Visual Orientation and Self-Perceptions of Children in an External-Cue-Relevant or Cue-Irrelevant Task Situation

On the basis of visual orientation on a block design task, 180 kindergarten through fifth-grade children were assigned to 3 categories of task approaches: (a) inner directed or task oriented (TO), (b) information seeking (IS), and (c) approval seeking or cue dependent (CD). The performance and self-perceptions of the children were then examined as they worked on a concept-identification task in which an external cue was either relevant or irrelevant. The results showed that performance of the children in the 3 categories on the task was differentially affected by the manipulated cue conditions, though not consistently across grade levels. The relationship between task-approach categories and self-perceptions also differed over grade levels.