A study of learning potential in children: The effects of a metacognitive training program

Journal/Book: Z Entwicklungspsychol Padago. 1996; 28: Rohnsweg 25, D-37085 Gottingen, Germany. Hogrefe-Verlag GmbH & Co. 33-53.

Abstract: N = 240 children aged 7-8 years were randomly allotted to two conditions, based on their IQ's in a pretest-posttest randomized block design. One group received a learning potential rest that included a metacognitive training program, whereas the other group received the items from this training program with a standard instruction instead of training. Before these treatments both groups were administered an intelligence test. Before, immediately after, and 3 months after training each of the children was tested individually with Exclusion and Analogy tasks. The learning potential training program proved to be successful in terms of the improvement of the performance on specific material and horizontal transfer tasks. Primary school children had better learning potential test performances than learning disabled children, and learning disabled ones had better test performances than mildly retarded children. Nonspecific and vertical transfer could not be established. It is concluded that the learning potential training program has a rather specific effect upon different transfer tasks in the domain of inductive reasoning.

Note: Article WCM Resing, Leiden Univ, Dept Dev & Educ Psychol, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 Ak Leiden, Netherlands

Keyword(s): learning potential; inductive reasoning; cognitive training; metacognition; INTELLIGENCE

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