Children's Perceptions of the Earth as a Function of Age - Research Paper Example

Children’s Perceptions of the Earth as a Function of Age and Research Method Used Abstract This study examined the nature of younger (ages 5-6) and older (ages 8-9) children’s perceptions of the earth. Specifically, it sought to examine whether any significant differences were found between the perceptions of the two groups, as well as to test claims by Panagiotaki, Nobes, and Banerjee (2006), among others, that the research method used in measuring children’s perceptions of the earth significantly influences the results. A partial replication of Panagiotaki et al.’s research was conducted, with younger children (n=62) and older children (n=90) being asked both open questions and forced-choice questions. Results indicated that younger and older children’s perceptions of the earth do significantly differ from each other. However, the children’s responses were not significantly influenced by the method used. Introduction Since the publication of the groundbreaking work by Nussbaum and Novak (1976), the study of children’s understanding of the earth has been of interest to developmental and educational psychologists. Through examining children’s conceptions of the earth, it is possible to gain insight into how beliefs and theories develop as well as to how the accumulation of knowledge occurs. Children’s conceptions of the earth provide a unique focus of study in this area, in that observable and scientific knowledge regarding the earth contradict each other. In other words, that which is easily observable by children (i.e. the earth is flat) is often different from that which is scientifically true (i.e. the earth is round). In 1992, Vosniadou and Brewer conducted a study designed to test elementary school children’s conception of the earth. 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade students were tested. Initially, the children’s responses seemed inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. Upon further investigation, Vosniadou and Brewer (1992) were able to identify 6 naive mental models held by the children: the sphere, the rectangular earth, the disc earth, the dual earth, the hollow sphere, and the flattened sphere. Vosniadou and Brewer theorized that each of these mental models represented a step in the progression from the early observable to what is scientifically true, and represented incremental ways for the children to assimilate what they saw with the scientific knowledge of the earth. The research indicated that the children’s responses did vary by age group. The responses of the 1st graders were the most diverse, with the responses of 7 out of the 20 children being inconsistent, 6 being consistent with the dual earth model, 3 with the sphere, 1 with the flattened sphere, and 1 with the rectangular earth. The responses for the 20 3rd graders were more consistent, with the responses of 8 being consistent with the sphere model, 4 with the hollowed sphere, 3 with the flattened sphere, 2 with the dual earth, and 1 with the disc earth. The responses of the 20 5th grade children were the most consistent of all, with 12 being consistent with the sphere model and 6 with the hollow sphere. Subsequent research, mostly conducted by Vosniadou and colleagues, has confirmed the consistency and the cross-cultural applicability of Vosniadou and Brewer (1992)’s results, lending support for the theory that children form naive mental models of the earth. Although research conducted by Vosniadou and colleagues supported Vosniadou and Brewer (1992)’s initial findings, other research had very different results. As early as 2001, Schoultz, Saljo, and Wyndhamn argued that children’s responses should be seen as products of the interview situation and the questioning method, rather than as accurate expressions of knowledge. They argued that by altering the interview situation, the responses would be altered. Nobes, Martin, and Panagiotaki (2005) had children between the ages of 5 and 10 rank pictures according to how well they were thought to represent the earth. Results indicated that even young children have scientific knowledge of the earth, and that their pre-scientific knowledge is fragmented. 5 to 6 year olds showed no preference for the locations of people or the sky, but 2/3 of the 7-10 year olds ranked the pictures with people or the sky around the earth above those with people or the sky on top of the earth. This indicates that the 5 to 6 years olds did not yet have complete scientific knowledge regarding the earth, but that the 7-10 year olds did, as they understood that people are able to live all over the earth without “falling off”. The main challenge to Vosniadou and Brewer (1992)’s work was made by Panagiotaki, Nobes, and Banerjee (2006). According to Panagiotaki et al., recent research (e.g. Nobes et al.,2005; Schoultz et al., 2001; Siegal, Butterworth, & Newcombe, 2004) did not support Vosniadou and Brewer’s mental model theory, but rather indicated that young children’s conception of the earth was fragmented in nature. Panagiotaki et al. argued that the reason for this discrepancy was the method used. Panagiotaki et al. replaced Vosniadou and Brewer (1992)’s open questions and drawings with forced-choice questions and 3-D models. Both the original method and the new method were tested on 6 year old children; results indicated that the original Vosniadou and Brewer method resulted in responses more consistent with their mental model theory, while the new method resulted in more scientific answers. Thus Panagiotaki et al. claim that the results are a product of the method used. In 2007, Nobes and Panagiotaki published results of research in which they gave the original drawing task to adults; fewer than half of the adults’ pictures were scientific and 15% were identical with naive drawings gathered in the original research (i.e. from children). Up to half of the responses to the open questions were non-scientific. Follow-up interviews indicated that the adults found the questions to be ambiguous and difficult. Again, these results indicate that the children’s responses in the original study may be less a reflection of knowledge than a result of the method used. According to Panagiotaki, Nobes, and Potton (2009), the Vosniadou and Brewer (1992) responses are actually more random and less consistent responses caused by the ambiguity and confusing nature of the questions. According to Panagiotaki et al., Vosniadou and Brewer then shaped these responses into sets of indicators of what they believed to be consistent naive mental models. Panagiotaki et al. found that when they revised the original drawing task to make it clearer, the responses of the 6 and 7 year old children were more in-line with scientific understanding than with having naive mental models. In research conducted by Nobes and Panagiotaki (2009), the original and the new versions of the drawing task and questions were tested on adults. Once again, many adults answers were non-scientific in nature and were identical to children’s. Conversely the revised version resulted in responses which were significantly more scientific in nature. Research conducted by Hannust and Kikas (2007) and Straatemeier, van der Maas, and Jansen (2008) also indicated a lack of mental models and indicated that pre-scientific knowledge is fragmentary in nature. In response to these challenges, Vosniadou, Skopeliti, and Ikospentaki (2004) conducted research investigating how different methods of questioning affected children’s responses regarding the shape of the earth and the day/night cycle. The subjects in the study were 1st and 3rd grade Greek schoolchildren, and results indicated that the questioning method used did affect the research results. According to Vosniadou et al. (2004), an open method of questioning resulted in responses consistent with a small number of mental models of the earth. Conversely, the forced question method results in more scientifically correct answers, but less internal consistency. The authors believe that this result indicates that different questioning methods “tap different forms of knowing and encourage different ways of reasoning in elementary astronomy” (p. 203). According to Vosniadou et al. (2004), the results obtained through both methods indicate that 1st graders and 3rd graders have different conceptions of the earth. When the open method of questioning was used, the most supported models for the 1st graders were the hollow sphere model followed by the sphere without gravity model. Meanwhile, the responses of the 3rd graders were most consistent with the sphere model. These findings are consistent with Vosniadou and Brewer (1992)’s original findings. When the forced-choice questionnaire was used, differences were also observed. For 1st graders, the sphere without gravity model was supported by the most students (although 42% of the student responses were deemed to be inconsistent) and the responses consistent with the sphere model were most common for the 3rd graders. This study will focus on answering two research questions. The first research question will be “Do older children’s and younger children’s perceptions of the earth significantly differ from each other?” For the purposes of this study, ‘older children’ will refer to 8 and 9 year old children and ‘younger children’ will refer to 5 and 6 year old children. The second question to be examined will focus on the influence of method on results, namely “Does the method used to measure children’s perceptions of the earth result in significantly different results?” Method Participants The participants were 152 children. The children were recruited from two age groups; a ‘younger’ group of 62 who were aged between 5 and 6, and an ‘older’ group of 90 who were aged between 8 and 9. The children were recruited and interviewed by students enrolled in Australia and Singapore. Materials and Design Children were assigned to one of two modes of questioning based on Panagiotaki, Nobes and Banerjee (2006). One mode used open questions, whereas the other used forced-choice questions. The interview schedule for each mode of questioning is shown in Appendix A. Procedure Once informed consent was acquired from parents or guardians (see Appendix B for a copy of the consent form), children were interviewed in individual sessions. Data were coded according to a highly simplified scheme adapted from Panagiotaki, Nobes and Banerjee (2006). If the child answered all the questions correctly, he or she was classified as having a ‘Consistent Scientific’ model of the earth. Incorrect answers resulted in the child’s responses being coded as ‘Inconsistent or non-scientific’ model. Results Relationship between method of data collection and type of response was not significant. However, the relationship between age and type of response was significant, c2 (1, N=152) = 15.211, p = 0.000 Table 1 Frequencies of responses coded as Scientific vs. Inconsistent/non-scientific by Younger and Older age group. Outcome Scientific Inconsistent/non-scientific Total Age Younger Observed freq (Expected freq) 10 (21.2) 52 (40.8) 62 (62) Older Observed freq (Expected freq) 42 (30.8) 48 (59.2) 90 (90) Total Observed freq (Expected freq) 52 (52) 100 (100) 152 (152) The findings suggest that the children’s responses were not related to the method of questioning adopted. However their responses did seem to be related to their age. Children in the younger group made more responses that were classified as inconsistent or non-scientific, and fewer scientific responses, whereas children in the older group made more scientific responses and fewer inconsistent or non-scientific responses. For illustrative purposes, a copy of a child’s drawing gathered during the questioning procedure is provided in Appendix C. Discussion This study focused on answering two research questions: “Do older children’s and younger children’s perceptions of the earth significantly differ from each other?” and “Does the method used to measure children’s perceptions of the earth result in significantly different results?” According to the research results, older and younger children’s perceptions of the earth do differ from each other. The results clearly indicate that the older children (8 to 9 year-olds) provided significantly more scientific responses than did the younger children (5 to 6 year-olds). These findings are consistent with previous research (i.e. Nobes, Martin, & Panagiotaki, 2005; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992; Vosniadou, Skopeliti, & Ikospentaki, 2004). Although researchers disagree as to the nature of children’s pre-scientific perceptions of the earth, with one school of thought, championed primarily by Vosniadou and her colleagues, believing that children adhere to naive mental models, while the other school of thought, championed primarily by Panagiotaki and her colleagues, believe that pre-scientific knowledge is ambiguous and fragmented, both agree that older children have much more scientific perceptions of the world than do younger children. The results of this study found that only 10 out of 62 younger children provided responses consistent with scientific knowledge, while 42 out of 90 older children provided answers which were consistent with scientific knowledge. Thus the results of the present study support previous findings. Conversely, the research results did not indicate any significant differences in the responses based on the research method used. Although this itself does not validate Vosniadou and Brewer (1992)’s theory of naive mental models, it does contradict claims by Panagiotaki et al. (2006, 2009) and Nobes and Panagiotaki (2007) that the method used influences the results obtained. Importantly, the claims of these authors, specifically that the results obtained by Vosniadou and Brewer (1992) were the product of the (supposedly flawed) instruments they used, is not supported by the present research. References Hannust, T. & Kikas, E. (2007). Children’s knowledge of astronomy and its change in the course of learning. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22, 89-104. Nobes, G., Martin, A.E., & Panagiotaki, G. (2005). The development of scientific knowledge of the earth. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 46-64. Nobes, G. & Panagiotaki, G. (2007). Adults’ representations of the earth: Implications for children’s acquisition of scientific concepts. British Journal of Psychology, 98, 645-665. Nobes, G. & Panagiotaki, G. (2009). Mental models or methodological artefacts? Adults’ ‘naive’ responses to a test of children’s conceptions of the earth. British Journal of Psychology, 100, 347-363. Nussbaum, J. & Novak, J.D. (1976). An assessment of children’s concepts of the earth utilizing structured interviews. Science Education, 60, 535-550. Panagiotaki, G., Nobes, G., & Banerjee, R. (2006). Children’s representations of the earth: A methodological comparison. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24, 353-372. Panagiotaki, G., Nobes, G., & Potton, A. (2008). Mental models and other misconceptions in children’s understanding of the earth. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104, 52-67. Schoultz, J., Saljo, R., Wyndhamn, J. (2001). Heavenly talk: Discourse, artifacts, and children’s understanding of elementary astronomy. Human Development, 44, 103-118. Siegal, M. Butterworth, G. & Newcombe, P. (2004). Culture and children’s cosmology. Developmental Science, 7, 308-324. Straatemeier, M., van der Maas, H.L.J., & Jansen, B.R.J. (2008). Children’s knowledge of the earth: A new methodological and statistical approach. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 276-296. Vosniadou, S. & Brewer, W.F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 535-585. Vosniadou, S., Skopeliti, I., Ikospentaki, K. (2004). Modes of knowing and ways of reasoning in elementary astronomy. Cognitive Development, 19, 203-222. Read More