TECHNICAL PROBLEM-SOLVING AMONG 10-YEAR-OLD STUDENTS AS RELATED TO SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT, OUT-OF-SCHOOL EXPERIENCE, DOMAIN-SPECIFIC CONTROL BELIEFS, AND ATTRIBUTION PATTERNS

Using a sample of 531 10-year-olds from Germany and the United States, the study investigated the relationships among the structure of every day experience, domain-specific control beliefs, acquisition of scienc e knowledge, and solving of everyday technical problems. It assumed th at children acquire operative schemata through daily experiences with technical objects and toys which not only transfer to solving technica l everyday problems but also have a positive influence on school scien ce learning. It was also thought that the covariation between technica l everyday experiences and science achievement/technical problem solvi ng would be mediated by control beliefs. A causal model, developed and tested by means of structural equation modeling, showed that domain-s pecific out-of-school experience only indirectly influences problem-so lving performance, mediated by control beliefs. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.