Effects of a cognitive acceleration programme on Year 1 pupils

Abstract

BACKGROUND Cognitive Acceleration has shown evidence of long-term far transfer with young adolescents. This paper reports a new application of the principle to 5- and 6-year-olds in a disadvantaged inner city area. AIMS To investigate the effect of a cognitive intervention programme on the cognitive development of children in Year I of primary schools. SAMPLE Approximately 300 children in 14 Year 1 classes in 10 schools for the experimental group and 170 children in 8 classes in 5 matched schools as controls. METHOD Quasi-experimental pre-test post-test with experimental and matched control groups. One of the pre- and post-tests was intended to probe for transfer. Children in experimental classes experienced a set of 29 activities designed to promote cognitive conflict and encourage social construction and metacognition over one school year. RESULTS The experimental group overall made significantly greater gains in cognitive development over the period of the experiment than the controls, in both direct(effect size 0.47) and transfer (effect size 0.43) tests, although when genders were considered separately, experimental boys' greater gains than controls did not reach significance. There was no interaction with various social and linguistic variables. CONCLUSION In the context of this study, a cognitive intervention programme can have a significant immediate effect on the rate of children's cognitive development. Further work will investigate the longevity of this effect.