-3105, USA. hxt@psu.edu
Lohaus
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Kessler
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D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003210:Concept Formation; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011337:Probability Learning; D011340:Problem Solving