Nursery World - Look away from teacher to find the right answer

Teaching young children to look away when answering difficult questions could help to improve their problem-solving abilities, according to psychologists from the University of Stirling. Researchers recruited 20 five-year-olds and videoed them individually answering a range of verbal arithmetic questions of varying difficulty. All questions were posed by the same researcher, who sat in front of them.

Researchers recruited 20 five-year-olds and videoed them individually answering a range of verbal arithmetic questions of varying difficulty. All questions were posed by the same researcher, who sat in front of them.

Half of the children were instructed to look away from the researcher while they considered the answers - a technique known as 'gaze aversion'. The others received no such instruction and acted as a control group.

The team of researchers found that the children encouraged to look away answered 72.5 per cent of the questions correctly, compared with just 55.9 per cent in the control group.

Dr Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon, developmental psychologist at Stirling University and researcher in the study, said, 'Faces are very cognitively demanding. When we look at a person's face we tend to be drawn into it and this can be distracting. Averting your gaze helps: it makes it easier to concentrate.

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