This article reviews the methodologies used in 76 empirical studies conducted on creative thinking in primary school education and published between 2011 and 2021. The studies were analysed for their context, foci of investigation and the methodologies used. Each study was coded and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings are…

Accelerated longitudinal designs (ALDs) provide an opportunity to capture long developmental periods in a shorter time framework using a relatively small number of assessments. Prior literature has investigated whether univariate developmental processes can be characterized with data obtained from ALDs. However, many important questions in…

This study examined how timing (i.e., relative maturity) and rate (i.e., how quickly infants attain proficiency) of A-not-B performance were related to changes in brain activity from age 6 to 12 months. A-not-B performance and resting EEG (electroencephalography) were measured monthly from age 6 to 12 months in 28 infants and were modeled using…

This study examined how 5- and 9-year-old children (N = 40) produce pantomimes of object use on verbal request. The task required participants to enact an action with an imagined object. Results showed that with age, children (a) proceeded from body part as object to imaginary object and (b) incorporated into their pantomimes more distinctive…

The capacity to plan ahead and provide the means for future ends is an important part of human practical reasoning. When this capacity develops in ontogeny is the matter of an ongoing debate. In this study, 4- and 5-year-olds performed a future planning task in which they had to create the means (a picture of a particular object, e.g., a banana)…

Although looking-time methods have long been used to measure infant attention and investigate aspects of cognitive development, steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) measures may be more sensitive or practical in some contexts. Here, we demonstrate habituation of infants' SSVEP amplitudes to a flickering checkerboard stimulus, and…

At the modern stage one of the urgent tasks of development of psychology and pedagogy is the study of the basic directions, trends and developmental priorities of research of the specifics of psychological indicators of anticipation of people with whose mental development corresponds to age norms and persons with intellectual and mental…

Constructivist views of cognitive development often converge on 2 key points: (1) the child's goal is to build large conceptual structures for understanding the world, and (2) the child plays an active role in developing these structures. While previous research has demonstrated that young children show a precocious capacity for concept and theory…

The importance of social-emotional competence, executive functioning, and behavioural recognition of patterns by young children is receiving increased attention from researchers, schools, parents, and teachers due to the beneficial outcomes of children who have skills in each. This paper presents studies of the correlations between these variables…

Computer simulations have been used very effectively for many years in the teaching of science but the focus has been on cognitive development. This study, however, is an investigation into the possibility that a student's experimental skills in the real-world environment can be judged via the undertaking of a suitably chosen computer simulation…

Although children often believe an adult's claims, they may have opportunities to check these claims by gathering relevant empirical evidence themselves. Here, we examine whether children seize such opportunities, especially when the claim is counterintuitive. Chinese preschool and elementary schoolchildren were presented with five different-sized…

Investments in preschool programs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds have historically been supported by research showing that these programs help children build school readiness skills and narrow the income-achievement gap. However, results from recent studies of the links between preschool participation and increases in school readiness…

We propose that map reading can be construed as a form of analogical mapping. We tested 2 predictions that follow from this claim: First, young children's patterns of performance in map reading tasks should parallel those found in analogical mapping tasks; and, second, children will benefit from guided alignment instructions that help them see the…

The capacity to plan ahead and provide the means for future ends is an important part of human practical reasoning. When this capacity develops in ontogeny is the matter of an ongoing debate. In this study, 4- and 5-year-olds performed a future planning task in which they had to create the means (a picture of a particular object, e.g., a banana)…

Infants' representations of physical events are surprisingly flexible. Brief exposure to one event can immediately enhance infants' representations of another event. The present experiments tested two potential mechanisms underlying this priming: enhanced encoding or improved retrieval. Five-month-olds saw a target block become hidden inside a…