抄録
The purpose of this study was to clarify the factor structure of non-cognitive ability in young children, and to examine sex and age differences. The participants were 1,280 (644 boys and 636 girls) enrolled in kindergarten. Non-cognitive ability was measured using a 16-item questionnaire consisting of seven factors (self-awareness, motivation, perseverance, self-control, prosocial aptitude, resilience and coping ability, and creativity). Factor analysis (orthogonal rotated varimax method) was applied to examine the factor structure of non-cognitive ability in early childhood.
A two-factor analysis of variance (sex×different ages) was applied to investigate sex and age differences. Based on our analysis, we obtained the following results:
We extracted four factors of non-cognitive ability in early childhood: ability to persevere, coping ability, ingenuity, and sense of competence.
There were sex differences in early childhood non-cognitive ability, with girls having higher non-cognitive ability than boys. In addition, the participant’s birth month affected their non-cognitive ability in early childhood, with children born in the months of January, February and March having particularly low non-cognitive ability.
Our results indicate that non-cognitive ability in early childhood consists of four factors: ability to persevere, coping ability, ingenuity, and sense of competence and that there are sex and age differences in non-cognitive ability. The results suggest that the non-cognitive abilities of young children develop with age, but that young children born early in the year (between January and March) show significantly delayed development, suggesting that it is important for caregivers to intentionally nurture the growth of these children’s non-cognitive ability.
