Effect of teacher-child dialogic reading and peer interactions on children's knowledge construction : a mixed-method study on k2 & k3 children in a Kunming kindergarten /

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Student Theses

2022

Wu, Xuanyi Eliza

Hong Kong : The Education University of Hong Kong

Thesis

This study explored the effects of teacher-child dialogic reading and peer interaction on kindergarten children's construction of conservation and conflict resolution knowledge. Piaget believed that knowledge acquisition is developmental stage-dependent, so an absence of conservation is typical of the pre-operational stage. Piaget seemed to underestimate that storybooks or dialogic reading by adults can promote cognitive and social development. Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky assumed that children could acquire knowledge through negotiating meanings through social interactions with people. Interacting with more competent peers can support the meaning-making processes of children in social relationships and problem-solving. One hundred sixty-eight K2 & K3 children were recruited from two campuses of a Montessori kindergarten with similar socioeconomic backgrounds in Kunming, China. A mixed-method design with two experiments to explore conservation development and conflict resolution quantitatively and qualitatively. Experiment 1 results indicated that while dialogic instruction and storybook can significantly but separately accelerate conservation construction in pre-operational stage kindergarten children, there are no significant additive effects. Unlike conservation, dialogic instruction, but not storybook, can facilitate conflict resolution as a form of social knowledge. Qualitative responses from children in groups with dialogic instruction and storybook developed conceptual thinking in explaining conservation and participative strategies in resolving conflicts, while children in other groups relied more on perceptual explanations and adaptive or dominative strategies. Experiment 2 explored peer influences in depth. The results showed conservation knowledge was significantly better among children who differed in peer grades in the post-test, but differences were not found in conflict resolution knowledge. Groups balanced with an equal number of conservers and non-conservers with peers in K3 improved the best, but not in K2, suggesting that while peer social interactions can facilitate conservation construction, older children learn better. Conceptual thinking and participative strategies were present in balanced groups with K3 children only or K2 and K3 children, but not K2 children only. Similarly, perceptual thinking and adaptive or dominative strategies prevailed in other groups. Moreover, slow progress in conservation and conflict resolution was inevident in groups with more non-conservers, except when peer grade difference was also absent. Implications favour dialogic teacher instruction, adoption of storybooks in teaching, and learning with more competent peers of similar grade levels

LG51.H43 Dr 2022eb Wuxe

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/z0Aa4KRW