Strategy Use in Cognitive Performance Tasks: A Large-Scale Analysis in Adolescents

<title>Abstract</title> <p>Cognitive strategies play an important role in visuospatial task performance. In the Five-Dot Test (FDT), strategy use is linked to accuracy, yet past research has relied on manually coded categories. This study introduces a data-driven framework to identify and quantify strategies in a large sample of 4,531 Dutch students (mean age = 15.51). Using cluster-based detection, we examined rotation, mirroring, addition, and deletion strategies and their subtypes, and related them to accuracy over 180 seconds. Rotation was most common (72.43% used at least one subtype). Mirroring and full rotations showed the strongest associations with performance (r = .30–.47), while other strategies showed modest effects. These findings demonstrate how scalable analytics can refine understanding of adolescents’ strategic behavior in visuospatial tasks.</p>