Children's figural fluency performance: Development of strategy use

Abstract

To this point, the focus in evaluating measures of figural fluency, including the Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT), has been on the number of unique designs generated and the number of repetitions or perseverations. In addition to these quantitative measures, our study assesses the qualitative aspects of figural fluency production in determining the extent to which children use strategies on the RFFT. Accordingly, two main strategies were opera‐tionalized, and design complexity (number of lines used for each design) was analyzed. It was postulated that age would play a significant role. The 87 children tested were, therefore, selected across four age groupings: Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3 and 4, Grades 5 and 6, and Grades 7 and 8. Each child was individually administered all five parts of the RFFT. The results indicated that older children used strategies to complete the test, whereas young children did not, and that design complexity did not discriminate children according to age or grade.