Children's success at detecting circular explanations and their interest in future learning

CM Mills, JH Danovitch, SP Rowles… - Psychonomic bulletin & …, 2017 - Springer
Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2017Springer
These studies explore elementary-school-aged children's ability to evaluate circular
explanations and whether they respond to receiving weak explanations by expressing
interest in additional learning. In the first study, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds (n= 53) heard why
questions about unfamiliar animals. For each question, they rated the quality of single
explanations and later selected the best explanation between pairs of circular and
noncircular explanations. When judging single explanations, 8-and 10-year-olds, and to …
Abstract
These studies explore elementary-school-aged children’s ability to evaluate circular explanations and whether they respond to receiving weak explanations by expressing interest in additional learning. In the first study, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds (n = 53) heard why questions about unfamiliar animals. For each question, they rated the quality of single explanations and later selected the best explanation between pairs of circular and noncircular explanations. When judging single explanations, 8- and 10-year-olds, and to some extent 6-year-olds, provided higher ratings for noncircular explanations compared to circular ones. When selecting between pairs of explanations, all age groups preferred noncircular explanations to circular ones, but older children did so more consistently than 6-year-olds. Children who recognized the weakness of the single circular explanations were more interested in receiving additional information about the question topics. In Study 2, all three age groups (n = 87) provided higher ratings for noncircular explanations compared to circular ones when listening to responses to how questions, but older children showed a greater distinction in their ratings than 6-year-olds. Moreover, the link between recognizing circular explanations as weak and interest in future learning could not be accounted for solely by individual differences in verbal intelligence. These findings illustrate the developmental trajectory of explanation evaluation and support that recognition of weak explanations is linked to interest in future learning across the elementary years. Implications for education are discussed.
Springer
以上显示的是最相近的搜索结果。 查看全部搜索结果