Examining models constructed by kindergarten children
Despite its proven added value, modeling-based learning (MbL) in science is not commonly incorporated into the early grades. Our purpose in this descriptive case study was to enrich our understanding of how kindergarten children enact MbL by examining these children's constructed models and their accompanying oral descriptions of their models. For this purpose, we adopted a drawing-based modeling approach in which children used annotated drawings to represent their models. The participants consisted of four groups of 5- to 6-year-olds (68 children total) who studied the solution of substances in water. We analyzed child-developed models (artifact analysis) and their oral presentations (discourse analysis), seeking to provide rich, detailed descriptions of the characteristics of these models. Our findings suggest that children in the study developed five different types of models using three different depiction strategies. Our findings also suggest that when developing and presenting their models of a physical phenomenon, our kindergarten children tended to rely on analogical reasoning to identify similar, known situations corresponding to the phenomenon under study. They then invoked mechanistic reasoning to develop representations of the phenomenon under study based on the analogy they used. The spectrum of mechanistic reasoning used by the children, and the analysis of the structure and components of their constructed models serve as evidence suggesting that despite their limited experiences with formal science education, as well as with MbL in science, participating children could successfully engage in authentic MbL activities. We contend that this is aligned with the idea of modeling resources, suggesting that it is more productive to help children to develop more reliable access to modeling resources they already have, even though they are usually not aware of their connection to MbL, such as prior scientific knowledge, experience, and MbL skills. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Association for Research in Science Teaching.
How the Affordances of Different Modeling Tools Impact Kindergartener‐Constructed Models and Modeling Reasoning
This study seeks to enrich our understanding of modeling-based learning (MbL) in kindergarten science education, investigating the influences of different modeling tools on kindergarten child-constructed models and their modeling reasoning. Therefore, this multi-case study aimed at providing in-depth descriptions of how MbL was enacted by 66 kindergarteners while combining the use of three modeling tools: paper-and-pencil, three-dimensional structures, and dramatic play. We studied three different classes of children engaged in MbL who studied and modeled three different physical phenomena (wildflowers' parts and their functions, dissolving substances in water, shadow formation). We varied the modeling tools to investigate the ways these tools contributed to children's MbL. Data sources included the child-constructed models, their modeling discourse, and mechanistic reasoning. From the videotaped lesson transcripts, we developed detailed accounts of the three MbL cases, and we analysed the discourse using modeling frame analysis and mechanistic reasoning analysis, along with the model component artifact analysis of the child-constructed models. Findings suggested that the use of different modeling tools impacts child-constructed models and their corresponding modeling-based mechanistic reasoning. The findings also suggest that children's representational proficiencies seem to be related to the use of a variety of modeling tools, which enabled children to talk about the possible different ways of developing models and the different affordances of the various modeling tools' representational power. We use this evidence to argue that different modeling tools may afford different modeling possibilities that kindergarten children may draw upon possibly combining with modeling resources they have (e.g., role-playing, storytelling, drawing).