Young
Children's Conditional Reasoning on the Four-Cards Selection task:
The Influence of Context and Experience K. Nakamichi |
This
study examined young children's (N=87) development of conditional
reasoning competence. Using the four-cards selection task of Harris
and Nunez (1996), an age (3-, 4- and 5-year-olds) by context (deontic
context whereby mother states the premise vs. descriptive context
whereby the child states the premise) by task (familiar task based
on a premise relating to an empirical matter for the participant
vs. counterfactual task involving a counterfactual matter) factorial
design (one between, two within factors) was utilized. According
to the results, five-year-old children performed better than 3-year-olds,
the deontic context encouraged children's performance more than the
descriptive context, and the counterfactual task was more difficult
than the familiar task. A significant 3-way interaction showed that
5-year-olds could succeed even on the counterfactual task if it was
in the deontic context. The data suggested that a theory of deontic
reasoning was more appropriate than that of pragmatic reasoning model. Key words: early childhood, conditional reasoning, deontic reasoning, context, cognitive development |