Does Air Exist in Vases? Mental Representations of Children 4-6 Years Old

Abstract

Introduction. One of the prominent domains of research in the context of Early Childhood Science Education is the study of mental representations of 3-8 years old children about phenomena and concepts of science, as they are formed in school knowledge. Along this line, research has been conducted on various fields. Among them a small number of studies has turned to the concept of air. Basic mental representations of air indicate that young children do not recognize it as a material entity and are strongly influenced in their predictions by factors related to elements of experimental situations. Goal. The current research aims to explore the mental representations of 4-6 year old children about the existence of air in vases. Methods of the Research. The study was qualitative in nature and the sample was 41 children aged 4-6 years (26 children 4-5 years and 15 children 5-6 years). The research was conducted using semi-directed individual interviews. Children were asked, through 6 diverse tasks, to express their view regarding the existence of air in closed and open vases that were located in ‘closed’ or ‘open rooms’ as well as in the outdoor environment. Discussions were based on 6 digital pictures depicted in the tasks. The Results. Our findings showed that rather few responses were consistent with school knowledge. Among them, the fewest sufficient answers were in the tasks that dealt with closed vases. While the differences in responses between closed and open vases were not statistically significant, they were nevertheless systematically recorded. In addition, quite interestingly a substantial number of children regarded open window as an important factor in the existence of air in the vases. In general, children's answers were dominated by pre-logical explanations, instability in responses among different tasks as well as centrations regarding different parts of the pictures. Conclusions. In the current study became evident that the identification of children's difficulties regarding the existence of air in closed vases allows a series of rational choices at multiple levels: in the design of teaching activities, in the formulation of curricula, in the development of educational material and in teacher training. The need to extend the research to other areas related to the conceptualization of air was also highlighted.