| Abstract: | This study examined how task context and task difficulty may affect the nature of mother-child instructional interactions. It also assessed the role of maternal views about these two factors. Mothers interacted with their 3-year-olds on a matching task tapping spatial relation concepts. Sixty-four dyads received either an easy or difficult version of the matching task presented either as a school-readiness task or as a board game. Mothers' awareness of the task concepts, their notions about task difficulty, and their ideas about their child's task-related abilities had as strong an effect on their teaching, and thus on their child's successful task completion, as did the actual task difficulty or task context. Thus, how and what mothers teach may well be influenced in significant ways by their judgments of task difficulty and child competence as well as the actual task requirements. These results have implications for how educators structure programs designed for adult-child dyads. Mothers will teach in accordance with their views of a task; however, they may be mistaken in their views. Thus, educators need to explicate task requirements so that mothers' notions are congruent with their own. |
