# THE DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGY CHOICE PROCEDURES

> **NIH NIH R01** · CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY · 1994 · $162,817

## Abstract

DESCRIPTION:  (Adapted From The Applicant's Abstract) Cognitive development
has often been depicted as if there were a 1:1 correspondence between age
and strategy use.  Young children would use one strategy, somewhat older
children a different strategy, yet older children a third strategy, and so
on.  Recent research, however, has shown that in domains as diverse as
arithmetic, serial recall, causal and spatial reasoning, referential
communication, and judgments of plausibility, children of a given age often
use multiple strategies.  This is true within as well as between
individuals, and even within individuals solving the same problem on two
consecutive days.  The use of multiple strategies enhances children's
effectiveness in adapting to differences among problems and to varying
situational demands.

In the proposed project, the investigators hope to extend strategy choice
research in a number of ways.  They intend to:  (1) demonstrate that the
capacity to choose adaptively among strategies is a basic characteristic of
human beings, by showing that even one-year-olds can choose strategies
adaptively; (2) provide evidence that on problems where no single strategy
is invariably most effective, that strategy diversity increases, rather
than decreasing, with age and experience; (3) investigate the important but
understudied process of quantitative estimation through use of the strategy
choice approach; (4) examine discovery and generalization of new
strategies, in particular serial recall and number conservation strategies,
thorough microgenetic analyses of change over a number of sessions; and (5)
formulate computer simulations of strategy choice and strategy discovery in
the contexts of serial recall and arithmetic.  By proceeding in these
directions, they hope to broaden the scope of strategy choice research, to
address several fundamental issues in the area, and to advance
understanding of the mechanisms through which children choose among
existing strategies and discover new ones.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 2197751
- **Project number:** 5R01HD019011-10
- **Recipient organization:** CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY
- **SAM.gov UEI:** U3NKNFLNQ613
- **Principal Investigator:** ROBERT S SIEGLER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1994
- **Award amount:** $162,817
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1984-09-01 → 1995-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2197751

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 2197751, THE DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGY CHOICE PROCEDURES (5R01HD019011-10). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/2197751. Licensed CC0.

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