Assisted learning - levels of support

The influence of task support on the development of understanding of the balance scale was investigated. Task support was provided by an expert adult who both managed the task and provided verbal assistance. Two hundred subjects, 20 males and 20 females in each of five age groups (preschool, grade 1, grade 3, grade 5, adult) participated. There were four treatment groups which received increasing amounts of support, ranging from a base level of practical experience with the scale sequencing of items, elaborated instructions and prompts. Task understanding was assessed by two measures derived from Siegler's (1976) rule assessment approach and results indicated significant differences due to treatment. Increasing amounts of assistance led to improved understanding of the balance scale principles, although the addition of verbal assistance resulted in a highly significant improvement, over and above the gains resulting from the combined influence of task management features. These treatment effects were consistent across age and sex.