Serial Learning in Young Children

The effects of sex and tutorial instruction were studied as they influenced the seriation ability of pre-school children. The research was conducted at the Utah State University Child Development Laboratories with 24 four year old children enrolled at that time. Twelve of the children, six girls and six boys, were given seriation tasks. The remaining 12 children, six girls and six boys, were not given any seriation training. It was found that the 12 children who had received individualized instruction seriated significantly better on every task than the 12 children who had received no training. The children who were trained in seriation tasks also correctly transferred their learning of seriation from the original set of objects used in the training sessions to two other sets of size graded objects. The remaining 12 children did not make this transfer as successfully. There was no significant difference in the seriation ability of boys and girls, although the girls receiving training improved more than the boys who were trained in seriation. This finding was attributed to the fact that the boys in both groups seriated slightly higher than t.he girls in both groups; therefore the boys who received no seriation training did not have as much room for improvement.