初探幼兒的二維空間推理能力：空間框架和手感體驗的影響

Abstract

間推理是生活中不可或缺的能力，在幼兒階段發展空間推理可以為後續學校教育中各學科領域的學習奠定認知能力之基礎。過去採用三段論法的研究(Pears & Bryant, 1990)，其結果顯示前運思期的幼兒能成功地解決一維空間「高低相對關係」之遞移推理問題: 當A高於B、B高於C，則A比C高。本研究根據Andrew 與 Halford (1998) 的任務，設計了火車車廂為情境的一維空間「左右相對關係」遞移推理問題，作為本研究的前測任務，而前測的結果支持過去研究的發現: 6歲兒童具有一維空間遞移推理的能力。 接著，本研究的實驗一旨在進一步探討6歲兒童對二維空間「左右相對關係」的遞移推理能力，任務包含推理(說出推理答案)及建構(動手操作出推理答案)兩部份。採用了兩行五列的二維空間結構作為任務的空間架構，並運用動物農場和班級座位表為推理任務的故事情境。以76位6歲兒童為樣本，研究結果發現幼兒的空間遞移推理能力只侷限於一維空間關係。 實驗二接著探討可能提升二維空間推理的實驗介入輔助。基於蒙特梭利教育和肢體分散式學習理論的實證研究，肢體操作有助於提升學習的效果。而過去有研究顯示空間框架(視覺輔助)有助於兒童整合空間關係，能幫助兒童成功地解決複雜的空間關係，戰勝發展的限制。因此本研究透過2 X 2雙因子實驗設計探討「肢體操作」(有/無)與「空間框架」(有/無)對6歲兒童的二維空間遞移推理是否有輔助效果。結果顯示時間短暫的手感操作體驗對二維空間遞移推理有負向的效果，而空間框架的效果並不顯著。即使把二維和一維任務的元素個數維持恆定，二維任務比一維任務對六歲幼兒造成更大的認知挑戰。值得一提的還有，無論是一維或二維推理任務，推理(說出推理答案)比建構(動手操作出推理答案)簡單，可能是建構比推理多了一個肢體操作的步驟，肢體操作把幼兒的注意力分裂地導向兩種心智運作: (1) 注意實驗者提供的前提(例如: A在B的旁邊，或C在B的前面)，(2) 自己要操作模仿實驗者的前提。注意力必須穿巡在上述兩種心智運作之間，才能進行遞移推理。最後，空間框架似乎可以緩衝肢體操作帶來的破壞力。本研究對於兩種介入輔助並未出現預期效果提出討論與說明，提供未來研究與相關教學的指引。

Spatial reasoning skill is a critical part of daily life, and it lays the foundation for later cognitive abilities across disciplines. Previous research employing syllogism, indicated that preoperational children could make spatial transitive inference of height (Pears & Bryant, 1990). The present study devised an extended version of Andrews & Halford’s (1998) transitive task that employed a train analogy in examining 6-year olds’ capacity to reason about left-right spatial relation. Results corroborated with previous findings pertaining to young children’s capacity to reason about transitive spatial relations. Experiment 1 investigated 6-year olds’ capacity to infer and reason about two-dimensional spatial array that entailed the transitive relation of left and right. A two-row and five-column configuration was adopted as the general structure of two-dimensional tasks, with animal farm and classroom seating as the spatial analogies. Findings revealed that 6-year olds’ reasoning capacity was limited to one-dimensional spatial relations. Experiment 2 examined possible intervention and instructional aid for the enhancement of young children’s two-dimensional reasoning performance. Based on the positive outcomes of Montessori education and empirically sound findings from the theory of physically distributed learning, the advantage of physical manipulation has been found to support thinking. In addition, previous studies revealed that spatial outline assisted children in integrating spatial relations and transcending developmental constraints on more complex spatial relations. Therefore, experiment 2 employed a 2 x 2 experimental design in evaluating the effectiveness of “object manipulation (physical versus no physical)” and “spatial structure (outline versus no outline)” on 6-year olds’ spatial reasoning; results suggested that the brevity of perceptual-motor experience could damage the process of spatial reasoning and the effectiveness of outline was not significant. Two-dimensional tasks did in fact impose greater challenge than one-dimensional tasks for 6-year-olds even when the number of entities was held constant. Another point worth noting was the converging results indicating inference task to be easier than construction task, regardless of dimensionality. It was likely that motor actions imposed great cognitive load by directing children’s attention to cross-referencing between the premises presented to them and their own replica; while, visual outline might have served as a buffer to the damages caused by physical manipulation.