Children's communication in a problem-solving context : gender differences and their effects upon adult assessment of task-ability

The main aim of this research has been to address the issue of meaning in children's task-related utterances, by examining speech acts made whilst solving a challenging problem and their relationship with task-ability. Of particular interest is communication which in educational settings may be interpreted as being helpseeking, reflecting dependence or low self-confidence. A central concern in this work is possible gender differences in the way children express themselves and interact with adults in problem-solving settings, and particularly how such differences may be interpreted by caregivers and teachers. Chapter 1 introduces the issues addressed in the thesis, including the historical context of gender research in the areas of cognitive ability, interactional style and achievement motivation and expectation. The literature review (Chapter 2) provides a central theoretical framework (deriving from developmental psychology, speech act theory and pragmatics) within which the experimental design, data analysis and interpretation of findings are discussed. An important issue is the presumed relationship between children's achievement motivation (including task-mastery, competitiveness etc.) and affiliative motivation (including cooperative interactional styles, deferential language use, etc.) This research has specifically examined the validity of these constructs as gender-related and, moreover, their presumed existence as competing motivations. The experimental work was conducted with nursery children, an age group which has received little attention with regard to task-related communication. This was undertaken to determine the degree to which children's spontaneous communication, particularly help-seeking behaviour, reflects actual ability. Of specific interest were possible gender differences. In Studies 1 and 2 children were videotaped solving a challenging jigsaw puzzle in the presence of the experimenter. A coding system (Chapter 5) with definitions based upon the contextualised meaning of children's utterances was developed by the researcher, which provided a means of analysing the frequency and exact sequence of communicative behaviours, as well as their grammatical structure and orientation (to whom or what they refer). Analysis of data described in Chapter 6 revealed striking differences in both the orientation and the frequency of help-eliciting utterances made by boys and girls. Also of interest was the finding that girls' help-eliciting behaviour, whilst greater, did not reflect task-ability as did the boys', but among some girls increased with faster puzzle solving time. The girls were also observed to use more collaborative expressions (those that engage others using plural pronouns), make longer eyecontact and more help-eliciting utterances that were self-referential; whilst the boys' on-task utterances of all types were dominated by "instrumental" language (object-oriented). In the light of this evidence for greater "pro-social" communication among the girls, and equal solving time between boys and girls, it is suggested that affiliative motivation may indeed be greater among girls, but exists in parallel with achievement motivation, and is not a competing priority. Moreover, it is suggested that nursery aged children are capable of appropriating "help-eliciting" as a means of indirect social engagement, because of their sensitivity to the social constraints of a formal problem-solving context. Study 3 (Chapter 8) was conducted in order to assess the influence that helpeliciting behaviour, as a possible dimension of "communication style," may have upon the evaluative interpretation of educational practitioners. It was found that children, regardless of gender, with a high level of help-seeking, yet equal task performance, were pervasively underestimated by teacher trainees and professionals alike, with regard to the children's relative task-ability, confidence and independence. Chapter 9 concludes by discussing the overall theoretical implications of Studies 1 and 2 within the framework of development and linguistics and by highlighting practical implications raised by Study 3, particularly the potential for teacher bias and self-fulfilling prophesies in relation to academic achievement.