Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Accuracy, confidence and motivation in children...

Electronic data

  • EPS_Apr25_poster

    Accepted author manuscript, 558 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

View graph of relations

Accuracy, confidence and motivation in children’s insight problem-solving

Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN Poster

Published
Close
Publication date2/04/2025
<mark>Original language</mark>English
EventEPS Lancaster Meeting, 2025 -
Duration: 2/04/20254/04/2025

Conference

ConferenceEPS Lancaster Meeting, 2025
Period2/04/254/04/25

Abstract

Moments of insight are associated with accuracy, confidence and motivation in research with adults (Wiley & Danek, 2024). However, little is known about children’s insights. We presented 160 children (age: 4–8 years, 47% girls) with a new insight problem-solving task. Across 8 trials, children saw three clues and were asked to find a solution word associated with all three clues. Self-reported and observed aha-experiences were recorded, along with children’s solution accuracy and confidence. We found that aha-experiences were associated with accuracy (observed: OR = 11.76, p <.001, N trials = 1280; self-reported: OR = 2.26, p =.003, N trials = 560). However, there was no association between aha-experiences and confidence (observed: OR = 1.46, p =.138, N trials = 1063; self-reported: OR = 0.67, p =.287, N trials = 471). To assess children’s motivation, they could choose between two bonus tasks after completing a set of the insight task. We found that observed aha-experiences (OR = 1.5, p =.003, N participants = 160), but not self-reported aha experiences (OR = 1.1, p =.644, N participants = 70), were associated with higher likelihood that a child would choose to continue with the same type of task, rather than switching to a new kind of task.