Avoid comforting cues that divert children's attention away from their mistakes¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Based on the finding that attention to mistakes is a crucial mechanism of post-error recovery, the authors caution that adults' comforting responses to children's errors may backfire. They note that "subtle linguistic cues intended to comfort struggling students" can backfire in significant ways, and that adults may inadvertently distract children from learning from their errors. The strategy is to avoid comfort-oriented linguistic cues and instead support children in attending to and making sense of their mistakes.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Adults (parents, educators) responding to children's mistakes in ways that keep the child's attention directed at the error rather than away from it

Constraints¶

• The authors frame this as an exciting avenue for future research to explore, not a directly tested intervention in this study

Target Learners¶

• school-aged children beginning formal schooling

Target Learning Goals¶

• learning from mistakes and post-error recovery during academic tasks

Affordances¶

• Pe Attention Allocation Mindset Theory

Related Strategies¶

• Behavioral Feedback for Correct and Incorrect Responses
• Mistake-Friendly Classroom

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Schroder Hans S., Fisher Megan E., Lin Yanli, Lo Sharon L., Danovitch Judith H., Moser Jason S. (2017). Neural evidence for enhanced attention to mistakes among school-aged children with a growth mindset. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.01.004