Children's Concept Learning Research Articles

The Role of Multimedia in Concept Learning from the Parents’ Perspective

During the period of the pandemic in particular, children who are not able to leave their homes have been spending more time using multimedia devices. This research was carried out in order to determine the role of multimedia in preschool children's concept learning, as expressed by their parents. For this purpose, the research was designed qualitatively, and the case study model was used. The study's working group consisted of 21 parents living in seven different geographical regions of Turkey. The parents were determined using the maximum variation sampling method. A semi-structured interview form was used as a data collection tool in the research. The content analysis technique was used to analyze the data obtained in the research. As a result of the research, it was determined that the multimedia devices that children spent most time on were televisions, smartphones and tablets. Children preferred to use multimedia mostly for fun and games. The vast majority of parents thought that adult supervision was needed when children spent time using multimedia devices. In the research, the benefit of multimedia use that the parents most emphasized was concept learning. According to the parents, their children learned many basic concepts through accessing multimedia content. Parents also expressed their opinion that the multimedia content and apps contributing most to the children's concept learning were animated cartoons, YouTube and digital games. As a result of the research, it can be said that technological devices that offer children multimedia content positively affect children’s learning of basic concepts.

Relational Matching-to-Sample Concept Learning in Children

The present study was formulated with an aim to examine the identical relational matching-to-sample concept learning in children, in which five students of kindergarten aged 7-8 were concurrently trained with two-choice relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks by using various shapes as stimuli under the conditions of no reinforcement for making correct responses. In particular, the RMTS tasks allowed subjects to see a sample of pair of stimuli at first, and then two comparison pair of stimuli. Subjects were trained to choose one of the two comparison pair of stimuli that matched the sample one. The number of tasks (e.g., AA vs. BB & MA in phase 1; BB vs. AA & MA in phase 2) was gradually increased. Research findings showed around or more than chance level performances made by three subjects out of five during the initial performances of the acquisition training in phase 1(e.g., AA vs. BB & MA). Subsequently, subjects were able to rapidly master the acquisition tasks with higher accuracy. After learning these RMTS tasks, they transferred the discriminative responding to two novel sets of stimuli securing higher accuracy in both baseline and test performances suggesting that they might have perceived and compared the relationship between objects in the sample pair of stimuli to the relationship between objects in the comparison pair of stimuli. Our findings suggest that children seemed to adopt the relational strategy to learn the RMTS tasks. These findings are considered in light of the implications for understanding the nature of the relational learning and their evolutionary origins.

Development of oddity concept learning in children: an evidence of intra-modal transfer

We investigated the formation of oddity concept in human subjects by means of multiple oddity discrimination tasks. Four human subjects were concurrently trained to discriminate an odd object from three identical objects in a row where the former one was reinforced. Discrimination tasks were gradually increased (e.g. 12 oddity tasks, 30 oddity tasks). Two out of four human subjects rapidly learned the acquisition tasks with higher accuracy rate suggesting that they seemed to avoid responding based on the strategy of the item-specific learning and to adopt relational processing. This assumption was stronger when robust transfer of learning with higher accuracy in baseline training performances was showed by them in transfer test 1 and transfer test 2. Although these findings offer evidence of relational oddity learning in humans, the possibility of the effect of stimulus generalization and the sense of perceptual oddity could not be excluded.

Cultural Differences in Mathematical Concept Learning

THE purposes of this paper are two. The first is to examine the acquisition of certain mathematical concepts by young children in two different cultures. The data from a concept formation experiment performed with children in California will be compared with data from the same type of experiment performed with children of the same age level in Accra, Ghana.' The concepts to be acquired in these experiments are two fundamental concepts in mathematics, identity of sets and identity of ordered sets. The second purpose is to apply mathematical learning theory, and in particular a learning model, to the data from both experiments. The model has proved to be a reasonably good first approximation to actual response behavior in a variety of experimental situations. One objective here is a further application of the theoretical model in a widely different cultural context. Specifically,. my interest is in a comparison of the fit of the model to data from two experimental situations which are, with one major exception, almost identical. The cultural backgrounds of the subjects are widely disparate. The two purposes are in a sense complementary: On the one hand, we can identify differences or similarities across cultures in children's formation of mathematical concepts. From the standpoint of the teaching of mathematics these culturally determined differences are of utmost significance. On the other hand, we assume that the basic behavioral processes involved in learning are the same, and a general learning theory should deal with, represent, or analyze these fundamental processes. We should expect a theoretical model to go beyond what are perhaps adventitious differences in its prediction of actual response behavior. Therefore, we should expect the model to fit the data from two dissimilar cultures equally well when the experimental situations are in other respects comparable. Before going on to a description of various aspects of the experiments, I should like to comment on the immediate relevance of comparisons of children's concept learning in different cultures. The revolution in the teaching of mathematics or in curriculum in mathematics is spreading throughout the world. In particular, many new programs and methods developed in one country are being adopted or adapted in other countries. With this exchange of ideas, materials, curricula, methods, etc., in mathematics teaching, any evidence concerning cultural differences in the concepts, children already possess, or their manner of acquiring new concepts, or the background of experience and language necessary to the formation of fundamental mathematical ideas is essential. The experiments to be described were performed primarily to provide evidence for just such a purpose. They were carried out in connec-

L'apprentissage de concepts chez l'enfant : facteurs cognilifs, structure des catégories et théories naïves

Summary : Children's concept learning : cognitive factors, structure of categories and theories The present paper presents a review of the literature on the development of concept learning by children. We analyze the development of different general cognitive factors such as attention, memory, inhibition and flexibility, involved in the selection and evaluation of dimensions relevant to categorize stimuli. The role of relevance and of salience of dimensions is also addressed. We discuss the relation between children's cognitive characteristics and the way they treat stimuli. The impact of category structure (defined by necessary and sufficient features, or by family resemblance) on the way concepts are represented (by stored exemplars or feature abstraction) and on the mode of processing stimuli (analytic vs. holistic) is examined. Finally, we address the role of naive theories and their influence on concept learning by children. Keywords : development, categorization, learning, selection of dimensions, concepts.

The effects of community-based literacy training on head start parents

Project PRIMER (PRoducing Infant/Mother Ethnic Readers) used trained university students to tutor mothers and 1- to 3-year-old children in the home, teaching them concepts and preparing the children to read. One hundred forty-three families were randomly assigned to high- (18 visits), low- (3 visits), or no-intervention groups. Mothers' behaviors were assessed pre- and postintervention. After the intervention, mothers in the high- and low-intervention groups were more likely to increase several behaviors thought to increase reading readiness and concept learning in children. Other positive behaviors increased from pre- to postassessment in all groups, suggesting either that any involvement in a literacy project is helpful, or that mothers were responding to developmental changes in their children.

Instructional design for accelerating children's concept learning.

Instructional design for accelerating children's concept learning.

Maximizing the mini-uses of on-line computers

This paper draws on our experiences at Carnegie-Mellon University to provide a decision framework for the acquisition of computer systems for laboratory applications. Also recommended are ways of creating an effective operating environment that can handle changing needs_ Systems developed for our most recent research in eye-movement recording and children's concept learning using the Turtle will illustrate the design principles for hardware and software components of minicomputer systems. Ten years ago there was a raging argument in small­ scale computer technology between those who preferred timeshared utilization of computer systems and those who believed that small dedicated computers were the solution to most laboratory problems. Uttal, in 1972, presented the pros and cons of timeshared vs dedicated computer use and introduced some additional questions. For example, Who does the programming? You or a hired hand? I think it was at that same meeting that Murdock reported that his new computer made it possible for him to do half as many experiments as he previously had done at twice the cost. His hired pro­ grammer had discovered a way of displaying ASCII strings on an oscilloscope using FORTRAN format read and write statements. Other pioneering efforts of that era include networking. Networking was brought about by tying up a small-scale computer with a large­ scale machine usually in the University Computation Center. By 1972, we had devised such a system and demonstrated it disastrously during Hurricane Agnes in June of 1972, in Pittsburgh. Agnes won.

Instructional design for accelerating children's concept learning.

Instructional design for accelerating children's concept learning.

Attending and processing broadened within children's concept learning

In a reviewed series of spontaneous and learning-set studies of adults and children, we have monitored active-touch overt attending during concept learning. Adults solved the problems even if they attended to four dimensions in the same trial; however, young children failed when attending so broadly but solved when attending to a single dimension. In the present training study, 18 6-year-olds solved all problems when restricted to attend to anly one dimension. After a special pretraining program proceeding through the subprocesses of stimulus familiarization, discrimination, labeling, “attentional broadening,” and memorization, 13 of the children managed to attend to all four dimensions in one trial and solve faster than adults. Findings suggest a developmental hypothesis that learning grows with spontaneous “tailoring” of attention to memory capacity.

Audio‐tutorial elementary school science instruction as a method for study of children's concept learning: Particulate nature of matter

Audio‐tutorial elementary school science instruction as a method for study of children's concept learning: Particulate nature of matter

Quantitative models for children's concept learning from a developmental perspective.

Quantitative models for children's concept learning from a developmental perspective.

Fading techniques and concept learning in children

The utility of stimulus fading as a training technique for attainment of concepts was questioned. Fading on a cue which focused attention toward the criterial aspect of the stimuli (axis of symmetry) produced no better performance than standard discrimination procedures, while fading on an extrinsic dimension yielded significantly poorer performance than did the standard. Possible explanations were discussed in terms of “blocking” effects.

Effects of stimulus modality on reversal and nonreversal concept learning in children

This study was concerned with the effects on reversal and nonreversal learning of presenting concept information either tactually or visually. A major finding of the investigation was the presence of a significant interaction between type of shift and mode of presentation. In the reversal situation, a tactual solution enhanced the shift solution, whereas in the nonreversal task, a tactual presentation interfered with the shift solution.

Effect of type of pretraining and variety of instances on children's concept learning

The effect of instructional set on pretraining performance and subsequent learning of the mathematical concepts of set-union and set-intersection was studied in children approximately ten-years-old. Verbal pretraining was found to facilitate learning during pretraining, compared with aesthetic pretraining. However, in the subsequent concept learning task, for which the same materials were employed, the Ss who had aesthetic pretraining acquired the concepts more readily than those who had rote-learning instructions during pretraining. This difference due to pretraining was only statistically reliable among relatively low socio-economic status (SES) Ss in the condition that received a small variety of instances of the concept. The variety of instances presented during the concept learning task did not significantly affect concept acquisition per se, but generalization to new instances was significantly greater when the concept had been learned originally from a small rather than a large variety of instances.