We investigated how young children evaluate disagreements between two people and whether formal education affects this capacity. We compared 120 first graders tested during the 2014-2015 academic year, who received a direct instruction-based curriculum, with 112 first graders tested in the same school system during the 2016-2017 academic year, who…

This study investigated effects of feedback and exposure to alternative strategies on strategy change in children (N = 106, age range = 7;3-10;0) learning about mathematical equivalence. Children's strategies were evaluated before and after a brief instructional intervention. During the intervention, children either were exposed to a set of 4…

This study investigated the roles of different executive function (EF) components (inhibition, shifting, and working memory) in 2-step arithmetic word problem solving. A sample of 139 children aged 8 years old and regularly attending the 3rd grade of primary school were tested on 6 EF tasks measuring different EF components, a reading task and a…

In three experiments, 3 1/2- to 6-year-old children were presented with analogical problems in which the protagonists were either real people or fantasy characters. Children were more likely to transfer solutions from the stories about real people rather than the stories about fantasy characters. These results suggest that the use of a fantasy…