Chinese Journal of Science Education


Vol. 12 No. 2 , Pages 159 - 182 , 2004

Young Children’s Understanding of Weight (3- to 6-year-olds) — Weight as Essential Cognition of Matter and Reasoning of Conservation (Article written in Chinese)

Li-Chuan CHUANG

Abstract

As the second part of the research about the development of young childrens’ concept of weight, the purpose of this study is to explore advanced weight concepts such as weight as essential to the understanding of matter and the reasoning about conservation. The following results were found among the 24 participants (3- to 6-year-olds): Firstly, 3- to 4-year-olds showed their emergent ideas about objective weight understanding, such as the concept of matter, the distinction between substance and non-substance, and weight as characteristic of matter, etc. It’s also worth noting that, about the age of 6, children were not tied to visual features while making weight predictions. Secondly, from about 4, young children had emergent ideas of conservation reasoning. Features such as the height above the horizon, compression or expansion, deform or division, dissolution and temperature effect dominated most children’s prediction of weight. Some other features of children’s conceptions were to find, such as perceptually dominated thinking, limited focus, linear causal reasoning, and context dependency. However, the early gifted children showed prominence in strategic thinking skills such as identical, compensational and reversible reasoning. They were even aware of the process of transformation. It appeared that they postulated something exists unseen but steady despite changes in appearance. In addition, they were capable of retrieving messages with relevant clues and then making their reasoning.

Keywords: conservative reasoning; conceptual development; matter; weight

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