EXperiments

Woods and Middleton (1975) studied the influence of instruction with their experiment. They provided 3-4 year olds with a puzzle which was beyond their comprehension on their own. The mother then provided different levels of assistance for the child:

L1 – General verbal instruction (“Very good! Now try that again.”)
L2 – Specific verbal instruction (“Get four big blocks”)
L3 – Mother indicates material (“You need this block here”)
L4 – Mother provides material and prepares it for assembly
L5 – Mother demonstrates the operation