A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CHILDREN'S LEARNING IN THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

Both IQ and age related differences in the zones of proximal development of 89 four to eight year olds were investigated. Each child was asked to learn, transfer and generalize a strategy for solving the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. The speed, efficiency, accuracy and extent of support needed were analysed. Multivariate analyses of variance were performed on the data from each task. The benefits of high IQ were not as consistent as those of chronological age. They were most apparent in the learning and generalization tasks. Some high IQ children created challenges of their own in the unchallenging transfer task, or became bored. Two practical implications became apparent: the range of learning potentials in classes of children grouped by chronological age poses a formidable challenge for educators, and the learning of highly able children may detoriorate when they are offered the same curriculum as their peers.