Pre-energy reasoning in preschool children

dc.creator	DIMITRIS KOLIOPOULOS
dc.creator	VASILIA CHRISTIDOU
dc.creator	IRINI SYMIDALA
dc.creator	ΜARIA KOUTSIOUBA
dc.date	2009-01-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:21:14Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:21:14Z
dc.identifier	1791-261X
dc.identifier	1792-3999
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/ba5a833e18d54b7bbd9637dc61e5544f
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/20346
dc.description	The research presented in this paper explores the degree to which preschool children have the ability to use mental representations which constitute precursor energy models. Twenty-five children (10 boys and 15 girls) participated in the study. They were presented with two different phenomenological situations considered as important for the establishment of pre-energy reasoning: the movement of a toy car with the use of batteries and the movement of an identical car with the use of a spring. The children were involved in personal, semi-structured interviews, which aimed at eliciting their explanations about the movement of the two cars. The analysis of children’s explanations reveals that they tend to explain the movement of cars in both phenomenological situations in naturalistic terms. These naturalistic explanations were mainly agentive, that is they regard the batteries and the spring correspondingly as external agents causing the cars’ movement. The major percentage of agentive naturalistic explanations was given in terms of the function of the objects under discussion, while a number of them were formulated in terms of distribution. These findings designate a developing understanding of physical causality and a pre-energy character in children’s reasoning, since they are capable of accounting for the two phenomenological situations in terms of object chains. Therefore, an attempt to introduce the aspect of energy transfer in preschool education could be considered.
dc.language	English
dc.language	French
dc.publisher	Metaichmio Publications
dc.relation	http://www.ecedu.upatras.gr/review/papers/3_1/3_6.pdf
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1791-261X
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1792-3999
dc.source	Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education, Vol 3, Iss 1, Pp 123-140 (2009)
dc.subject	Causal reasoning
dc.subject	energy
dc.subject	naturalistic explanations
dc.subject	precursor models
dc.subject	preschool children
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.title	Pre-energy reasoning in preschool children
dc.type	article