Children’s Intuitive Theories of Academic Performance

How do children reason about academic performance across development? A classic view suggests children’s intuitive theories in this domain undergo qualitative changes. According to this view, older children and adults consider both effort and skill as sources of performance (i.e., a “performance = effort + skill” theory), but younger children can only consider effort (i.e., a “performance = effort” theory). Results from two studies ( N = 240...