Children's differential performance on deductive and inductive syllogisms.

At what age and in what ways do children distinguish deductive and inductive problems? In Experiment 1, students from kindergarten and from Grades 2, 4, and 6 were presented with deductive or inductive inference problems and asked to draw an inference and rate their confidence. By 4th grade, confidence ratings for deductive problems were higher than those for inductive problems, and responses were faster for deductive than for inductive items. In Experiment 2, students from Grades 2, 3, 4, and 5 responded to the same problems used in Experiment 1 but were asked to provide explanations for their responses. Again, confidence was higher with deductive than with inductive problems, and latency to respond was faster for deductive than for inductive items. Further, explanations differed as a function of the type of problem. These findings help fill in gaps in the emerging picture of the development of children's reasoning skills.