IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0309718.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Validation of new tablet-based problem-solving tasks in primary school students

Author

Listed:
  • Jonas Schäfer
  • Timo Reuter
  • Miriam Leuchter
  • Julia Karbach

Abstract

Problem-solving is an important skill that is associated with reasoning abilities, action control and academic success. Nevertheless, empirical evidence on cognitive correlates of problem-solving performance in childhood is limited. Appropriate assessment tools are scarce and existing analog tasks require extensive coding. Thus, we developed and validated new tablet-based versions of existing analog tasks assessing technical problem-solving with gear construction tasks. To validate these tasks, 215 children (6–8 years) performed the problem-solving tasks in both modalities (analog, digital). To investigate whether performances in both modalities were correlated with other cognitive abilities, participants performed three additional tasks assessing language, reasoning and problem-solving. Structural equation modelling showed that performance was substantially correlated across modalities and also correlated with language, reasoning and another problem-solving task, showing the convergent validity of the digital tasks. We also found scalar measurement invariance across task modalities indicating that both task versions can be used interchangeably. We conclude that both versions (analog and digital) draw on similar cognitive resources and abilities. The analog tasks were thus successfully transferred to a digital platform. The new tasks offer the immense benefits of digital data collection, provide a valid measuring tool advancing problem-solving research in childhood and facilitate the application in the field, e.g., in the classroom.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonas Schäfer & Timo Reuter & Miriam Leuchter & Julia Karbach, 2024. "Validation of new tablet-based problem-solving tasks in primary school students," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(8), pages 1-12, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0309718
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0309718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0309718
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0309718&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0309718?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0309718. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.