Psychology
in
rhe Schools
Volume
20.
January,
1983
STORYBOOK MODELS AND ACHIEVEMENT BEHAVIOR
OF
PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’
ANNETTE
U.
RICKEL AND ROBERT
B.
FIELDS
Wayne State Universiiy
The effects
of
orally presented storybook models
on
children’s cognitive achievement
behavior were assessed in two experiments. Experiment
I
involved
100
preschool-age
children who were given one exposure to either a story depicting achievement
behaviors by a male/female model,
or
a control story describing
no
achievement
behavior. Subjects then were asked to perform
a
related achievement task.
No
signifi-
cant modeling effects were found, but a significant relationship existed between the
children’s recall
of
the story content and their performance
on
the subsequent task.
Experiment
I1
employed
60
preschool-age children who were given repeated ex-
posures
(3
to
4)
to, and group discussion
of,
the same achievement stories
or
non-
achievement control story. A significant relationship was observed between type
of
story and type of solutions to the subsequent achievement task. These findings are dis-
cussed in the context of modeling theory, with practical implications.
Young children imitate modeled behavior, and generalization of modeled behavior
explains the acquisition of a variety of attitudes and behaviors; e.g., the concept of what
is appropriate sex-role behavior (Maccoby
&
Jacklin,
1974;
Mischel,
1970).
During the
socialization process, children are exposed to models in a variety
of
contexts, including
films, television, and literature. According to most social learning theorists (e.g., Ban-
dura,
1977),
a great deal of learning takes place through observation of models whose
behavior becomes symbolically represented in memory and is used to guide our future
behavior. Bandura has argued that in order to exhibit observationally learned behavior,
four component processes must take place: attentional processes, retention processes,
motor-reproduction processes, and motivational processes. The first two processes posit
that, in order for a behavior to be acquired through observation, it is necessary that the
observer accurately attend to, perceive, encode, and store that which has been modeled.
The second two processes deal with the ability
of
the observer to perform the particular
modeled behavior and whether or not there is any reason for him/her to do
so.
This study
concerns preschoolers’ ability to generalize cognitive information through observational
learning
in
a situation similar (but not identical) to that of a model.
A
recent study by McArthur and Eisen
(1976)
examined the effect on middle-
income children of one exposure to a verbally presented storybook model with an
achievement theme, and their resulting persistence behavior on a related achievement
task. They found that boys (significantly) and girls (nonsignificantly) persisted longer on
a task after being read a story depicting achievement behavior by a same sex character
than by an opposite sex character. However, the study did not measure imitation
of
the
modeled behavior, and, therefore, could be said to be only an indirect measure of model-
ing. Although these findings are important, more direct evidence for the effect of
storybook models on achievement behavior is needed. Significant time is spent by many
children assimilating storybook content; thus, the impact
of
that time should be ex-
amined. The present studies were designed to test directly the effect of orally presented
modeled behavior, via a child’s storybook, upon preschool children’s subsequent task
Requests for reprints should be sent to Annette
U.
Rickel, Dept.
of
Psychology, Wayne State University,
Detroit,
MI
48202.
‘This research was supported by grants from the McGregor
Fund,
the Eloise and Richard Webber
Foun-
dation, and the Detroit Public Schools,
for
which the authors express grateful appreciation. A version
of
this
paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association.
105
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