Young children's use of video as a source of socially relevant information

Although prior research clearly shows that toddlers have difficulty learning from video, the basis for their difficulty is unknown. In the 2 current experiments, the effect of social feedback on 2-year-olds' use of information from video was assessed. Children who were told "face to face" where to find a hidden toy typically found it, but children who were given the same information by a person on video did not. Children who engaged in a 5-min contingent interaction with a person (including social cues and personal references) through closed-circuit video before the hiding task used information provided to find the toy. These findings have important implications for educational television and use of video stimuli in laboratory-based research with young children.     

Young children's combinatoric strategies

Children aged between 4 years 6 months and 9 years 10 months were individually administered a series of novel tasks involving the formation of different combinations of two items, selected from discrete sets of items. An analysis of the children's performance revealed a series of six, increasingly sophisticated, solution strategies ranging from a random selection of items through to a systematic pattern in item choice (cf. Piaget and Inhelder's, 1975, combinatoric operations). A significant number of children independently adopted more efficient solution procedures as they progressed on the tasks, with many displaying an algorithmic procedure reflecting the odometer strategy (holding one item constant while systematically varying each of the other items). Given that children as young as 7 years demonstrated this systematic strategy, it would appear that, within the appropriate learning environment, young children can discover a procedure for forming n x n combinations prior to the stage of formal operations postulated by Piaget and Inhelder. The findings support the inclusion of the combinatorial domain as a topic of investigation in the elementary school curriculum.     

Young children's partitioning strategies

Taxonomies for classifying children's partitioning strategies have generally focused on the contexts in which the strategies occur and whether the strategies generate fair shares. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to increase our knowledge about young children's partitioning strategies by setting out not only to identify new partitioning strategies but also to develop a taxonomy for classifying young children's partitioning strategies in terms of their ability to facilitate the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct from the concrete activity of partitioning objects and/or sets of objects. Clinical interviews were conducted with twelve purposely-selected Year Three students. Each student was presented with a unique set of realistic partitioning tasks. The paper concludes with a taxonomy for: (i) qualitatively evaluating a child's progress towards the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct, and (ii) planning and implementing teaching interventions commensurate with the child's level of progress towards the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct. This taxonomy provides researchers and teachers with means of better utilising children's informal partitioning strategies as the foundation upon which to further develop their understandings of the partitive quotient fraction construct. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Young children's causal inferences

We report 2 experiments that show a striking development between the ages of 3 and 4 years in children's ability to make causal inferences about sequences of events. The task in the first experiment was to work out what had caused the change to an object that started out as odd (noncanonical) in 1 way and ended up as odd in 2 ways--starting, for example, as a broken cup and ending as a wet and broken cup. When asked to choose the instrument that had caused the change, 3-year-olds often selected the instrument that could have caused the initial state (a hammer, in our example) and not the instrument that would produce the change. 4-year-olds hardly ever made this mistake. In the second experiment, the 3-year-olds were able to make the correct choice when the change was from a canonical to a noncanonical state (cup-wet cup) but had much more difficulty when the change was from noncanonical to canonical (wet cup-dry cup). The difference was much smaller in the older group. The first of these tasks can be solved simply on the basis of knowledge that a particular instrument can cause a particular effect without reference to the initial state. The second task requires attention to the differences between initial and final state. We conclude that the ability to make genuine causal inferences develops between the ages of 3 and 4 years.     

Young children's comprehension of montage

2 studies examined children's comprehension of brief stop-animation televised segments incorporating elements of cinematic montage such as pans, zooms, and cuts. Children reconstructed the action and dialogue in these segments using the same dolls and settings depicted. In Study 1, there was no effect of cinematic techniques on reconstruction performance of 3- and 5-year-olds as compared to control segments filmed without these techniques. The results challenged the assumption that the use of such techniques per se contributes to young children's poor comprehension of television shows. In Study 2, 12 new segments were produced in which comprehending the montage required inferences of character perspective, implied action sequences, spatial relationships, and simultaneity of different actions. Averaging across all segments, 62% of the 4-year-olds and 88% of the 7-year-olds demonstrated clear comprehension of the montage. Inferences concerning implied action sequences were easiest for both ages. Inferences of simultaneity were most difficult for 4-year-olds, whereas inferences of character perspective were most difficult for 7-year-olds. Preschool children are thus capable of understanding cinematic events conveyed through camera techniques and film editing, despite previous assertions to the contrary. This ability nevertheless substantially increases with age.     

Young children's feelings about school

This study examined factors associated with young children's feelings about school in kindergarten and first grade, using a new measure, the Feelings about School (FAS). The FAS measures children's perceptions of academic competence, their feelings about the teacher, and their general attitudes toward school. Findings provided support for the reliability and validity of the FAS for kindergartners (N = 225) and first graders (N = 127). Variables presumed to predict children's feelings about school were the classroom structure, academic performance, and relationships with teachers. Feelings about school were expected to predict academic engagement. Correlational analyses indicated that kindergartners' and first graders' feelings about school were associated with their academic skills, as measured by direct assessments and teacher ratings. The evidence for first graders was stronger than for kindergartners. Kindergartners' general attitudes toward school were more negative in highly structured, teacher-directed classroom environments. First graders' perceptions of competence were more negative in classrooms lacking structure and control. First graders', but not kindergartners', perceptions of competence were significantly associated with academic engagement.     

Young children's ability to infer spatial relationships: evidence from a large, familiar environment

Young (mean age = 3-9) and old (mean age = 5-0) nursery school children were tested on their ability to infer spatial relationships in a large, familiar environment. Each child in the younger group was matched to a child of the same sex in the older group who had been attending the nursery school for the same number of months. Subjects were taken to 3 different locations in their nursery school and were asked to point to 5 targets on the school grounds. Older children were more accurate than younger children on nursery school targets, but children's spatial representations were relatively nonintegrated at both age levels. Consistent sex differences in favor of males were discussed in the context of a new framework that could potentially explain the appearance of sex differences on spatial tasks conducted in large-scale environments. It was concluded that very young children have difficulty inferring spatial relationships, even in a large, familiar environment. This difficulty seems to be due to a relative lack of symbolic capacity.     

Young children's understanding of random phenomena

2 experiments on the development of the understanding of random phenomena are reported. Of interest was whether children understand the characteristic uncertainty in the physical nature of random phenomena as well as the unpredictability of outcomes. Children were asked, for both a random and a determined phenomenon, whether they knew what its next outcome would be and why. In Experiment 1, 4-, 5-, and 7-year-olds correctly differentiated their responses to the question of outcome predictability; the 2 older groups also mentioned appropriate characteristics of the random mechanism in explaining why they did not know what its outcome would be. Although 3-year-olds did not differentiate the random and determined phenomena, neither did they treat both phenomena as predictable. This latter result is inconsistent with Piaget and Inhelder's characterization of an early stage of development. Experiment 2 was designed to control for the possibility that children in Experiment 1 learned how to respond on the basis of pretest experience with the 2 different phenomena. 5- and 7-year-olds performed at a comparable level to the same-aged children in Experiment 1. Results suggest an earlier understanding of random phenomena than previously has been reported and support results in the literature indicating an early understanding of causality.     

Young children's reasoning about many-to-one correspondences

Young children's understanding of many-to-one correspondence problems was studied to illuminate the developmental transition from additive to multiplicative numerical knowledge. A many-to-one correspondence exists when a fixed number of target objects (greater than 1) is associated with each of a set of referents, as in putting 3 flowers in each of several vases. Two experiments examined effects of a brief training procedure that highlighted the iterative nature of many-to-one mappings. In Experiment 1, 5- and 6-year-old children did not benefit from the training, but a subset of 7-year-olds did. In Experiment 2, 7-year-olds showed training effects that extended to generalization problems. Patterns of performance across experimental and generalization problems suggested that some children had difficulty applying what they learned from training to the experimental problems.     

Young children's knowledge about printed names

Four experiments examined young children's knowledge about the visual characteristics of writing, specifically personal names. Children younger than 4 years of age, even those who could read no simple words, showed some knowledge about the horizontal orientation of English names, the Latin letters that make them up, and their left-to-right directionality. Preschoolers also had some familiarity with the shapes of the letters in their own first name, especially the leftmost letter. Knowledge of the conventional capitalization pattern for English names emerged later, after a period during which children preferred names in all uppercase letters. When tested with personal names, the kind of word they know best, young children are surprisingly knowledgeable about the visual characteristics of writing.     

Young children's understanding of counting and cardinality

4-year-old's knowledge of counting and cardinality--the last count word reached represents the numerosity of the set--was tested in 2 experiments. Experiment 1 investigated the nature of early cardinality responses by presenting different forms of the cardinality question before, after, and before and after the child counted. Both type and time of question has large effects. Experiment 2 examined whether children of this age could recognize errors in 4 counting procedures and whether they would reject a cardinality response arrived at through a mistaken counting procedure. The children were very good at recognizing a standard counting procedure as correct. They had only limited success at treating procedures that violated the stable order of count words or violated the one-one correspondence between count word and object as incorrect. They lacked an understanding of the order irrelevance in that they judged valid, nonstandard counting orders as incorrect. The children did not seem to link their evaluation of a cardinality response with their evaluation of the counting procedure used to reach that response. The results do not indicate that counting principles initially govern the child's acquisition of counting knowledge. They are consistent with the suggestion that early cardinality responses are last-word responses.     

Young children's overgeneralizations with fixed transitivity verbs

The present study examined English-speaking children's tendency to make argument structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., I disappeared it). Children were exposed to several English verbs of fixed transitivity (exclusively intransitive or exclusively transitive) and then asked questions that encouraged them to overgeneralize usage of the verbs. Seventy-two children (24 in each of three age groups: 3, 4/5, and 8 years of age) experienced four actions performed by puppets. Each action had two verbs of similar meaning associated with it in the context of the experimental action: one more familiar to young children and one less familiar. Children at all ages were more likely to overgeneralize usage of verbs that were less familiar to them, supporting the hypothesis that children's usage of verbs in particular construction types becomes entrenched over time. As children solidly learn the transitivity status of particular verbs, they become more reluctant to use those verbs in other argument structure constructions.     

Young children's motivational beliefs about learning science

For learning science, motivational beliefs such as confidence in one's science abilities and liking of science are associated with current and future science achievement, as well as continued interest in science classes and careers. However, there are currently no measures to test young children's motivational beliefs related to science learning. To meet this need, we developed the Puppet Interview Scales of Competence in and Enjoyment of Science (PISCES). We piloted PISCES with 113 kindergarten children in public schools participating in the Scientific Literacy Project (SLP). Factor analysis supported the multidimensional structure of young children's self-related beliefs about learning science. PISCES scales measured Science Liking, Science Competence, and Ease of Science Learning. Correlations among PISCES scales and achievement subtests provided evidence of PISCES's validity. Children's motivational beliefs varied as a function of length of time spent learning science, with competence beliefs associated positively with science experience. There were no gender differences.     

Young children's idiosyncratic written algorithms for addition

The research reported in this paper is concerned with the natural written algorithms created by nine- and ten-year olds when solving simple addition problems. It was undertaken with one hundred and seventeen children in Year 5 (Grade 4), who, because of their involvement in the Calculator Aware Number Curriculum (CAN) Project, had not been taught traditional pencil-and-paper algorithms for the basic operations. This provided an opportunity to investigate their responses when asked to solve a selection of additive word problems on paper without the use of calculators. The children's solutions were analyzed in terms of directionality of working and the emergence or otherwise of standard or idiosyncratic written algorithms. A preference for a horizontal layout and for working from left to right was shown to exist, and the children produced a wide variety of original and creative written algorithms.     

Young children's recognition of the intentionality of teaching

Two studies examined the role of intention in preschoolers' understanding of teaching. Three- to 5-year-olds judged stories in which there was an intention to teach or not (teaching vs. imitation) for 4 different learning outcomes (successful, partial, failed, and unknown). They also judged 2 stories with embedded instructional intent (e.g., guided discovery learning) and several standard theory of mind tasks. There was an age-related change in the understanding of teaching. Five-year-olds distinguished teaching from imitation and recognized guided discovery learning. Understanding of imitation and false belief was related. The findings indicate that theory of mind is relevant to other means of knowledge acquisition besides perceptual access and that understanding intention could help young children to recognize instruction and identify its different forms.     

Young children's attitudes toward the disabled: A classroom intervention using children's literature

With the increasing inclusion of special needs children in regular classrooms, experiences which encourage positive attitudes toward the disabled are essential. The purpose of this project was: 1) to examine the thinking and attitudes of young children regarding the capabilities of disabled children and the potential for friendship and 2) to assess the effectiveness of children's literature and related activities in influencing attitudes toward the disabled. Results suggested that children's attitudes were generally positive and realistic regarding the capabilities and the potential for friendship with the disabled. The use of selected children's books and book related activities positively influenced children's attitudes.     

Young children's perceptionsof scientists: a preliminary study

Background

Since the 1950s, there has been a growing body of research dealing with perceptions children have of scientists. Typically, research studies in this area have utilized children's drawings in an effort to discern what those perceptions are. Studies assessing perceptions children have of scientists have shown that children have stereotypical images of scientists. Although there is no direct evidence to demonstrate the link between children's images of science and scientists with their career choice, several researchers (including this researcher) have assumed that children's attitudes towards science are greatly influenced by their perceptions of science and scientists.

Purpose

This study aimed to find out if there was a difference in the way 5- to 8-year-old children drew scientists, taking account of age, gender and socio-economic status.

Sample

For this study a convenience sample of 30 young children was used. Participants included young children between the ages of 5 and 8 years from a public elementary school in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. Although the sample of the study was obtained from one school in a metropolitan area, children involved in this preliminary study were from very different socio-economic backgrounds. As the sample size is very small for making comparisons, it was intended to have a similar number of children from different age groups and socio-economic backgrounds and both genders.

Design and methods

The researcher worked individually with each child who participated in this study in an interview setting. Although each child was asked a set of standard questions, and given a standard set of directions, each interview session was informal enough to allow the researcher to gain additional information about children's drawings and to clarify any of their responses. During the interview sessions, children's responses were noted by the researcher. Before the children were asked to draw their picture of a scientist, they were offered a set of coloured pencils or crayons and told to feel free to colour their drawing or any parts of it they would like to accentuate. At the end of the interview and drawing sessions, the researcher went through all the drawings and notes to get a ‘feel’ for and ascertain what was being said, identifying key themes in each drawing.

Results

The most common scientist type drawn in this study was the stereotypical scientist type: someone who conducts research, or someone who tries to invent a new material. But unlike previous studies, around 35% of the scientist figures drawn (n = 15) were of the social scientist type. Stereotypical images drawn by the current study participants included symbols of research, such as scientific instruments and laboratory equipment of all kinds, and symbols of knowledge, principally books and cabinets, technology and the products of science. An interesting finding of this study was that perceptions of young children differed due to their age. Children at the age of 8 years drew non-stereotypical scientist images, and they drew more detail than did their younger peers. When children were compared in terms of their gender, no significant differences were observed between girls and boys. But on the other hand, none of the boys drew female scientists, and five out of 30 children who were girls drew female scientists. While children of parents with lower socio-economic status drew more stereotypical scientist images, children of parents with higher economic status drew different images of scientists, a result which showed us that the scientist perceptions of young children differ with socio-economic status.

Conclusions

Emergent from this research has been a non-stereotypical perception of scientists, and some evidence exists that such a non-stereotypical perception differs due to age and socio-economic status. While these images may seem amusing, they also provide a reflection of the image that children have about what a scientist looks like. These images may have a powerful impact on present functioning and future plans of young children.     

Young children's knowledge and strategies for comparing sizes

This study examined the knowledge and strategies that young children used for comparing sizes of geometric figures. Sixty-nine children from the ages 3 to 6 years were asked to compare sizes of geometric figures and their placement and adjustment strategies were observed. The children were also presented with strategies for comparing sizes and asked to choose the most effective one. As a result, children showed four different patterns of uses of strategies and judgments. Differences among children showing the four patterns (referred to as clusters 1–4) were summarized as follows: (a) children in clusters 2–4 made correct judgments for the relative sizes of figures placed on one another, (b) children in clusters 3 and 4 very often used the strategy of adjustment based on two dimensions, (c) only children in cluster 4 very often used the strategies of superimposition and adjustment based on two dimensions at the same time and made more correct judgments for the relative areas of two figures; and (d) children in cluster 4 selected as effective the strategy of adjusting figures based on two dimensions.