Abstract
This study was aimed to explore the rudimentary understanding of weight among young children, such as tactile experiencing and the reasoning of weight phenomena. Among 24 participants, we reached the following results: Firstly, the concept of weight was apparent to most of the young children through the tactile exploring although only the 6-year-olds were able to detect the fine differences within 5 grams among the light objects. Secondly, all participants were capable of using the terms such as “heavy” and “light”. However, through tactile experiencing in light objects, they had difficulty in terminology to understand “heavier” and “weight”. Thirdly, even the 3-year-olds were able to construct the rationale from multiple cues to predict and make inference about weigh as a crucial factor. Fourthly, in solving the problem of moving objects, young children have already developed the strategies by the composition and transformation of force and the resolution of object. Fifthly, on the ways to promote the effect of the free fall, the older children or those who excel in thinking showed their understanding not only in improving the condition of falling object but also in adjusting the fragility of the struck objects. Lastly, in regard of reasoning of floating and sinking, young children faced considerable cognitive conflicts; in the meantime, they employed the reasoning strategies such as irrelevant imagination, arbitrary clue-searching, either-or principle and logic-modifying.
| Keywords: | conceptual development; floating and sinking; free fall; weight |
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