The Plasticity Of Children’s Planning Ability

Planning is both an important link in the process of self-regulation and animportant part of the problem solving ability. Researches on the the plasticity ofchildren’s planning and the relationships with other cognitive abilities can provide thetheory base for the cultivation of children’s planning.This study adopts the dynamic test paradigm to study following problems aboutthe the plasticity of children’s planning ability:1)whether the planning ability can betrained?2) how the plasticity changed along with the age?3) After controllingplanning visual-spatial working memory, what’s the difference in the trend of theplasticity with age?4) what’s the difference in the plasticity of children’s planningability between childrens of different actual ability of planning.The test of this study includes three phrases: pretest-learn-post-test. Researchersask children to finish the task independently first to get the actual level of children’splanning in the pretest stage. Then, they give children targeted helps and record thepotential level of children’s planning, the hints needed,and the improvement (thedifference between potential level and actual level). Finally, they let children completetasks that are similar in difficult to those they have done before independently to getthe children’s post-test level of children’s planning.First of all, this study analyzed4years and6years old childrens differences inthe plasticity of children’s planning by comparing children’s actual development level,potential level, post-test level, the improvement and the hints needed. Secondly,according to children’s actual level of planning, each age is divided into two groups,this study analyzed two group children’s differences in the plasticity of planning bycomparing children’s potential development level, improvement, post-test level andthe hints needed. Finally, this study further explores the changes of differences in theplasticity of children’s planning between ages and groups after controlling visual-spatial working memory. The results were as follows:1)4and6years old children’s potential development level, the post-test level issignificantly higher than their actual development level，which demonstrates theplasticity of children’s planning.2) Even after controlling visual-spatial working memory,4years old children’sactual development level, potential development level, the post-test level is still significantly lower than6year olds, those results have two meanings: children’splanning improves as they get older; and the visual-spatial working memory is not bigenough to be a decisive factor for children’s planning.3) Even after controlling visual-spatial working memory,6years old childrenimprove more than4year olds with the help of adults,4years olds need more hintswhen learn high difficult tasks, which means the visual-spatial working memory is notbig enough to be a decisive factor for the plasticity of children’s planning.4) The group of low planning of4years old children were significantly lowerthan the group of high planning in the potential development level and the post-testlevel of planning, however, the group of low planning improve more; the group oflow planning of6years old children have no significantly difference with the group ofhigh planning in the potential development level and the post-test level of planning.Those results demonstrate even the group of low planning make great progress withproper helps.