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ERIC Number: EJ1204180
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Feb
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: N/A
Children's Developing Theory of Mind and Pedagogical Evidence Selection
Bass, Ilona; Gopnik, Alison; Hanson, Mason; Ramarajan, Dhaya; Shafto, Patrick; Wellman, Henry; Bonawitz, Elizabeth
Developmental Psychology, v55 n2 p286-302 Feb 2019
Natural pedagogy emerges early in development, but "good" teaching requires tailoring evidence to learners' knowledge. How does the ability to reason about others' minds support early pedagogical evidence selection abilities? In 3 experiments (N = 205), we investigated preschool-aged children's ability to consider others' knowledge when selecting evidence in the service of teaching. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that 4-year-olds reliably selected evidence to rectify others' false beliefs, and provided causal explanations in their teaching, whereas 3-year-olds did not. In Experiment 2, we tie children's evidence selection abilities to theory of mind (ToM) development, above and beyond effects of age and numerical conservation abilities. In Experiment 3, we employed a 6-week training of children's pedagogical evidence selection with a new teaching task, and further explored the relationship between these skills and children's ToM abilities. We qualitatively replicated our results from Experiment 2 and report tentative evidence for a link between the pedagogical training and improvements in ToM. Together, our findings suggest important connections between reasoning about others' minds and evidential reasoning in natural pedagogy during early childhood.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF); National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1640816; 1627971