Conceptos y justificaciones brindadas por niños de 3 y 4 años antes y después de ser instruidos acerca de camuflaje animal

Abstract

Las verbalizaciones que brindan los niños permiten que los adultos conozcamos sus apren­dizajes y pensamientos. En esta investigación confluyen dos líneas de investigación: una cen­trada en el impacto de los libros de imágenes en el aprendizaje de conceptos y otra referida a las justificaciones en la infancia. Se presentan dos estudios cuasi-experimentales con diseño de pre­prueba y posprueba. En el marco de la lectura conjunta de un libro de imágenes se presentó a niños de 3 y 4 años de edad el concepto de ca­muflaje, con y sin la instrucción del adulto. Pri­mero se analizaron las justificaciones que brin­daron los niños para fundamentar sus respuestas, tanto antes como después de la lectura y luego, las categorías conceptuales a las que apelaron. Se observó que con instrucción los niños de 4 años, pero no los de 3, aprendieron el concepto, recurrieron al él para sustentar sus respuestas y complejizaron sus justificaciones con respecto a las que brindaron antes de la lectura. Por otro lado, los niños de 4 años que no recibieron ins­trucción, no aprendieron el concepto, ni apelaron a él para sustentar sus respuestas; además, no modificaron las justificaciones brindadas des­pués de la lectura. Los resultados aportan sus­tento empírico respecto al entrelazamiento entre instrucción, aprendizaje de conceptos y justifi­caciones en la infancia.

Children's verbalizations provide a glimpse into their thoughts and learning processes. This research arises in the intersection of two fields: the impact of picture-books in conceptual and- justification learning. Dialogic picture-book re­ading is a widespread practice between children and adults. The main goal of this research was to analyze the verbalizations children gave before and after the exposition to the concept of ca­mouflage using a picture-book. We designed two studies using a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test approach. In Study 1 we compared two age group-children: 3- and 4-years-olds. Both groups were exposed to the concept of camou­flage guided by the instruction of an adult using a picture-book. We considered camouflage as the ability of some animals to blend with the envi­ronment to avoid being seen by predators. By instruction, we meant the information given by the adult using examples of animals. The ani­mals were shown in camouflaged and non-camouflaged settings and the adult explained which prey the predator could not eat based on the color of the animal and the background. The picture-book used was specially constructed for this research. It consisted of 10 pages; the first two showed a photograph of a predator (an ea­gle). The next eight pages showed four different preys depicted in camouflaged and no-camou­flaged settings. In the pre-test and the post-test children were asked to choose which prey the depredator will not eat. Children also had to support their answers by explaining why the bird will not eat the chosen prey. We analyzed children’s answers and the explanation that they gave before and after the exposition to the con­cept of camouflage with the picture-book. Ad­ditionally, we analyzed the justifications and the conceptual categories that children used to sup­port their choices. The justifications were inspi­red in Migdalek’s work (e.g. Migdalek, Rosemberg & Santibanez, 2014). The conceptual categories were created inductively from the transcription of children’s verbalizations. We found that the 4-years-olds learned the concept and support their choices appealing to the ca­mouflage category; also, they provided com­plex justifications. As far as 3-years-olds, even though they received the same instruction, they did not learn the concept, neither improved their justifications. Given these results, we concluded that the observed differences in the performance are due to the children’s age, since the instruc­tion provided was the same for the two age groups. To specifically explore the impact of the instruction we designed a Study 2 in which we compared children’s answers and their ver­balizations in two groups of 4-year-old children. Four-years-old were exposed to the same pic­ture-book with and without instruction. The pro­cedure followed was the one described in Study 1. In the condition without instruction, the ex­perimenter presented the children the picture- book indicating which prey the depredator would not eat, but without explaining the rea­sons. We found out that the children that did not receive any instruction did not learn the concept or used it to support their choices. Besides, this group did not improve their justifications. In contrast, the children that received instruction le­arned the concept and supported their choices using the camouflage category; in addition, they provided complex justifications. Overall, the results presented provided empirical data to highlight the close relationship between ins­truction, conceptual learning and justifying in children.