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Mother-Child Engagement in a Categorisation Activity: Implications for Parental Pedagogy and Early Education Research

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Title: Mother-Child Engagement in a Categorisation Activity: Implications for Parental Pedagogy and Early Education Research
Language: English
Authors: Seyma Inan (ORCID 0000-0002-8990-9215), Yvette R. Harris, Annahita D. Modirrousta
Source: International Journal of Early Years Education. 2026 34(1):42-58.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 17
Publication Date: 2026
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Mothers, Parent Child Relationship, Classification, Preschool Children, Interaction, Cues, Positive Reinforcement, Questioning Techniques, Correlation
DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2024.2367533
ISSN: 0966-9760
1469-8463
Abstract: Maternal support for children's cognitive competence has received considerable attention in the developmental and early childhood education literature. However, little research has examined the link between maternal behaviour and children's categorisation performance. The current study explored the strategies that mothers and children used as they engaged in a categorisation task. Twenty-seven mother-child dyads from middle-class mothers and their three-to-five-year-old preschool children were videotaped while engaging in a categorisation activity. Total testing time, including video recordings, did not exceed one hour. The mother-child interaction codes were analysed using frequency analyses to extract empirical estimates. Certain maternal strategies (e.g. interrogative strategies) were positively related to children's verbal responses. However, maternal stylistic (taxonomic and thematic) differences were not associated with children's strategies. The study found that mothers use a variety of strategies to engage with their children in the categorisation activity. Theoretical perspectives and implications of the current research for parental pedagogy and early childhood education research are discussed.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1504139
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0192005931;54r01mar.26;2026Mar06.00:45;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0192005931-1">Mother-child engagement in a categorisation activity: implications for parental pedagogy and early education research </title> <p>Maternal support for children's cognitive competence has received considerable attention in the developmental and early childhood education literature. However, little research has examined the link between maternal behaviour and children's categorisation performance. The current study explored the strategies that mothers and children used as they engaged in a categorisation task. Twenty-seven mother–child dyads from middle-class mothers and their three-to-five-year-old preschool children were videotaped while engaging in a categorisation activity. Total testing time, including video recordings, did not exceed one hour. The mother-child interaction codes were analysed using frequency analyses to extract empirical estimates. Certain maternal strategies (e.g. interrogative strategies) were positively related to children's verbal responses. However, maternal stylistic (taxonomic and thematic) differences were not associated with children's strategies. The study found that mothers use a variety of strategies to engage with their children in the categorisation activity. Theoretical perspectives and implications of the current research for parental pedagogy and early childhood education research are discussed.</p> <p>Keywords: Cognitive development in children; parent-child interactions; coding strategies; categorisation skills; categorisation strategies</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-2">Introduction</hd> <p>For the past several decades, educational researchers have turned their attention to exploring the role of parental pedagogy in facilitating young children's learning and mastery of cognitive and academic concepts. Parental pedagogy is defined as the ways in which parents engage their children in informal and formal teaching learning activities in the home environment (Yu, Bonawitz, and Shafto [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref1">47</reflink>]). This focus on parental pedagogy emerges from the consensus by many educators that parents serve as their children's first teachers, and that relationship sets the foundation for children's mastery of learning skills which prepare them for the formal world of learning (Yu, Bonawitz, and Shafto [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref2">47</reflink>]).</p> <p>The extant research on parental pedagogy is diverse and has examined the specific strategies or teaching techniques that parents use in a variety of structured and unstructured learning tasks with their children. Much of the work is framed from either a Vygotskian theoretical perspective (Vygotsky [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref3">43</reflink>]), a learning from others' orientation (Gelman et al. [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref4">12</reflink>]), or a Dialogical Theory of Children's Learning (Wegerif [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref5">44</reflink>]). The former two perspectives assert that through interactions with adults and observations of adults, children master their culture's strategies, tools, and language. In this dynamic process, it is assumed that parents scaffold their children's learning. Scaffolding, rooted in Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD; Vygotsky [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref6">43</reflink>]), is the guidance and support that parents provide to their children through their use of strategies such as questions, verbal guidance, and correction (Belland [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref7">1</reflink>]; Berk and Winsler [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref8">2</reflink>]; Rogoff [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref9">35</reflink>]; Wood, Bruner, and Ross [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref10">46</reflink>]). The latter theoretical perspective emphasises that both parents and children create a dialogic space. In that space, the members of the dyads strive to create mutual meaning of speaking, thinking, and conceptualising categories and category relationships. As many early childhood educational environments include everyday chores and care aspects (ECEC), these informal pedagogical encounters take place in the everyday activity of nurseries and early childhood centres, making the study simultaneously important for all caretakers of children (Paradise and Rogoff [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref11">32</reflink>]).</p> <p>In a review of the historical and contemporary work on parental pedagogy, Harris and Almutairi ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref12">15</reflink>]) found that parental pedagogical engagement could be categorised into the following six areas. The first is memory, with a specific focus on mothers' engagement with their preschool and school age children in memory for recalling past events (Melzi, Schick, and Kennedy [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref13">28</reflink>]; Tulviste et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref14">40</reflink>]); shared book reading (Robertson and Reese [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref15">34</reflink>]), numeracy (Bjorklund, Hubertz, and Reubens [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref16">3</reflink>]), problem-solving, and conversations and communications in naturalistic settings (Harris and Almutairi [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref17">15</reflink>]). In terms of strategy use, Harris and Almutairi ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref18">15</reflink>]) observed that mothers use a variety of utterances, numeracy, problem-solving, and elicitation strategies to capture the interactions occurring between mothers and their young children.</p> <p>However, apart from a few articles, little attention has been given to exploring the relationship between parental pedagogy and children's categorisation skills. This seems puzzling given that mastery of categorisation skills establishes the foundation for later math skills, and language and literacy skills. The existing empirical work investigating parents' role in assisting children to acquire categorical knowledge while scant, is quite diverse. Much of the work has focused on young children (four years of age) and has been cross-sectional observational studies in design. Results vary based on the type of categorisation tasks, operationalisation of maternal behaviours, and operationalisation and inclusion of children's concurrent performance. For instance, Callanan ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref19">4</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref20">5</reflink>]) observed in a series of studies that mothers when engaged in categorisation activities with their four-year-old children emphasised basic and superordinate features of common objects, such as ostentatious (e.g. fill-in-the-blank statements), inclusions (e.g. the definition of animal type), features (e.g. size, shape, colour) parts (e.g. parts of the objects), and functions (e.g. actions of the objects). However, they did not examine children's concurrent performance. Using a book-reading task containing pictures of animals and common artifacts, Gelman et al. ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref21">12</reflink>]) found that the extent to which mothers used strategies such as labelling, informational utterances, questions, and responses varied depending on whether they were reading about animals or artifacts. The behaviour of the four-year-old children was also coded for labelling, informational utterances, questions, and responses; a similar pattern was also observed for children. Harris, Krupinski, and Johnson ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref22">16</reflink>]) examined the categorisation strategies that mothers employed as they were involved in a sorting/clustering animal categorisation activity with their four-year-old children. In addition to examining maternal strategies, the researchers explored children's verbalisations during the interaction. The results showed that mothers' strategies tend to differ depending on whether they are verbally sorting or clustering the animals. For example, mothers use labelling and perceptual question strategies when sorting animals, yet they mostly ask questions when clustering animals. Furthermore, maternal strategy use was positively correlated with child strategy use during the interaction. That is, when mothers asked perceptual questions, their children used more verbal responses and less independent elaborations. In summary, this body of research provides evidence suggesting mothers use a diverse array of strategies as they engage their children in varied categorisation activities. However, it is uncertain from this body of work if maternal stylistic differences emerge when mothers are engaged in a categorisation activity with their children<bold>.</bold> It is also unknown if stylistic differences are linked to their use of strategies and children's verbal and nonverbal contributions to the interaction<bold>.</bold></p> <p>The research on maternal stylistic differences is robust and varies by cognitive task and operationalisation of maternal style. For example, Reese and Fivush ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref23">33</reflink>]) operationalised stylistic differences as maternal conversational style about past events. They identified two distinct styles when mothers were eliciting recall about past events from their children, which were elaborative and restrictive styles. Mothers in the elaborative group asked more questions, embellished their statements, and provided feedback to their children. In contrast, mothers in the restrictive group frequently asked questions, repeated their children's comments, and employed fill-in-the-blank statements. In a somewhat similar study, Kisa, Sahin-Acar, and Ilgaz ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref24">23</reflink>]) found that two distinct styles emerged when mothers engaged their children in reminiscing about past events and correlated those styles with their children's perspective-taking abilities. Children of mothers who used a story-building style (i.e. asked more elaborative questions) had higher socio-cognitive scores than children of mothers classified as storytellers (e.g. assumed the role of the narrator). Leyva et al. ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref25">26</reflink>]) observed mothers engaged in a book-reading activity and found that there were two distinct maternal book-reading styles. There were mothers who were identified as flower styles. In this case, mothers focused mainly on the flow of conversation while requesting and providing some information about the book to their children. There were others who were classified as storyteller followers and these mothers focused on providing information about the story while requesting specific information from their children. Using a storytelling task, Harris and Schroeder ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref26">17</reflink>]) observed that mothers employed either an inclusive story grammar style or a restrictive story grammar style. In the former, they provided more labelling, naming of the characters, character descriptions, and discussing the actions of the characters. In the latter, mothers limited the discussions to describing the names of the characters and their locations.</p> <p>Conclusively, the work suggests that depending on contexts, maternal stylistic differences emerge in varied contexts, and at some level, those stylistic differences are associated with children's performances and cognitive capacities. Yet, there is little research examining maternal categorisation styles and their relationship to children's categorisation behaviour. In the current study, we explored if stylistic differences would emerge in mothers' categorisation behaviours and if these differences were related to the children's performance.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-3">Goals and research questions</hd> <p>In summary, the goal of the current study was to provide contemporary data on parental pedagogy and preschool categorisation skills. To this end, we explored how mothers teach their children how to categorise objects. In this principle, we speculate mothers encourage their children to understand the whys and how of categorising objects by providing some conceptual and perceptual knowledge of the objects through dialogue. This may in turn relate to children's deeper understanding of category memberships among common objects. In addition to understanding how parent-child interaction relates to young children's categorisation skills, this study may have implications for structuring lessons about categories in early childhood education. Using an observational cross-sectional study, we had the following four goals in mind:</p> <p>The first goal was to determine the types of strategies mothers use when engaged in a categorisation activity with their children. Similar to Callanan ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref27">4</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref28">5</reflink>]), we operationalised maternal strategies as interrogative, explanatory, and cognitive affective strategies. Interrogative strategies included perceptual, functional, labelling, and probing questions; explanatory strategies included labelling, perceptual and functional cues, and metacognitive information; and cognitive affective strategies included praise. These strategies resemble 'natural talk' as mothers and children engage in informal conversations about objects (Rowe [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref29">36</reflink>]) and a form of parental pedagogical questioning as observed by Yu, Bonawitz, and Shafto ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref30">47</reflink>]). The second goal was to determine the types of strategies that preschool children use while engaged in a categorisation activity with their mothers. We defined child strategies as task-relevant speech, non-task-relevant speech, and clarifying questions. The third goal was to determine which maternal strategies were predictive of preschool strategy use during the interaction. The fourth goal was to determine if maternal stylistic differences (taxonomic and thematic) would emerge in maternal teaching as they were engaged in a categorisation activity with their children and whether these differences were linked to children's concurrent performance.</p> <p>The following research questions guided the present investigation:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> What strategies do mothers and preschool children use when engaging in a categorisation activity?</item> <p></p> <item> What is the relation between maternal and preschool strategy use during categorisation interaction? More specifically, are interrogative maternal strategies (perceptual, functional, labelling, and probing questions) positively related to children's task-relevant verbal responses? Are explanatory maternal strategies (labelling, perceptual cues, functional cues, metacognitive information) related to children's task-relevant nonverbal responses? Is maternal praise positively related to children's task-relevant responses (verbal and nonverbal)?</item> <p></p> <item> In line with previous empirical research measuring maternal stylistic differences, we were interested in determining if mothers in our study would show stylistic (taxonomically or thematically) patterns when engaging their children in a categorisation activity. We also examined how mothers' stylistic patterns were related to children's concurrent engagement in the categorisation activity.</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0192005931-4">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0192005931-5">Participants</hd> <p>The current study applied an observational cross-sectional study. The participants were 27 mother-child dyads from middle-class mothers and their preschool children. They were recruited from preschools in a small Midwestern college town and surrounding suburban areas. Preschool teachers placed information about the study in the preschoolers' cubby, and those mothers who returned a signed informed consent form were contacted to participate in the research. The children ranged in age from 36 months to 60 months (<emph>M</emph> = 4.16, <emph>SD </emph>= 0.46). There were 15 female and 14 male children participating in the study. Twenty-five mothers were European American, and four were African American. Most mothers had obtained at least a bachelor's degree or high-level education. The mothers were offered a 10-dollar honorarium as compensation for their participation, and the children received a small toy for participating in the study. The research was approved by our University Ethics Review Board.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-6">Materials and procedure</hd> <p>Prior to participating in the research, mothers were informed about the nature and purpose of the study and the potential risks involved and were required to sign a consent form. The consent form detailed the nature, task, and duration of the study, along with contact information and the participants' rights. Children participating in the study were required to provide their assent before participating in the study.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-7">Demographic background data sheet</hd> <p>A five-item demographic data sheet was used to obtain background information, such as the child's date of birth, the mother's education level, marital status, age, and race.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-8">Mother-child interaction tasks</hd> <p>The mother-child dyads were videotaped while engaging in the categorisation activity in a private room in the Psychology building. The researchers introduced the activity to the mothers and explained the instructions. The procedure involved having participants pair an anchor item or standard item with one or two choice items that were thematically or taxonomically related to the anchor (Inan [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref31">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>Total testing time, including video recordings, did not exceed one hour. The stimuli used in this study consisted of 8 sets of pictures of common items. The stimuli are displayed in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1. Items used during categorisation activity.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Anchor</td><td>Taxonomic</td><td>Thematic</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>a- Penguin</td><td>Toucan</td><td>Eskimo</td></tr><tr><td>b- Polar bear</td><td>Panda bear</td><td>Igloo</td></tr><tr><td>c- Rocket</td><td>Helicopter</td><td>Planet</td></tr><tr><td>d- Truck</td><td>Wagon</td><td>Key</td></tr><tr><td>e- Blouse</td><td>T-shirt</td><td>Button</td></tr><tr><td>f- Overalls</td><td>Shorts</td><td>Boy</td></tr><tr><td>g- Lamp</td><td>Desk</td><td>Lightbulb</td></tr><tr><td>h- Broom</td><td>Mop</td><td>Dustpan</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0192005931-9">Coding maternal-child interaction</hd> <p>The videotaped interactions were transcribed, and maternal-child strategies were coded from the transcriptions for frequency of occurrence using a modification of the coding system developed by Harris, Krupinski, and Johnson ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref32">16</reflink>]). The data were coded by the primary investigator and an undergraduate psychology research assistant blind to the study's research questions and trained by the primary investigator in observational research methodology. The coding categories and definition examples of maternal and children strategies used are described in Tables 2 and 3.</p> <p>Table 2. Definitions and examples of maternal strategy use.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Category</td><td>Definitions</td><td>Examples</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Labelling (L)</td><td>The mother names each picture or group</td><td>Here's a rocket (anchor) and here's the earth being orbited by some sort of planet (choice item) and here's the helicopter (choice item), and the rocket and the helicopter go together because they both fly.</td></tr><tr><td>Labelling Questions (LQ)</td><td>The mother asks the child to name an individual animal or fruit</td><td>What is the name of this animal?</td></tr><tr><td>Functional Cues (FC)</td><td>The mother includes statements describing the function of the animals</td><td>The penguin cannot fly.</td></tr><tr><td>Functional Questions (FQ)</td><td>The mother asks described functions of the objects or animals</td><td>Do you think the penguin can fly?</td></tr><tr><td>Confirmation (C)</td><td>The mother confirms herself to the child by referring to her explanation about objects</td><td>So they kind of match, don't they? They aren't like a house made of snow, are they? That's what mommy would have done.</td></tr><tr><td>Perceptual Cues (PC)</td><td>The mother makes references to the perceptual attributes of the pictures</td><td>Here's a broom (anchor), here's a mop (choice item) and here's a dustpan (choice item). The broom and the map go together because they both have long handles.</td></tr><tr><td>Perceptual Questions (PQ)</td><td>The mother asks the child about the size, shape, colour, or some physical dimension of the animal or the fruit</td><td>What colour is this one? How many legs does this one have?</td></tr><tr><td>Probing Questions (PrBQ)</td><td>The mother asks the child questions which one goes with others</td><td>Why do you think the bicycle (anchor item) goes with the tire (choice item), instead of the airplane (choice item)? Which goes better with the penguin?</td></tr><tr><td>Metacognitive Information (M)</td><td>The mother makes reference to the child's memory abilities, to places, and to objects/animals</td><td>You are a good rememberer. You've been to the zoo before. You have a zebra printed on your sheet.</td></tr><tr><td>Praise (<italic>P</italic>)</td><td>The mother acknowledges the child's performance toward categorising objects</td><td>I knew you were going to know these, good job.</td></tr><tr><td>Corrections (Cr)</td><td>The mother corrects the child response or redirects the child behaviour to another solution</td><td>I think we should put these together. That's not right, try another one.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Table 3. Definitions and examples of child strategy use.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Category</td><td>Definition</td><td>Examples</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Task Relevant Response (TRP)</td><td>The child responses maternal task relevant questions and statements</td><td>I bet I know where it is. Oh yeah! Sometimes I forget. Yeah, the melons and the blueberries.</td></tr><tr><td>Task Relevant Non- Verbal Responses (TRNVR)</td><td>The child points out to the object by using facial gestures</td><td>Child looks toward mother, says 'urr' out of frustration, or uses gestures</td></tr><tr><td>Clarifying Questions (CQ)</td><td>The child asks the mother questions about the choice pictures</td><td>Oh yeah! What about this? Why is it called a bird? Ugh ... I don't know what this is.</td></tr><tr><td>Child's Independent Performance (CIP)</td><td>The child performs the task independently without help for his or her mother</td><td>I am gonna put the choice picture next to the anchor picture.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0192005931-10">Sample conversations for maternal strategies (Inan 2018)</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0192005931-11">Cognitive affective maternal strategies</hd> <p>Mother: This is a penguin, this is an Eskimo, and this is a toucan. <emph>Which of these two pictures would go with the penguin?</emph></p> <p>Child: (Points to Eskimo)</p> <p>Mother: You think so? <emph>How come?</emph></p> <p>Child: Because they ... the penguins live in cold weather and they live in cold weather.</p> <p>Mother: That's right. <emph>Good job!</emph></p> <hd id="AN0192005931-12">Explanatory maternal strategies</hd> <p>Mother: What's this? A penguin. A penguin. We have a picture of a bird.</p> <p>Child: That's not a bird!</p> <p>Mother: It's a bird. And an Eskimo. An Eskimo.</p> <p>Mother: What is a penguin? What is a penguin?</p> <p>Child: Uhh.</p> <p>Mother: What kind of a penguin is it?</p> <p>Child: Uhh. Penguin.</p> <p>Mother: What kind of animal is it? It's a bird.</p> <p>Child: Bird.</p> <p>Mother: It's a bird, and what is this?</p> <p>Child: Uh. Can a penguin fly? (Spreading his arms)</p> <p>Mother: No, a penguin can't fly, honey.</p> <p>Child: (Touching mother's lips with fingers) Why is it called a bird?</p> <p>Mother: Well, because it's kind of a bird. And this is a bird too. It's like, two birds. They are together.</p> <p>Child: Only that one flies.</p> <p>Mother: Yep, one flies and one doesn't.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-13">Interrogative maternal strategies</hd> <p>Mother: What is that?</p> <p>Child: Pants.</p> <p>Mother: A special kind of pants.</p> <p>Child: Overalls.</p> <p>Mother: Overalls, you are right. These look like shorts.</p> <p>Child: (Says shorts in unison)</p> <p>Mother: And these look like a picture of a boy in a pair of overalls. Which one would you match?</p> <p>Child: This one.</p> <p>Mother: And why would you pick that one?</p> <p>Child: Because they are both clothes.</p> <p>Mother: They are both clothes? Yes, they are both clothes. You put them on over your legs.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-14">Reliability</hd> <p>Inter-rater agreement was evaluated on 35% of the video transcriptions using Cohen's Kappa to measure the level of consensus (inter-rater reliability) among raters in assigning consistent scores to identical variables. The agreement ranged from.61 for the functional cues strategy to.88 for the labelling question strategy in assessing maternal strategy use, and from.64 for the clarifying question strategy to.71 for the task-relevant non-responses strategy in evaluating child strategy use. These rates indicated substantial inter-rater reliability alignment, based on the scale by Landis and Koch ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref33">25</reflink>]). Discrepancies were resolved through discussion (Inan [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref34">19</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-15">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0192005931-16">Maternal and child strategies</hd> <p>To address the first research question, a Dunn-Bonferroni procedure (Dunn [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref35">11</reflink>]) was run in IBM SPSS Statistics 26 to separately identify the homogeneous subset of maternal strategies and children's strategies with the greatest average rank in the sample. A stepwise step-down multiple comparison procedure was conducted for the maternal strategies and children's strategies independently. The significance level was set to <emph>α</emph> = 0.05. The maternal strategies, including labelling, labelling questions, probing questions, and perceptual cues, were found to form a homogeneous subset that differed significantly from the other maternal strategies. Also, the number of task-relevant verbal responses from the child was significantly greater than task-relevant non-verbal responses and clarifying questions. The means and standard deviations for the occurrences of maternal and children's strategies are given in Tables 4 and 5, respectively.</p> <p>Table 4. Means and standard deviations of maternal strategies (<emph>N</emph> = 27).</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Strategy</td><td><italic>M</italic></td><td><italic>SD</italic></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Labelling</td><td char=".">13.93</td><td char=".">7.36</td></tr><tr><td>Labelling Questions</td><td char=".">7.67</td><td char=".">8.63</td></tr><tr><td>Probing Questions</td><td char=".">5.89</td><td char=".">5.16</td></tr><tr><td>Perceptual Cues</td><td char=".">4.59</td><td char=".">3.24</td></tr><tr><td>Functional Cues</td><td char=".">3.56</td><td char=".">2.39</td></tr><tr><td>Confirmation</td><td char=".">3.22</td><td char=".">3.11</td></tr><tr><td>Functional Questions</td><td char=".">2.78</td><td char=".">2.62</td></tr><tr><td>Perceptual Questions</td><td char=".">2.74</td><td char=".">2.92</td></tr><tr><td>Metacognitive information</td><td char=".">2.37</td><td char=".">4.14</td></tr><tr><td>Praise</td><td char=".">2.26</td><td char=".">2.35</td></tr><tr><td>Corrections</td><td char=".">1.33</td><td char=".">1.98</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 Note: Values represent the number of occurrences of the strategy during the categorisation task. <emph>M</emph> and <emph>SD</emph> represent the mean and standard deviation, respectively.</p> <p>Table 5. Means and standard deviations of children strategies (N = 27).</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td /><td /><td /><td>Taxonomic Mothers<sup>a</sup></td><td>Thematic Mothers<sup>b</sup></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Strategy</bold></td><td><bold><italic>M</italic></bold></td><td><bold><italic>SD</italic></bold></td><td><bold><italic>M</italic></bold></td><td><bold><italic>SD</italic></bold></td><td><bold><italic>M</italic></bold></td><td><bold><italic>SD</italic></bold></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Verbal Responses</td><td char=".">21.48</td><td char=".">14.98</td><td char=".">22.39</td><td char=".">17.18</td><td char=".">19.67</td><td char=".">9.81</td></tr><tr><td>Non-Verbal Responses</td><td char=".">8.11</td><td char=".">7.40</td><td char=".">8.67</td><td char=".">8.90</td><td char=".">7.00</td><td char=".">2.78</td></tr><tr><td>Clarifying Questions</td><td char=".">1.44</td><td char=".">2.83</td><td char=".">1.78</td><td char=".">3.33</td><td char=".">0.78</td><td char=".">1.30</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>2 Note: Values represent the number of occurrences of the strategy during the categorisation task. <emph>M</emph> and <emph>SD</emph> represent the mean and standard deviation, respectively. <sups>a</sups><emph>N </emph>= 18. <sups>b</sups><emph>N</emph> = 9.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-17">Relationship between maternal and preschool strategy use</hd> <p>To assess the correlation between maternal and children's strategy use in their interaction, Kendall's Tau-b was employed as an alternative to the nonparametric Pearson Product Moment Correlations. This analysis aimed to establish the relationship between 11 maternal strategies and 4 children's strategies. Maternal labelling questions (τb =.439, <emph>p</emph> =.001), functional questions (τb =.520, <emph>p</emph> =.000), perceptual questions (τb =.325, <emph>p</emph> =.020), probing questions (τb =.353, <emph>p</emph> =.011), metacognitive information (τb =.365, <emph>p</emph> =.031), praise (τb =.305, <emph>p</emph> =.025), and correction (τb =.335, <emph>p</emph> =.034), were found to be positively correlated with preschoolers' task-relevant responses. Moreover, maternal praise showed a positive correlation with children's task-relevant non-verbal responses (τb =.307, <emph>p</emph> =.033), while maternal perceptual cues were associated with children asking clarifying questions (τb =.386, <emph>p</emph> =.011). Additionally, maternal praise (τb =.332, <emph>p</emph> =.027) and correction (τb =.335, <emph>p</emph> =.034) positively correlated with children's independent performance. The findings from Kendall's Tau-b analysis for both maternal and children's strategies during the interactions are presented in Table 6 (Inan [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref36">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>Table 6. Nonparametric Kendall's Tau-b correlation.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td /><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>8</td><td>9</td><td>10</td><td>11</td><td>12</td><td>13</td><td>14</td><td>15</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1- Labelling</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>2- Labelling Questions</td><td char=".">.404**</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>3- Functional Cues</td><td char=".">.464**</td><td char=".">−.257</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>4- Functional Questions</td><td char=".">−.075</td><td char=".">.252</td><td char=".">.242</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>5- Confirmation</td><td char=".">.050</td><td char=".">−.199</td><td char=".">−.008</td><td char=".">−.008</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>6- Perceptual Cues</td><td char=".">−.135</td><td char=".">.177</td><td char=".">−.211</td><td char=".">−.239</td><td char=".">.030</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>7- Perceptual Questions</td><td char=".">.228</td><td char=".">.498**</td><td char=".">−.267</td><td char=".">.234</td><td char=".">−.286*</td><td char=".">.089</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>8- Probing Question</td><td>−362**</td><td char=".">.354*</td><td char=".">−.371**</td><td char=".">.284*</td><td char=".">−.083</td><td char=".">.013</td><td char=".">.345*</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>9- Metacognitive Information</td><td char=".">−.054</td><td char=".">.523**</td><td char=".">.021</td><td char=".">.319*</td><td char=".">−.132</td><td char=".">.151</td><td char=".">.424**</td><td char=".">.206</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>10- Praise</td><td char=".">.159</td><td char=".">.326*</td><td char=".">−.086</td><td char=".">.180</td><td char=".">−.065</td><td char=".">.240</td><td char=".">.171</td><td char=".">.222</td><td char=".">.103</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>11- Correction</td><td>−356**</td><td char=".">.436**</td><td char=".">−.132</td><td char=".">.364*</td><td char=".">−.184</td><td char=".">−.022</td><td char=".">.243</td><td char=".">.342*</td><td char=".">.139</td><td char=".">.285</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>12- Task Relevant Response</td><td char=".">−.186</td><td char=".">.439**</td><td char=".">−.227</td><td char=".">.520**</td><td char=".">.000</td><td char=".">−.016</td><td char=".">.325*</td><td char=".">.353**</td><td char=".">.365*</td><td char=".">.305*</td><td char=".">.335*</td><td char="." /><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>13- Task Relevant Non-Verbal Response</td><td char=".">.058</td><td char=".">.119</td><td char=".">−.038</td><td char=".">.011</td><td char=".">−.032</td><td char=".">−.089</td><td char=".">.116</td><td char=".">.225</td><td char=".">.138</td><td char=".">.307*</td><td char=".">.019</td><td char=".">.067</td><td char="." /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>14- Clarifying Questions</td><td char=".">.057</td><td char=".">.048</td><td char=".">.169</td><td char=".">.070</td><td char=".">.111</td><td char=".">.386*</td><td char=".">.110</td><td char=".">−.155</td><td char=".">.097</td><td char=".">.098</td><td char=".">.109</td><td char=".">.088</td><td char=".">−.180</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>15- Children's Independent Performance</td><td char=".">−.003</td><td char=".">.031</td><td char=".">.131</td><td char=".">.197</td><td char=".">−.135</td><td char=".">.043</td><td char=".">−.015</td><td char=".">.059</td><td char=".">−.070</td><td char=".">.332*</td><td char=".">.335*</td><td char=".">.047</td><td char=".">−.079</td><td>.072</td><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>3 *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).</item> <item>4 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0192005931-18">Interrogative maternal strategies</hd> <p>We were interested in whether interrogative maternal strategies (perceptual questions, functional questions, labelling questions, probing questions) were positively related to children's task-relevant verbal responses. We found that mother's perceptual questions (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.33, <emph>p </emph>= 0.010, one-tailed), functional questions (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b </subs>=.53, <emph>p </emph><.001, one-tailed), labelling questions (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.419, <emph>p </emph>=.002, one-tailed), and probing questions (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.319, <emph>p </emph>=.012, one-tailed) were each positive related to children's task-relevant verbal responses, at Bonferroni-adjusted alpha levels of 0.0125. One-tailed <emph>p</emph>-values were used due to the directional nature of the hypotheses.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-19">Explanatory maternal strategies</hd> <p>We were also interested in examining whether explanatory maternal strategies (labelling, perceptual cues, functional cues, metacognitive information) were related to children's clarifying questions. We found that perceptual cues (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.405, <emph>p </emph>= 0.010) were significantly related to clarifying questions, but labelling (<emph>τ</emph> =.06, <emph>p </emph>= 0.704), functional cues (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.19, <emph>p </emph>= 0.239), and metacognitive information (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.136, <emph>p </emph>= 0.406) were not significantly related to clarifying questions, at Bonferroni-adjusted alpha levels of 0.0125.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-20">Cognitive affective maternal strategies</hd> <p>Lastly, we were interested in whether mothers' praise was positively related to the children's total responses. We found that praise was positively related to children's total responses (<emph>τ</emph><subs>b</subs> =.381, <emph>p </emph>= 0.005, one-tailed). A one-tailed <emph>p</emph>-value was used due to the directional nature of the hypothesis.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-21">Stylistic patterns in maternal strategies</hd> <p>To address the third research question, mothers' transcripts were evaluated and coded for the number of times they described the perceptual qualities of the objects and the number of times they discussed the functional interactive nature of the objects. The results revealed that among the 27 mothers, 18 emphasised taxonomic relations, and 9 emphasised thematic relations. Mothers who emphasised taxonomic relations used statements like 'grapes are fruits and pears and peaches are fruits ... these are pears'; 'a penguin can't fly honey'; 'this wagon has little wheels, and the truck has big wheels'; and 'when it is warm, we have two bears ... we could put two bears together'. Mothers who emphasised thematic relationships used statements like 'we'll put the overalls together, and I'm going to put these two together because they both make light'.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-22">Discussion</hd> <p>Using the Vygotskian Framework (1980) and the dialogic teaching perspective (Mercer and Littleton [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref37">29</reflink>]), we examined the strategies mothers and preschool children used when engaged in categorisation activity. During the interaction, the mothers tended to use certain strategies such as a mixture of interrogative (e.g. Do you know what this is called?), explanatory (e.g. This is a penguin, this is an igloo) and cognitive-affective (e.g. You did a great job) strategies. Children also tended to respond verbally to their mothers' strategies, which confirms the findings of Diaz, Neal, and Amaya-Williams ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref38">10</reflink>]) study by suggesting that maternal strategies, such as labelling, confirming, and metacognitive information, influence children's responses. These maternal strategies seem to have a positive association with preschoolers' relevant verbal engagement with their mothers during these interactions, considering children's innate social inclination to actively participate in discussions about objects and events initiated by their parents (Callanan, Jipson, and Stampf Soennichsen [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref39">6</reflink>]; Callanan and Oakes [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref40">7</reflink>]; Callanan, Shrager, and Moore [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref41">8</reflink>]; Harris and Schroeder [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref42">17</reflink>]; Kelemen et al. [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref43">21</reflink>]).</p> <p>We were interested in determining if mothers in our study would show stylistic differences (taxonomic and thematic) when engaging their children in a categorisation activity. We also explored how maternal stylistic patterns were related to children's concurrent engagement in the categorisation activity. During interactions, mothers sometimes sorted items by type or by relevance. The findings showed that the majority of mothers (62%) tended to use sorting by type the most during these categorisation activities. The data didn't show significant differences in how children responded – verbally, non-verbally, or through clarifying questions – based on whether mothers used type-based or relevance-based sorting. This aligns with earlier studies indicating that how mothers sort items might not directly influence children's strategies (e.g. Nguyen and Murphy [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref44">30</reflink>]). However, it suggests that these differences in sorting might be less important than the specific strategies in predicting how well children perform in tasks (Inan [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref45">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>Lastly, we examined the relationship between maternal and child strategy use during the categorisation activity. We explored if interrogative maternal strategies (perceptual, functional, labelling, and probing questions) were positively related to children's task-relevant verbal responses. The result indicated maternal <emph>interrogative strategies</emph> were linked to children's use of task-relevant verbal responses. This finding is similar to previous work examining the relationship between maternal use of questions and children's verbal contributions to the interaction (Kuchirko et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref46">24</reflink>]; Harris and Almutairi [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref47">15</reflink>]). We speculate that maternal questions focus the children's attention on specific attributes of the objects, and children engage by responding to maternal questions.</p> <p>We were also interested in examining whether maternal use of <emph>explanatory strategies</emph> (labelling, perceptual cues, functional cues, and metacognitive information) was related to children's concurrent performance. The findings showed that perceptual cues were significantly related to children's clarifying questions, but labelling, functional cues, and metacognitive information were not. It is plausible that explaining the perceptual attributes of the objects, such as size, shape, and colour, prompted the children to ask questions about those qualities. Questions that children ask to serve an important information-processing function. They help children fill in the gaps in their knowledge about objects and guide and direct the mother's attention by describing more specific details about the object's attributes (Chouinard, Harris, and Maratsos [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref48">9</reflink>]). Yu, Bonawitz, and Shafto ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref49">47</reflink>]) point to questions as being a core component of formal pedagogy occurring in most classrooms. Thus, encouraging parents to frequently use a variety of questions during conversations and structured interaction activities, sets the stage for mastery of classroom content for young children. Additionally, praise was positively related to children's total responses. This suggests that with a little motivational support in the form of praise or extra guidance (e.g. correction), children engage in the interaction nonverbally through their questions or comments about the objects.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-23">Implications for parental pedagogy and early childhood education research</hd> <p>First, our research contributes to the sparse research on parental pedagogy and children's categorisation behaviour. That is, we have shown that when engaged in a categorisation activity with their children, mothers use a variety of strategies that engage, prompt, and motivate children in the interaction. Children contribute to a variety of ways through verbal responses or their questions. Second, our study highlighted the types of interrogative and explanatory strategies associated with children's engagement in the categorisation activity by asking questions and making relevant comments. Third, we identified maternal stylistic differences (taxonomic and thematic) in 'talking' about categories with their young children.</p> <p>A core feature of the present study's approach to analysing and evaluating parent-child interaction is to contribute to children's cognitive development and educational attainment. Thus, the results from the present study could be used to provide suggestions for early childhood education research and practices. The findings could also provide guidance in developing intervention programmes for teacher-student interactions involving class categorisation activities. Examples include scaffolding methodologies (Wood, Bruner, and Ross [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref50">46</reflink>]) or dialogues as strategies between objects (Mercer and Littleton [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref51">29</reflink>]). These findings could be used to highlight the importance of interactive and dialogue of teacher-student interaction in school settings (Mercer and Littleton [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref52">29</reflink>]). That is, mothers' roles in categorising objects for their children can be transformed into teachers' roles as facilitators of teaching categorisation skills to school-aged children in early education and practice. Since mother-child interactions can be seen as a collaborative learning method in which they interthink in productive ways, similar methods can be used for teacher-student interactions. For example, increasing active and productive classroom interaction is an important key factor in cultivating dialogues, or <emph>dialogic teaching,</emph> as teaching strategies between teachers and students. In the current study, mothers asked several questions to teach their children how to categorise objects. Similarly, dialogic teaching strategies can be used among teachers in a classroom environment. For instance, teachers can encourage their students' classroom contributions through 'constructive questions' to teach factual knowledge or their own use of language as a tool for reasoning (Mercer and Littleton [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref53">29</reflink>]).</p> <p>There has been a variety of significant work in the tradition of Vygotskian approaches, such as how dialogues with children are socially supported and scaffolded by parents in home environments and teachers in classroom settings to promote productive classroom interactions (Mercer and Littleton [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref54">29</reflink>]; van der Veen et al. [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref55">41</reflink>]; van der Veen et al. [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref56">42</reflink>]). Wood, Bruner, and Ross ([<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref57">46</reflink>]) introduced the term 'scaffolding' to describe the interactive process within parent-child/teacher-child relationships, a concept integrated into the zone of proximal development. Scaffolding serves as a temporary support structure between children and adults, allowing parents or teachers to calibrate the level of assistance based on the children's capabilities (Salonen, Lepola, and Vauras [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref58">37</reflink>]). This additional guidance enables children to progressively excel in categorisation activities, eventually acquiring the skills necessary to independently complete tasks (Sun and Rao [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref59">38</reflink>]).</p> <p>Studies investigating maternal scaffolding indicate that mothers tend to take a guiding stance when faced with challenging and unorganised tasks, while offering more assistance during straightforward and organised tasks (Goodnow and Collins [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref60">13</reflink>]; Goodsitt, Grady Raitan, and Perlmutter [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref61">14</reflink>]). This method demonstrates the deliberate nature of scaffolding, aiming to establish shared goals and offer guidance to children in meeting the complexities of task demands (Kermani and Brenner [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref62">22</reflink>]; Tomasello et al. [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref63">39</reflink>]). This approach has also been widely used by teachers in classroom settings; van der Veen et al. ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref64">41</reflink>]) found that teacher-student communicative competence has a positive link to students' cognitive skills, such as self-regulation, learning, and thinking skills.</p> <p>Additionally, the findings from our work could provide parents with guidance on ways in which to engage their children in a categorisation activity. Through workshops, parental newsletters, blogs, or informal parent meetings in school settings, parents can be shown how to use such strategies to involve their children in categorisation-type activities. The findings from this study could potentially contribute to creating targeted educational interventions to assist mothers who experience challenges in engaging their children in categorisation activities. Mastery of categorisation skills has been linked to children's general memory and language skills (Mareschal, Powell, and Volein [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref65">27</reflink>]). Furthermore, by supporting parental pedagogy, children can develop taxonomic and thematic categorisation skills to advance their vocabularies and other related cognitive skills. Aligned with Vygotsky's approach ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref66">43</reflink>]), children can practice interactive dialogues through parent-child interactions (Wegerif, Mercer, and Dawes [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref67">45</reflink>]). This may lead them to improvement in their thinking about both the simple and complex relationships among objects.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-24">Limitations</hd> <p>The present study had a small number of mother-child dyads. Therefore, the results could vary with a large number of dyads. The present study is also limited by a lack of socioeconomic diversity (e.g. low income), the age of children (e.g. children older than 5), cultural diversity (e.g. Eastern culture), linguistic diversity (e.g. bilingual children), and possible other confounding factors that may play a contributing factor to enhance outcomes of mother-child categorisation activities.</p> <p>Numerous studies indicate variations in parenting styles, cognitive approaches, and categorisation reasoning across different cultures (Ji, Zhang, and Nisbett [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref68">20</reflink>]; Imai, Saalbach, and Stern [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref69">18</reflink>]). For example, Nisbett ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref70">31</reflink>]) and Ji, Zhang, and Nisbett ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref71">20</reflink>]) discovered that individuals from East Asian backgrounds tend to organise their concepts thematically, contrasting with Westerners who typically organise them taxonomically. These findings align with the current study's participants, who were predominantly Western mothers. Another illustration stems from Zˇivanović et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref72">48</reflink>]) investigation into the conceptual organisation of objects by 52 Serbian children aged 7. Their results revealed the children's capacity for both taxonomic and thematic reasoning, with 80% displaying a dominance towards thematic relations. Consequently, this study underscores the need for future research to explore the correlation between maternal approaches and preschoolers' categorisation abilities across diverse cultural backgrounds.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-25">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of George Woodbury (Miami University alumnus) for their assistance in statistical analysis for this publication.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-26">Author contributions</hd> <p>All authors listed have made substantial, direct, and intellectual contributions to the work and approved it for publication.</p> <hd id="AN0192005931-27">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0192005931-28"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref7" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Belland, Brian R. 2014. " Scaffolding: Definition, Current Debates, and Future Directions." 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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Mother-Child Engagement in a Categorisation Activity: Implications for Parental Pedagogy and Early Education Research
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  Label: Language
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  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Seyma+Inan%22">Seyma Inan</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8990-9215">0000-0002-8990-9215</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Yvette+R%2E+Harris%22">Yvette R. Harris</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Annahita+D%2E+Modirrousta%22">Annahita D. Modirrousta</searchLink>
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  Label: Source
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22International+Journal+of+Early+Years+Education%22"><i>International Journal of Early Years Education</i></searchLink>. 2026 34(1):42-58.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 17
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Mothers%22">Mothers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Parent+Child+Relationship%22">Parent Child Relationship</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Classification%22">Classification</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Children%22">Preschool Children</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interaction%22">Interaction</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cues%22">Cues</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Positive+Reinforcement%22">Positive Reinforcement</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Questioning+Techniques%22">Questioning Techniques</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Correlation%22">Correlation</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/09669760.2024.2367533
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0966-9760<br />1469-8463
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Maternal support for children's cognitive competence has received considerable attention in the developmental and early childhood education literature. However, little research has examined the link between maternal behaviour and children's categorisation performance. The current study explored the strategies that mothers and children used as they engaged in a categorisation task. Twenty-seven mother-child dyads from middle-class mothers and their three-to-five-year-old preschool children were videotaped while engaging in a categorisation activity. Total testing time, including video recordings, did not exceed one hour. The mother-child interaction codes were analysed using frequency analyses to extract empirical estimates. Certain maternal strategies (e.g. interrogative strategies) were positively related to children's verbal responses. However, maternal stylistic (taxonomic and thematic) differences were not associated with children's strategies. The study found that mothers use a variety of strategies to engage with their children in the categorisation activity. Theoretical perspectives and implications of the current research for parental pedagogy and early childhood education research are discussed.
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  Data: 2026
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  Data: EJ1504139
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      – Text: English
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      Pagination:
        PageCount: 17
        StartPage: 42
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      – SubjectFull: Mothers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Parent Child Relationship
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Classification
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Children
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Interaction
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      – SubjectFull: Cues
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Positive Reinforcement
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      – SubjectFull: Questioning Techniques
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      – SubjectFull: Correlation
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      – TitleFull: Mother-Child Engagement in a Categorisation Activity: Implications for Parental Pedagogy and Early Education Research
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