Role of Task-related Factors in Assessing Young Children's Logical Ability in Class Inclusion

Abstract

One of the ways in which we assess children's logical competence is to ask them questions. This is based on two rather weak assumptions – first, that they understand these questions in the same way adults do and secondly, that logical operations are required to answer these questions. However, since at the start, the child does not know the intentions behind our question, he has to consider the form in which the question is posed and use whatever contextual cues or clues are available to make a correct inference. Relevant information may or may not be contained in the question or the external context. Sometimes, both question and context contain these information, and variation in either can lead to a correct or incorrect answer, independent of the logical abilities theoretically being assessed.