Following Directions in a Nine-Card Grid: Procedure Versus Classification
An examiner administers a following-directions task to Lina, a second grader. The materials are nine picture cards in a three-by-three grid. Row 1: apple, carrot, bread. Row 2: rose, tulip, oak. Row 3: bus, train, boat. The examiner reads: 'Put your finger on the vegetable. Move one card to the right, then move down one row. Name the picture you land on. Then tell me which card in that row does not belong with the other two.' Lina touches the carrot, moves right to the bread, moves down to the oak, and says 'oak.' When asked the classification question, she says, 'Rose, because it is pretty.' The examiner must score the following-directions portion, interpret the classification response, and decide what to record about Lina's verbal reasoning. The school uses this task as one piece of evidence for gifted-program eligibility.
1. Trace Lina's path through the grid. Is her following-directions response correct? Identify any ambiguity in the direction 'the vegetable.'
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Path: row 1, column 2 is carrot. 'Vegetable' selects carrot; apple is a fruit and bread is a grain product. One card right = bread (row 1, column 3). One row down = oak (row 2, column 3). Lina says 'oak,' so the multi-step direction is executed correctly. There is no serious ambiguity in 'the vegetable' because only carrot fits; a child might not know the word 'vegetable,' but that is a vocabulary issue, not a path ambiguity. Score the following-directions item as correct.
2. Evaluate Lina's classification answer, 'Rose, because it is pretty.' What is the defensible odd one out, and what reasoning error does her response show?
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The row is rose, tulip, oak. Rose and tulip are flowers; oak is a tree. The most defensible odd one out is oak. Lina's reason, 'because it is pretty,' is not a category rule and does not uniquely pick rose: tulip is also pretty. She may be selecting a salient aesthetic feature rather than a shared category. This is a classification error, not a vocabulary error. Note, however, that the item is somewhat open: one could call rose odd for having thorns, but nothing in the three words supplies that criterion, so oak remains the best answer.
3. How should the examiner combine the two responses into a recommendation? What should be recorded?
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Record two separate findings: following directions - accurate; classification - inaccurate with an aesthetic rather than categorical criterion. Do not average them into one 'verbal' score. Recommend sorting tasks with explicit attribute labels (flower/tree, vehicle/building) and 'tell me why' probes. Recheck classification in a fresh sitting, because the multi-step direction may have loaded working memory. For eligibility, use the profile: strong procedural comprehension, weaker categorical reasoning.