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A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence

Scientists have studied the development of the human mind for decades and have accumulated an impressive number of empirical studies that have provided ample support for the notion that early cognitive performance during infancy and childhood is an important predictor of later cognitive performance...

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Autores principales: Greiff, Samuel, Wüstenberg, Sascha, Goetz, Thomas, Vainikainen, Mari-Pauliina, Hautamäki, Jarkko, Bornstein, Marc H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4515543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26283992
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01060
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author Greiff, Samuel
Wüstenberg, Sascha
Goetz, Thomas
Vainikainen, Mari-Pauliina
Hautamäki, Jarkko
Bornstein, Marc H.
author_facet Greiff, Samuel
Wüstenberg, Sascha
Goetz, Thomas
Vainikainen, Mari-Pauliina
Hautamäki, Jarkko
Bornstein, Marc H.
author_sort Greiff, Samuel
collection PubMed
description Scientists have studied the development of the human mind for decades and have accumulated an impressive number of empirical studies that have provided ample support for the notion that early cognitive performance during infancy and childhood is an important predictor of later cognitive performance during adulthood. As children move from childhood into adolescence, their mental development increasingly involves higher-order cognitive skills that are crucial for successful planning, decision-making, and problem solving skills. However, few studies have employed higher-order thinking skills such as complex problem solving (CPS) as developmental outcomes in adolescents. To fill this gap, we tested a longitudinal developmental model in a sample of 2,021 Finnish sixth grade students (M = 12.41 years, SD = 0.52; 1,041 female, 978 male, 2 missing sex). We assessed working memory (WM) and fluid reasoning (FR) at age 12 as predictors of two CPS dimensions: knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. We further assessed students’ CPS performance 3 years later as a developmental outcome (N = 1696; M = 15.22 years, SD = 0.43; 867 female, 829 male). Missing data partly occurred due to dropout and technical problems during the first days of testing and varied across indicators and time with a mean of 27.2%. Results revealed that FR was a strong predictor of both CPS dimensions, whereas WM exhibited only a small influence on one of the two CPS dimensions. These results provide strong support for the view that CPS involves FR and, to a lesser extent, WM in childhood and from there evolves into an increasingly complex structure of higher-order cognitive skills in adolescence.
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spelling pubmed-45155432015-08-17 A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence Greiff, Samuel Wüstenberg, Sascha Goetz, Thomas Vainikainen, Mari-Pauliina Hautamäki, Jarkko Bornstein, Marc H. Front Psychol Psychology Scientists have studied the development of the human mind for decades and have accumulated an impressive number of empirical studies that have provided ample support for the notion that early cognitive performance during infancy and childhood is an important predictor of later cognitive performance during adulthood. As children move from childhood into adolescence, their mental development increasingly involves higher-order cognitive skills that are crucial for successful planning, decision-making, and problem solving skills. However, few studies have employed higher-order thinking skills such as complex problem solving (CPS) as developmental outcomes in adolescents. To fill this gap, we tested a longitudinal developmental model in a sample of 2,021 Finnish sixth grade students (M = 12.41 years, SD = 0.52; 1,041 female, 978 male, 2 missing sex). We assessed working memory (WM) and fluid reasoning (FR) at age 12 as predictors of two CPS dimensions: knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. We further assessed students’ CPS performance 3 years later as a developmental outcome (N = 1696; M = 15.22 years, SD = 0.43; 867 female, 829 male). Missing data partly occurred due to dropout and technical problems during the first days of testing and varied across indicators and time with a mean of 27.2%. Results revealed that FR was a strong predictor of both CPS dimensions, whereas WM exhibited only a small influence on one of the two CPS dimensions. These results provide strong support for the view that CPS involves FR and, to a lesser extent, WM in childhood and from there evolves into an increasingly complex structure of higher-order cognitive skills in adolescence. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4515543/ /pubmed/26283992 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01060 Text en Copyright © 2015 Greiff, Wüstenberg, Goetz, Vainikainen, Hautamäki and Bornstein. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Greiff, Samuel
Wüstenberg, Sascha
Goetz, Thomas
Vainikainen, Mari-Pauliina
Hautamäki, Jarkko
Bornstein, Marc H.
A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
title A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
title_full A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
title_fullStr A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
title_full_unstemmed A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
title_short A longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
title_sort longitudinal study of higher-order thinking skills: working memory and fluid reasoning in childhood enhance complex problem solving in adolescence
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4515543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26283992
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01060
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