Understanding of the Dimensional Terms 'Easy' and 'Hard' in the Self-Evaluation of Competence

Abstract

Young children's understanding of the verbal terms 'easy' and 'hard' in describing personal competence at depicted activities was investigated with reference to a developmental sequence suggested by Heckhausen (1982) to describe the child's understanding of concepts concerning personal achievement. The consistency of children's judgments rather than their realism or accuracy was the criterion used for investigating each of two developmental levels of understanding. For the 3-and 4-year-old children in studies 1 and 2, there was consistency between responses to the terms 'can'/'can't' and the terms 'easy'/'hard'. At the higher developmental level, in study 3, both 5-and 7-year-olds were able to make consistent unidimensional orderings of the level of difficulty of activities.