Acta Psychologica· 2026Q1
Understanding children's “tinkering” in innovative problem-solving: The roles of knowledge integration, relational reasoning, and design stance
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Children's "tinkering"—purposeful exploration of component combinations—is proposed as a pivotal, yet understudied, process in tool innovation.
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Key points
- Tinkering, defined as purposeful exploration of component combinations, is central to children's innovative problem-solving.
- Existing research has focused on invention and end products, neglecting the iterative tinkering process.
- Knowledge integration, relational reasoning, and a design stance are proposed as key cognitive underpinnings of tinkering.
- Further research is warranted to explore the cognitive foundations of children's tinkering and innovation.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
A key feature of human societies is the presence of technological traditions. Differentcultural groups develop and impart a vast array of problem-solving methods to futuregenerations that are suited for their living environment and cultural lifestyle. Central tothis process is our capacity for innovative problem-solving to generate adaptivesolutions. The extant developmental psychology literature has focused on invention andnovel idea generation, typically assessed empirically using tool making, tool use, anddivergent thinking tasks, and focusing on the end product of innovation (creativeinvention) and goal attainment. Yet, we still know little about the iterative process of‘tinkering’ that involves purposeful exploration and experimentation of possiblecombinations of sub-components leading up to an innovative end product. In light ofrecent evidence, we propose that ‘tinkering’ plays a pivotal role in children’s capacity fortool innovation and that further exploration of the development of this process iswarranted. In this article, we suggest additional cognitive mechanisms that underpintinkering behaviors: the ability to evaluate and integrate knowledge, along with relationaland abstraction reasoning, and the design stance. We hope this proposal spursadditional work for exploring the cognitive foundations for developing innovativeproblem-solving.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Acta Psychologica, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Developmental and Educational PsychologyPsychology