Prediction of performance using motivation and ability information: New light on integrational capacity and weighting strategies

Abstract

Children between the ages of 4 and 10 predicted exam performance of stimulus students using information about both motivation and ability as well as about either motivation or ability alone. Each kind of information came from two independent sources, and the same set of four- and two-cue descriptions were judged across five trials spaced over three days. Age differences were examined with respect to (a) response consistency across trials of judgments, (b) the number of cues used, and (c) information weighting. Age of the subjects did not emerge as a main determinant of response consistency. More importantly, the inconsistent age effect found with boys diminished considerably by Day 3. Children used all the four given cues from the very beginning. Importance of a cue depended upon what other cues it was paired with. This configural weighting, as reflected in the interaction term, steadily decreased with increasing age. Although predictions were heavily influenced by the recency effects, they conformed to an egalitarian belief that motivation is equally effective with students of low and of high ability. These results portray a very different picture of young children's cognitive capacity than did the previous literature. © 1994.