fairfolio
Saved Projects

When Science Is Sweet: Working with Kids and Marshmallows

CSEF · 2010 Behavioral & Social Sciences

Natalie A. Tostado · Pershing (John J.) Middle School, San Diego, San Diego County

Overview

Objectives/Goals I believe that children's self control level does in fact correlate with test results. If children have the self control to pay attention and listen to the teacher while they are giving a lesson, then it will show in their test results. I plan to test this by giving 100 kindergarteners a marshmallow, and telling them that if they can wait for 5 minutes; they will receive another one. Then I will record if they ate it or not. After that I will give them the all subject test. I will compare the amount of questions that the children got correct, with the amount of time that they were able to wait. During my testing, I discovered numerous things. While timing the child, I realized that this test was a great success. Not only was every test controlled, but each student was different in their own way. I learned that a test quite similar to mine was performed in the 1960s. A man named Walter Mischel tested four year olds, but then did a follow up test when they were 18 to see if the children that had the ability to wait were "smarter." I believe that the amount of self control will somehow connect to children's test results. I was proven correct; the amount of self control does correlate with test results. I noticed that as the amount of time children were able to wait, so did their test scores.

Summary statement

I enjoy the presence of children, so my quations was, "Does the amount of self control that a young child has correlate with their test results?"

Help received

A teacher (Mrs.Peitryk) from the local elemtary school allowed me to test her students, Dailard Elementary allowed me to test their students, My teacher Mrs. Marcarelli excused me from class, my Mother drove me to and from my school and the elemtary school, and Anna Petrova helped me test.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2010 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0326

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google