Longitudinal analysis of the presence, efficacy and stability of maternal scaffolding during informal problem‐solving interactions

Abstract

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.

Scaffolding: Definition, Current Debates, and Future Directions

“…Most would agree that dynamic customization of support is a key attribute of teacher-provided scaffolding (e.g., Conner & Cross, 2003 ;van de Pol et al, 2010 ;Wood, 2003 ) . Dynamic customization of support is closely tied to dynamic assessment, de fi ned as teachers' abilities to dynamically assess students' current ability levels by asking questions (RuizPrimo & Furtak, 2006 ) .…”

Contextual risk and parenting as predictors of effortful control and social competence in preschool children

“…They were combined into a dimension called scaffolding. Scaffolding refers to intervention by parents, contingent on the child's need while decreasing support or directiveness to allow child autonomy, again, contingent on the child's need (Conner & Cross, 2003), and the combination of responsiveness and respect for autonomy reflected this concept. Thus, the parenting dimensions included in analyses were maternal warmth, scaffolding, limit setting and negative affect.…”

Distributed Cognition as a Lens to Understand the Effects of Scaffolds: The Role of Transfer of Responsibility

“…For example, students may be asked questions related to specific content that they are investigating. Computer-based scaffolds that support problem solving typically aim to reduce the complexity of the task by indicating important problem elements (Conner and Cross 2003), but also draw student attention to problem complexities that should not be simplified (Reiser 2004).…”