Development of Rule Use in Judgments of Covariation between Events.

SHAKLEE, HARRIET, and MIMS, MICHAEL. Development of Rule Use in Judgments of Covariation between Events. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 317-325. 4 judgment rules are proposed as possible steps in a developmental hierarchy of judgments of covariation between events. A set of covariation problems were structured so that the solution pattern across problems would indicate the judgment rule used by each subject. Subjects in fourth, seventh, and tenth grades and college made judgments about event covariations on the problem set. Results indicate close congruence between actual and predicted patterns. A significant developmental trend demonstrated rule shifts toward use of increasingly accurate rules between the age span of fourth grade to college. Results indicate that development in covariation judgment may be best conceptualized in terms of a sequence of approximations to optimal rule use.

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