The use of contingent instruction by parents and a related positive outcome for subsequent child behaviours have been documented in past research. In the current study the scaffolding paradigm was used to investigate patterns of maternal instructional behaviours and related child behaviours during informal problem-solving interactions and during independent problem-solving tasks. Forty-five mother-child dyads were observed at four time points across a 3-year period (children aged 16, 26, 44 and 54 months). In general, mothers showed systematic decreases in the amount of support offered and systematic increases in their use of contingent instruction, whereas children became more successful in their behaviours during the parent-child interactions. Surprisingly, there was little or no stability across time for each motherchild dyad. Mothers and children became more successful at working together during the problem-solving tasks, but each parent and each child was not consistent from one period to the next. In addition, when predicting children's success during independent tasks at the earlier ages there was an indirect link between parent behaviours and child success, whereas at 54 months there was a direct effect for both parent behaviours and children's previous abilities.

Building upon Wood & Middleton's (1975) concept of parental scaffolding, the influence of parent-child interactions on children's competence within several tasks was investigated. Thirty-two 2-year-old children visited our lab twice, once with their mothers and once with their fathers. During each session dyads participated in problem-solving and literacy tasks, followed by independent child performance tasks. Although subtle differences were found between mothers' and fathers' contingent behaviours displayed during the interactions, at a global level, parents were equally effective in their ability to scaffold their children's emerging skills. Specifically, parental scaffolding behaviours were associated with children's success measured both during the interaction and independently (i.e. following the interactions). These results have implications for the interpretation of research comparing mothers and fathers, and lend support to the claim that scaffolding can be an effective instructional strategy.

Thirty-nine sophomore and junior colle~e students from an introducto~ co~nitivr psychology course participated in a feature film activity desiped to help students define the pmnmcters of cognitive psychologr, npply course infonnntion to nomuulemic situations, amf work in a cooperati~'e-kmngsituation. Working in pairs, studen~c selected a fenrure film and a journal artick that represented some topic in cognitive psychology. Students wore a three-to five-pge paper and gave optional class wesentations in which they reported theoretical or empirical connectioru or /nth amoT the cognitive topic, journal a~ticle, and film. The instructor and students evaluated [he film activity a s highly enjoyable, a r~aluahle instructional roof, and a fairly simple tack to complete; 85% (~f the s t d n t s wrote positive comments abollt the acrivity and recommended it be continued in the future.

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