Microgenetic Analysis

Microgenetic analysis is the study of processes of cognitive development as they occur, with the goal of discovering underlying mechanisms to account for children’s or adults’ developing competencies. For example, researchers may be interested in how children devise new and more efficient problem-solving strategies or why adults might do so more efficiently than children. They may seek to understand very specific acquisitions (e.g., how children learn to add efficiently) or more global ones (e.g., how attention skills develop). This entry distinguishes microgenetic analysis from other methods, describes the history of microgenetic analysis and its use in studying human development across the life span, and explores contemporary applications of microgenetic analysis as well as the implications of findings obtained using this method.