Dynamic growth modeling of human cognitive microdevelopment

It is important but challenging to study human cognitive microdevelopment, a developmental process that changes over minutes or hours. This study piloted a dynamic systems approach to describing and explaining students' microdevelopment in learning a computer program. Based on intensive observation of 30 students learning processes, we used both typological analysis for describing patterns of individual microdevelopmental trajectories and dynamic growth modeling for explaining the mechanisms underlying these patterns. The results of the study for the first time provided a comprehensive microscopic picture of cognitive development, indicating that (a) specific patterns emerged from complex and pervasive variations and (b) these microdevelopmental patterns were associated with different states of dynamic organization. It is concluded that human cognitive microdevelopment is a dynamic process that takes place in the form of pattern change rather than linear progress.