Journal of Education and Psychology

Based on a literature review, discussions focused on children's analogical reasoning performance and developments.

There are two ways to measure children's analogical reasoning: using the classical item analogy task (e.g. a:b::c:d), such as found on IQ tests; or the problem solving orientation, after children learning analogous problems and their solutions (source problem), then asking them to solve target problems. Based on the two kinds of measures, there are four theories of analogical development. They are as follows: 1) A structural theories by J. Piaget; 2) Componential theories by R. J. Sternberg; Problem solving orientation, includes; 3) D.Gentner's structure-mapping theory and 4) K J. Holyoak's schema induction theory.

This paper shows that 1) Age is very important to analogical reasoning. The development of analogical reasoning ability is from immature perceptional reasoning to mature goal directional reasoning; 2) Children's age before formal stage (under age 11). If they are familiar and understand the related knowledge and relations hips of the presented analogy problems, they can perform analogy reasoning well. 3) Providing problem solving related domain knowledge, hints, reminding cues and instruction may promote analogy reasoning, especially for younger children.

Suggestions on instructions are made for promoting children's analogical reasoning.

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