On the Possibilities of Regulating Cognitive Activity by Older Preschoolers

Background. The ability to regulate cognitive activity is an important quality of the subject of educational activity. The development of children’s cognitive activity is one of the main tasks of preschool education. Despite all the attention paid to cognitive activity in research, the question of its mediated forms remains open. The study of the influence of cultural means on the cognitive activity of preschoolers will allow solving the problems of its development through the creation of psychological and pedagogical conditions aimed not only at its appearance and support “here and now”, but also at the formation of the ability to independently regulate it.

Objective. The goal is to find out whether older preschool children can independently regulate their cognitive activity, and what cultural means contribute to this.

Study Participants. The study involved 60 children of the seventh year of life (M = 75 months), 25 of them were boys and 35 were girls attending preparatory kindergarten groups in Moscow. Each experimental group included 20 children.

Methods. An ascertaining experiment aimed at identifying the abilities of older preschool children to regulate cognitive activity was carried out. In two experimental groups, different means of regulation were introduced: figurative and verbal. In the third experimental group, the children simply completed the proposed tasks. In total, the children were offered 3 tasks: to make something out of 3 different sets of cubes. The Kruskal — Wallis criterion was used for statistical data processing.

Results. The results obtained in the study indicate that until the end of preschool childhood, the cognitive activity of children in the implementation of productive activities retains a pronounced situational dependence on the characteristics of the material they use. This dependence persists despite the introduction of figurative or verbal means of regulation. Only a small number of children have been found to be able to regulate cognitive activity, which manifested itself as stimulation of its dynamic component.

Conclusion. Most preschoolers 6–7 years have no experience of awareness and regulation of cognitive activity. The emergence of opportunities to regulate cognitive activity is facilitated by situations in which the child identifies oneself as a subject of activity. The most accessible means for older preschoolers to identify themselves as a subject of cognitive activity is an image.

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