Effects of Schematic Organization on Scientific Contents Learned by Eight-Year-Old Children

Abstract

This study is an extension of schematic theory on the acquisition of scientific contents by children. The variable, “importance of actions,” considered functionally intensive in schematic organization, was categorized and scaled. Two retention intervals were also introduced to extend this research to the study of cognitive change over. A simple physics demonstration (changes of phase of water: solid to liquid and liquid to gas) was carried out in front of 65 children ages 7.4 to 8.4 yr. Then, they were asked to write and explain what they had seen. The sentences were classified and scaled, and a script was built from them. Statistically significant comparisons between actions lead us to accept that categorization and schematic organization techniques could explain some aspects of the process by which children acquire scientific knowledge.