This study was a test of the relative importance of theory versus facts among six and nine year old children in explaining how something works. In learning science for young children, there is a misconception in understanding of theory and facts. Children learn by reconstructing their misconceptions of theory based on their everyday experience. Their ability was measured by examining the drawing of a pencil sharpener in the act of sharpening a pencil. The research design has four treatments: Treatment 1 (Think), Treatment 2 (See), Treatment 3 (Do) and Treatment 4 (Speak and Do). One hundred and sixty preschoolers and one hundred and sixty third graders were randomly assigned to perform four groups of treatments. The participants in each group of treatments had to explain how the pencil sharpener works by using drawing and words spoken (orally) describing what they see and think. The results of this study were not confirmed, but the ad hoc findings demonstrated that when showing the representation of functional relations of a system, children expressed their understanding better in words than in drawing. However, children are better able to represent the details of objects and the relationship between two objects of a working system by using the medium of drawing rather than the medium of words. These findings also suggest that third graders can make more improvements in representing the details of a working system than preschoolers can.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-1977 |
| Date | 01 January 2001 |
| Creators | Kamri, Bustam |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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