The effects of adult guidance and peer discussion on the development of children's representations: evidence from the training of pedestrian skills.

It was hypothesized that practical training is effective in improving children's pedestrian skills because adult scaffolding and peer discussion during training specifically promote E3 level representation (linguistically-encoded, experientially-grounded, generalizable knowledge), as defined by Karmiloff-Smith's (1992) representational redescription (RR) model. Two studies were conducted to examine in detail the impact of this social input in the context of simulation-based training in roadside search skills. A group of 5-8-year-olds were pre-tested on ability to detect relevant road-crossing features. They then participated in four training sessions designed to promote attunement to these, under peer discussion versus adult guidance conditions (Study 1), and adult-child versus adult-group conditions (Study 2). Performance at post-test was compared with that of controls who underwent no training. Study 1 found that children in the adult guidance condition improved significantly more than those in the peer discussion or control conditions, and this improvement was directly attributable to appropriation of E3 level representations from adult dialogue. Study 2 found that progress was greater still when adult scaffolding was supplemented by peer discussion, with E3 level representation attributable to the children's exploration of conflicting ideas. The implications of these findings for the RR model and for practical road safety education are discussed.

[1]  Andrew Tolmie,et al.  Gender and Dialogue in Secondary School Physics. , 1993 .

[2]  W. Bechtel,et al.  Connectionism and the Mind , 1991 .

[3]  Anthony Anderson,et al.  Group and Interactive Learning , 1994 .

[4]  L. S. Vygotskiĭ,et al.  Mind in society : the development of higher psychological processes , 1978 .

[5]  Kirstie. Whelan,et al.  A COMMUNITY APPROACH TO ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION USING PRACTICAL TRAINING METHODS. THE DRUMCHAPEL PROJECT , 1997 .

[6]  C. Howe,et al.  Task design as an influence on dialogue and learning: primary school group work with object flotation , 1993 .

[7]  N. Webb.  Peer interaction and learning in small groups , 1989 .

[8]  The teachability of children with naive theories: An exploration of the effects of two teaching methods , 1999 .

[9]  Dorothy Miell,et al.  Children’s Creative Collaborations: The Importance of Friendship when Working Together on a Musical Composition , 2000 .

[10]  F P Rivara,et al.  Prevention of pedestrian injuries to children: effectiveness of a school training program. , 1991, Pediatrics.

[11]  Andrew Tolmie,et al.  Productive interaction in the context of computer-supported collaborative learning in science , 1999 .

[12]  What children do and what children know: looking beyond success using Karmiloff–Smith’s RR framework , 1999 .

[13]  Group collaboration effects and the explicitness of children's knowledge , 1998 .

[14]  A. C. Kruger.  Peer collaboration: conflict, cooperation, or both? , 1993 .

[15]  B. Schneuwly.  Cultural learning is cultural. [A commentary on Tomasello, Krugner and Ratner's "Cultural learning" Peer commentary by B. Schneuwly] , 1993 .

[16]  K. Ampofo-Boateng,et al.  Child pedestrian accidents: a case for preventive medicine , 1990 .

[17]  J. Bruner,et al.  Cultural learning. Author's reply , 1993 .

[18]  Andrew Tolmie,et al.  Conceptual change in biology: Group interaction and the understanding of inheritance , 2000 .

[19]  Elizabeth Towner.  Child Development and the Aims of Road Safety Education—A Review and Analysis. , 1998 .

[20]  T Rothengatter,et al.  A behavioural approach to improving traffic behaviour of young children. , 1984, Ergonomics.

[21]  J. Piaget,et al.  The Moral Judgement of the Child , 1977 .

[22]  Nicholas Elson,et al.  Aspects of Teaching and Learning. , 1983 .

[23]  Ma Tallandini.  IIIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology , 2004 .

[24]  P. Light,et al.  Children of social worlds : development in a social context , 1986 .

[25]  E. Byrne.  Gender in education , 1990 .

[26]  C. Howe,et al.  Peer Collaboration and Conceptual Growth in Physics: Task Influences on Children's Understanding of Heating and Cooling , 1995 .

[27]  Andrew Tolmie,et al.  Hypothesis testing in science: group consensus and the acquisition of conceptual and procedural knowledge , 2000 .

[28]  David N. Lee,et al.  Young children's learning on road‐crossing simulations , 1993 .

[29]  W. Damon,et al.  Critical distinctions among three approaches to peer education , 1989 .

[30]  J. Thomson,et al.  Problems of attention and visual search in the context of child pedestrian behaviour , 1998 .

[31]  Andrew Tolmie,et al.  The acquisition of conceptual knowledge in science by primary school children : group interaction and the understanding of motion down an incline , 1992 .

[32]  J. Stevenson.  The cultural origins of human cognition , 2001 .

[33]  W. Doise.  The social development of the intellect , 1984 .

[34]  L. Schauble,et al.  Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. , 1994 .

[35]  David N. Lee,et al.  A developmental and training study of children's ability to find safe routes to cross the road , 1993 .