The purpose of the present research study was to produce a global, cumulative model of number concept development for children between the ages of two and eight years old.
The theoretical and methodological orientation of this study was greatly influenced by Richard Young's production system analysis of seriation by young children (Young, 1971, 1976) and by Newell's (1973) seminal paper, You can't play twenty questions with nature and win. The methodology used in this investigation thus was as follows. A series of complex number tasks encompassing many aspects of the concept of number were developed. Five children aged between three and seven years then were videotaped while performing some of these complex number tasks. From a detailed protocol analysis of the video-recordings, computer simulation models written in the production system language PSS3 (Ohlsson, 1979) were produced.
Specific production system models were produced for each of following aspects of the children's number knowledge:
(i) sharing of discrete quantities;
(ii) comparison of shares; and
(iii) conservation/addition/subtraction of number.
These domain-specific models were based on the converging experimental evidence obtained from each of the childrens responses to variants of the complex number tasks. Each child thus received a different set of problems which were chosen systematically in order to clarify particular features of the child's abilities. After a production system model for each child had been produced within a domain, these models were compared and contrasted. From this analysis, developmental trends within the domain were identified and discussed. The research and educational implications of these developmental trends then were discussed.
In the concluding parts of this study, the children's domain-specific production system models were cumulated into global, comprehensive models which accurately represented their behaviour in a variety of number tasks. These comprehensive models were compared and contrasted and general developmental trends in young children's number knowledge were identified and discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217107 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Nason, Rodney Allan, mikewood@deakin.edu.au |
| Publisher | Deakin University. School of Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.deakin.edu.au/disclaimer.html), Copyright Rodney Allan Nason |
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