Developmental Trends of Visual Feedback Control and Learning in Children’s Copying and Tracking Skills

Abstract

Copying and tracing are used by kindergarten and elementary school children in their introductory courses of writing, drawing, and graphic art. They also do copying and tracing while taking some psychological or educational tests. It has been theorized that sensory feedback control is important for learning and performance of psychomotor skills, and further, that a child’s feedback system and psychomotor skills may be improved by instruction and training. Four hypotheses were developed for this experiment to study the learning effects of repeated treatments in copying and different tracing/tracking behavior of 32 children, ages 7 and 10 years. The results showed a learning effect in copying for the younger subjects, in some tracing behavior for the older subjects, and in tracking for all subjects. Significant differences in favor of older children were disclosed for every test of graphic behavior under investigation.

Notes

^1. This study was supported by a grant from the Research Committee, The University of Haifa. Ronit Shoam’s assistance is deeply appreciated. Requests for reprints should be sent to Abraham Sagi, School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Haifa 31999, Israel.