ERIC Number: EJ1367178
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0950-0693
EISSN: EISSN-1464-5289
Available Date: N/A
Promoting Questioning in Early Childhood Science Education
Paños, Esther; Carrión, Ana; Ruiz-Gallardo, José-Reyes
International Journal of Science Education, v44 n11 p1840-1854 2022
Early science learning and, specifically, the development of scientific process skills are essential for children to understand the natural world around them. Question asking is a valuable tool to help children get information to organise and make sense of their environment. This research aims to find out whether pre-elementary children employ categorical questions on an information-seeking task and at what age they do so. It also intends to examine how this skill evolves just after an educational intervention, and two months later. The participants were 72 children from three early childhood education levels (ECE1: 3-4 years old; ECE2: 4-5 years old; and ECE3: 5-6 years old). Before the intervention, most of the children did not spontaneously ask categorical questions in the proposed task. Teaching this ability to them made them improve it, mainly in the ECE2 and ECE3 groups, and the acquired learning was maintained over time. However, the youngest children have considerable difficulties in using categorical questions. Thus, activities to model children's scientific skills, particularly those involving the formulation of categorical questions, could be included as part of the science teaching-learning process from 4 to 5 years of age.
Descriptors: Young Children, Early Childhood Education, Science Instruction, Questioning Techniques, Intervention, Outcomes of Education, Skill Development, Learning Processes, Science Process Skills, Time Factors (Learning), Foreign Countries
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Spain
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A