Fivush, R. (1984). Learning about school: The development of kindergarteners’ school
scripts. Child Development, 55.
Theory
• Children’s event representations become more
elaborate with time and increased experience
• Children expected to report more acts and more
complex acts over time
• General event representation interferes with
specific event memories
Methodology
• 30 kindergarten students (from 2 classes)
individually interviewed 4 times, over 10 weeks
• Children asked general event and open-ended
questions
Key Insight
Strengths
• Have reasonably ideal sample set (from same
school, age range only 7 months, diverse,
nursery experience)
• Interviews spread over relatively short period of
time, to control for “global development changes”
Weaknesses
• No mention of how/much each teacher verbally
communicated routine
• Analysis highlights that memory geared towards
spatial (vs academic) content but does not
address that latter may be explained by newness
Findings
• By end of a first experience, children form a
general spatial-temporal memory framework,
which remains stable over time
• With time, this framework becomes more
elaborate; representation becomes more complex
with increasing event experience
• Children able to report both general and specific
events but require different cues in order to
access information