INDICATORS OF DISCONTINUOUS CHANGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANALOGICAL REASONING

In a longitudinal study, five indicators of a transition in the develo pment of analogical reasoning were examined in young elementary school children, (a) bimodality and (b) inaccessibility in the frequency dis tributions of test performance, and in the responses of the transition al subjects, respectively, (c) sudden jumps, (d) anomalous variance, a nd (e) critical slowing down. An open-ended geometric-analogies test w as administered eight times during a period of six months to eighty ch ildren in Grades 1 and 2 (six- to eight-year-olds). Strong evidence fo r bimodality was found in the distribution of the test scores and weak er evidence for inaccessibility. In the performance curves of the tran sitional subjects sudden jumps were demonstrated. Furthermore, the tra nsitional subjects displayed a temporary increase of inconsistent solu tion behavior and solution time near the sudden jump. The characterist ic changes in the analogy performance of the transitional subjects wer e interpreted as a strategy shift. (C) 1997 Academic Press.