To Determine If Children Benefit from Instruction with Respect to Metacognition

To determine if children benefit from instruction with respect to metacognition or if they are able to develop metacognition spontaneously, children were asked to design four scientific experiments (Klahr & Nigam, 2004) . Children were first allowed to design the experiments on their own to determine if they spontaneously used metacognition. Then some children were provided with direct instruction about scientific testing. Finally, all of the children were asked to design four experiments. The results of the study suggested that ____.

A) children who designed experiments on their own did better than those who received instruction
B) children who received instruction designed better experiments than those who did them on their own
C) children who designed experiments on their own understand more about experimental testing than those who received instruction
D) there were no differences between children who designed the experiments on their own and those who received instruction with respect to experimental testing competency