WiseTip: AL-PER-M0818-I01A

Approaches to Learning

Promoting Persistence

If your baby is struggling with a new toy, you can play with the new toy together and model ways to overcome the difficulty. If you run into problems, speak aloud how you will solve the problem. For example, you can say, “Oops, it is not moving because it looks like the battery has run out. Now, let’s see if we can find a battery in the drawer. Oh, Mummy kept the batteries somewhere else – oh, I know, we can take the battery from the other toy to replace this one first.”

WHY IT MATTERS

Infants' social environments play a part in whether they decide to persist. Research has found that adult models causally affect infants’ persistence. Infants can generalise the value of persistence to new tasks. Infants who see adults work hard to succeed persist longer at their tasks than they do at baseline or after seeing adults succeed effortlessly.

Leonard, J. A., Lee, Y., & Schulz, L. E. (2017). Infants make more attempts to achieve a goal when they see adults persist. Science, 357(6357), 1290–1294.

To look at the effect of adult models on infants’ persistence, 15-month-old children were assigned to either i) an ‘Effort’ condition in which they saw an adult repeatedly try, using various methods, to achieve each of two different goals, ii) a ‘No Effort’ condition in which the adult achieved the goals effortlessly, or iii) a Baseline condition. Infants were then given a difficult, novel task. Across an initial study and two pre-registered experiments, infants in the ‘Effort’ condition made more attempts to achieve the goal than infants in the other conditions. Teaching cues modulated the effect. The results suggest that adult models causally affect infants’ persistence and that infants can generalise the value of persistence to novel tasks.

Leonard, J. A., Lee, Y., & Schulz, L. E. (2017). Infants make more attempts to achieve a goal when they see adults persist. Science, 357(6357), 1290–1294.

It is helpful to follow children's lead when engaging in activities. Once they are confident and want to explore on their own, allowing them to explore independently helps build persistence.