Using a sample of 531 10-year-olds from Germany and the United States, the study investigated the relationships among the structure of everyday experience, domain-specific control beliefs, acquisition of science knowledge, and solving of everyday technical problems. It assumed that children acquire operative schemata through daily experiences with technical objects and toys which not only transfer to solving technical everyday problems but also have a positive influence on school science learning. It was also thought that the covariation between technical everyday experiences and science achievement/technical problem solving would be mediated by control beliefs. A causal model, developed and tested by means of structural equation modeling, showed that domain-specific out-of-school experience only indirectly influences problem-solving performance, mediated by control beliefs.

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