Chinese Journal of Science Education

Abstract

This study includes three main parts: (a) to investigate the difference between the paper and pencil group test and the clinical interview method for the diagnosis of waterlevel concept; (b) to understand the developmental trend of the water-level concept or spatial concept of the Chinese students; (c) to understand the sex difference of the development of the water-level concept or spatial concept of the Chinese students and their beginning ages.

Our study has shown that the paper and pencil group test can elicit most of the conceptual models of the water level problem as claimed by the Piaget's theory, however the paper and pencil group test can only differentiate four of the seven developmental stages of the water level problem as originally claimed by Piaget. The reasons for this difficulty are two: the first is that the paper and pencil group test can not provide the subjects with appropriate hand on manipulations and observations of the set-ups, and/or the test lacks the instantaneous conversations between the tester and testee; secondly, it is difficult to judge the difficulties of performances of the very young students as due to their lack of skill or due to their weakness of conceptual development . We also noted that the high level performance of the water-level concept in the paper and pencil group demonstrated a very stable characteristics, while that of the low level performance is relatively low.

Based on the results of the tests to about six thousand elementary and secondarily students, we can see four main periods of developments: before the age of six , or the pre-school or kindergarten period, is the period for the development of topological to geometrical spatial concept; from about the age of six to ten for the female students, and from about the age of six to eight for male students are the periods for the development of local spatial concept or local reference system concept; then from about the age of ten to fifteen for female students and eight to fifteen for the male students are th period for the development of global spatial concept or global reference system concept; and finally from about the age of fifteen or sixteen on for both sexes there show a slow down development for the spatial ability.

The sex difference for the development of spatial concept shows up as early as the age of seven or eight for the low level spatial concept, and at about the age of nine or ten for the high level spatial concept, and the difference increases gradually thereafter. The development of the female students at the age of fourteen or fifteen is only equivalent to the development of the male students at about the age of twelve or thirteen.

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