Precursor Models and Early Years Science Learning: A Case Study Related to the Water State Changes

Abstract

Children's everyday activities enable them to learn some science even before entering preschool education and children bring these ideas with them when entering education settings. Some of these ideas, or else mental representations, may not be compatible with what is generally accepted by the scientific community. This paper presents the results of an empirical study, focusing on the construction of a precursor model that can support children's scientific learning, in relation to the phenomenon of change of the state of water. The research included 91 children aged 5-6 which participated in a specifically designed teaching intervention. The intervention lasted approximately 55 min and was conducted at eight stages, during which children's predictions and explanations for simple cases of change of the state of water were recorded. The analysis of children's responses suggests that the specific teaching intervention can have a positive effect on children's thinking in relation to the change of the state of water. A considerable number of pre-schoolers were able to take advantage of their involvement in the teaching intervention and construct a stable precursor model to support the development of their understanding, in relation to the water change of state phenomenon. It appears that precursor models can function in the minds of young children as intermediaries between mental representations of reality and scientific knowledge and prepare children's thinking, forming the basis for a cognitive path towards cognitive processing and the formation of more complex models. The proposed intervention is compatible with the model used in science education and it is proposed to be used in moderation and should not replace children's learning through play.

The Early-Year Children’s Engagement and Scientific-Phenomena Recognition in Indonesia

“…The early-year children had been aware about the presence of those simple phenomena of science even though they had not been taught formally by the teacher. Kambouri-Danos et all, [17] reckoned that daily activities of children could help them to easily learn science even before they enter PAUD, and these science knowledges may be developed during the school time. Some appropriate teaching methods may include Inquiry-based learning [18], demonstration [19], experiment [20].…”

Early Childhood Science Education from 0 to 6: A Literature Review

“…Kambouri-Danos et al, 2019 [25] Examined the way in which the construction of a precursor model can support children's scientific learning.…”

“…A small group of studies identified in the current review examined the efficacy of specific teaching interventions/programs, in promoting scientific understanding, within the early childhood setting. Studies identified examined interventions in relation to the development of conceptual understandings of astronomical concepts [20,36], the construction of "pre-cursor" models to support scientific learning [25], the implementation of interventions designed to increase children's voluntary exploration of science centres during free choice play [28] and the combining of a museum and classroom intervention project on science learning in lowincome children [35]. Positive outcomes in relation to the development of science concepts (in children aged 3-6 years) across all the identified studies was noted.…”

Interpersonal Meaning: Verbal Text–Image Relations in Multimodal Science Texts for Young Children

“…Instead, they are considered as active agents who construct knowledge in the context of social interactions and teaching mediation, based on their previous science-related experiences and conceptions [36,37,[47][48][49]. Under the socio-cognitive lens, knowledge is not seen as objective or independent of the learner, but closely related to the child's life, while knowledge construction, i.e., learning, presupposes her/his action, participation, and active engagement [39,41,48,50].…”