Prompting Children's Belief Revision About Balance Through Primary and Secondary Sources of Evidence.

ABSTRACT: Prior evidence has shown that children's understanding of balance proceeds through stages. Children go from a stage where they lack a consistent theory (No Theory), to becoming Center Theorists at around age 6 (believing that all objects balance in their geometric center), to Mass Theorists at around age 8, when they begin to consider the distribution of objects' mass. In this study we adapted prior testing paradigms to examine 5-year-olds' understanding of balance and compared children's learning about balance from evidence presented through primary sources (a guided activity) or secondary sources (picture books). Most of the research on young children's understanding of balance has been conducted using a single object, weighted either proportionally (symmetrical object) or disproportiona

SUBMITTER: Larsen NE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7387500 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature