An Observational Study of Children’s Problem Solving during Play with Friends

ABSTRACT Problem solving is an important cognitive skill that children use to plan and navigate various developmental and social tasks. Although previous research was theory-grounded and systematic, to our knowledge, no research has observed and documented children’s problem solving as a primary objective in naturalistic developmental contexts, such as home-based play with friends. The current study used a new observational measure to evaluate associations between children’s frequency of verbal and behavioral problem solving during play with friends and the extent to which they completed a toy construction task. Sixty-eight 7-year-old friends from the Northeast United States were observed in 34 play dyads. Results revealed a significant positive association between problem solving and task completion with no significant gender or play set differences. Results provide initial evidence that observing friends’ shared problem solving behavior may have pedagogical implications for cognitive development in typical early childhood settings.