Collaborative pedagogy: 3-year-olds bring pedagogical cues into alignment with analogical reasoning to extract generic knowledge

TAVERNA, ANDREA S.; PADILLA, MIGDALIA I.; BAIOCCHI, MARÍA C.; PERALTA, OLGA A.

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION - EJPE

Springer Science

Año: 2021 vol. 36 p. 423 - 438

0256-2928

Although there is wide evidence on young children?s category learning,questions concerning how cognitive mechanisms and social mediation workcollaboratively in this process remain sparse. Here, we study the impact ofpedagogy in young children?s categorization of novel artifacts. A before-and after micro-genetic study compared 58 3-year-old children?s performance infour learning scenarios which varied in the way category information?theartifact function?was provided: (a) in one single pedagogical demonstration,(b) in several guided pedagogical demonstrations aimed at eliciting analogiesand inductions, or (c) employing analogies and inductions, but not in a guidedpedagogical way. Results showed that children detected the function as thecentral conceptual property of the novel artifact only if the information wastransmitted analogically (but not inductively) in several pedagogicaldemonstrations contingent with children categorization performance. Thesefindings expand the role of pedagogy in categorization at an early age,showing that pedagogical cues act in concert with certain inferential learningmechanisms helping children extract generic knowledge.