Children's concepts of gears and their promotion through play

Abstract

The mechanical transmission of motion, which is observable in gears' turning direction (TD) and turning speed (TS) can be understood as part of the core concept "force and motion". Previous studies have suggested that most children before the age of nine have naïve concepts of gears' TD and TS. However, these studies relied on children's explanation data and might have therefore underestimated young children's potential. Moreover, these studies did not examine whether preschoolers can overcome their naïve concepts through teaching. Recently, educators have proposed guided play as an educational approach that combines children's play with teacher guidance in a purposefully designed environment. We conducted two subsequent studies. In Study 1, we investigated the children's (naïve) concepts of gears' TD and TS with a cross-sectional approach using a nonverbal test procedure. This study comprised 248 children aged 5-10 years and 73 adults. The results showed that the proportion of children with adequate concepts increased with age. More specifically, 7-to 8-year-olds differed significantly from 5-to 6year-olds, indicating a developmental shift around this age. However, naïve concepts of TS were more persistent with age than naïve concepts of TD. Altogether, the results indicated the potential to foster 5-to 6-year-olds' concepts of both TD and TS in an intervention. Thus, in Study 2, we

Components and Mechanisms: How Children Talk About Machines in Museum Exhibits

“…Thus, this variable was included to examine whether the components or history prompt might have inadvertently influenced another variable (i.e., it is important to ensure that the experimental prompt did not inflate all types of relevant talk or that the control prompt did not somehow inflate whole object talk, pulling focus away from the mechanisms and internal part talk). Additionally, we anticipate effects of age, with older children having more discussions about the parts of the machine, and more mechanistic utterances, as this is in line with previously documented gains in education research (Reuter and Leuchter, 2020).…”

“…We predicted that children who received the component prompt would be rated as more knowledgeable because prior work shows that explanations that reference the internal mechanisms and parts of a machine tend to appear more knowledgeable than those that provide non-mechanistic explanations (Lockhart et al, 2019;Chuey et al, 2020). Again, we also predicted the effects of age, with older children recalling more about the machine's parts and mechanisms (Reuter and Leuchter, 2020).…”

“…When encountering a new artifact, children have much to learn, including facts relevant to the whole artifact, such as its name and purpose, and facts about its components such as the role of specific parts in its operation. Mechanical machines provide a particularly unique learning challenge for young children, as they consist of not only external parts but also internal parts and mechanisms that are unseen but critical to their functioning (e.g., Leuchter and Naber, 2018;Reuter and Leuchter, 2020). Reflecting this fact, early childhood science curricula emphasize the importance of teaching young children about mechanical machines and forces during grade school (e.g., Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007;Michigan Department of Education, 2015).…”

Science competencies in kindergarten: a prospective study in the last year of kindergarten

“…In the last years, large efforts have been made to implement scientific literacy education in elementary school and even in kindergarten (e.g., NRC 2012). Research has succeeded in demonstrating that science content knowledge can successfully be fostered in kindergarten (Leuchter et al 2014;Reuter and Leuchter 2021;Steffensky et al 2012). Often, these interventions build on an inquiry-based design with a blend of scientific-thinking processes and science content knowledge (e.g., Lazonder and Harmsen 2016).…”

The Impact of a Construction Play on 5- to 6-Year-Old Children’s Reasoning About Stability

“…Research indicates that guided play with additional verbal scaffolds promotes children’s science learning more effectively than free play ( Pine et al, 1999 ; Hadzigeorgiou, 2002 ; Fisher et al, 2011 ; Reuter and Leuchter, 2020 ). However, there are only a few studies that have deliberately compared the effectiveness of material scaffolds with additional verbal scaffolds for children’s science learning.…”