Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle
Understanding the day/night cycle requires integrating observations of the sky (an Earth-based perspective) with scientific models of the solar system (a space-based perspective). Yet children often fail to make the right connections and resort to non-scientific intuitions – for example, the Sun mov...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2020-06-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01123/full |
| _version_ | 1828768353059078144 |
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| author | Caroline M. Gaudreau Florencia K. Anggoro Benjamin D. Jee |
| author_facet | Caroline M. Gaudreau Florencia K. Anggoro Benjamin D. Jee |
| author_sort | Caroline M. Gaudreau |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Understanding the day/night cycle requires integrating observations of the sky (an Earth-based perspective) with scientific models of the solar system (a space-based perspective). Yet children often fail to make the right connections and resort to non-scientific intuitions – for example, the Sun moving up and down – to explain what they observe. The present research explored whether children’s gestures indicate their conceptual integration of Earth- and space-based perspectives. We coded the spontaneous gestures of 85 third-grade children in U.S. public schools (Mage = 8.87 years) as they verbally explained the overall cause of the day/night cycle, the cause of sunrise, and the cause of sunset after receiving science instruction as part of a prior study. We focused on two kinds of gestures: those reflecting the Sun’s motion across the sky and those reflecting the Earth’s axial rotation. We found that participants were more likely to produce Earth rotation gestures for a topic they explained more accurately (the overall cause of the day/night cycle), whereas Sun motion gestures were more common for topics they explained less accurately (the causes of sunrise and sunset). Further, participants who produced rotation gestures tended to provide more accurate verbal explanations of the overall cause. We discuss how gestures could be used to measure – and possibly improve – children’s conceptual understanding and why sunrise and sunset may be particularly difficult topics to learn. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T11:53:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b1f7e5b36b9941cbab5cbc6b4ee179bb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T11:53:19Z |
| publishDate | 2020-06-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-b1f7e5b36b9941cbab5cbc6b4ee179bb2022-12-22T01:08:17ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782020-06-011110.3389/fpsyg.2020.01123527115Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night CycleCaroline M. Gaudreau0Florencia K. Anggoro1Benjamin D. Jee2College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Worcester State University, Worcester, MA, United StatesUnderstanding the day/night cycle requires integrating observations of the sky (an Earth-based perspective) with scientific models of the solar system (a space-based perspective). Yet children often fail to make the right connections and resort to non-scientific intuitions – for example, the Sun moving up and down – to explain what they observe. The present research explored whether children’s gestures indicate their conceptual integration of Earth- and space-based perspectives. We coded the spontaneous gestures of 85 third-grade children in U.S. public schools (Mage = 8.87 years) as they verbally explained the overall cause of the day/night cycle, the cause of sunrise, and the cause of sunset after receiving science instruction as part of a prior study. We focused on two kinds of gestures: those reflecting the Sun’s motion across the sky and those reflecting the Earth’s axial rotation. We found that participants were more likely to produce Earth rotation gestures for a topic they explained more accurately (the overall cause of the day/night cycle), whereas Sun motion gestures were more common for topics they explained less accurately (the causes of sunrise and sunset). Further, participants who produced rotation gestures tended to provide more accurate verbal explanations of the overall cause. We discuss how gestures could be used to measure – and possibly improve – children’s conceptual understanding and why sunrise and sunset may be particularly difficult topics to learn.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01123/fullgestureastronomymental modelsday/night cycleembodiment |
| spellingShingle | Caroline M. Gaudreau Florencia K. Anggoro Benjamin D. Jee Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle Frontiers in Psychology gesture astronomy mental models day/night cycle embodiment |
| title | Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle |
| title_full | Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle |
| title_fullStr | Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle |
| title_full_unstemmed | Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle |
| title_short | Children’s Spontaneous Gestures Reflect Verbal Understanding of the Day/Night Cycle |
| title_sort | children s spontaneous gestures reflect verbal understanding of the day night cycle |
| topic | gesture astronomy mental models day/night cycle embodiment |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01123/full |
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