THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CURIOSITY AND COGNITIVE-ABILITY IN 3RD-GRADE AND 5TH-GRADE CHILDREN

Individual differences on an established laboratory task of visual short-term novelty preferences were correlated with achievement test scores for 40 third-grade and 45 fifth-grade children. A positive correlation (r = .35, p < .002) for the total sample (N = 85) confirmed the often hypothesized influence of curiosity motivation on intellectual performance; subsample gender-grade inconsistencies were statistically interpreted as a consequence of errant individual strategies and limited variance in the novelty task. The relationships were cross-validated in a companion study with the same short-term novelty paradigm, but with a play construction task for novelty preferences and a different achievement test battery for second- and fifth-grade children. High correlations between teacher ratings of curiosity and achievement test scores, when analyzed by multiple regression procedures, seemed to be an artifact of teachers' knowledge of their students' intellectual status.