A Theory-Based Approach to Teaching Young Children About Health: A Recipe for Understanding

• Published in: Journal of educational psychology Vol. 103; no. 3; pp. 594 - 606
• Main Authors: Nguyen, Simone P., McCullough, Mary Beth, Noble, Ashley
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-08-2011
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Children & youth; Classification (Cognitive Process); Concept Formation; Educational psychology; Evaluation; Evaluation Methods; Female; Food; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health Education; Human; Learning; Male; Perceptions; Pretests Posttests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopedagogics. Didactics; Teaching Methods; Theories; Theory; Young Children; theory-theory; evaluative categories of food; concept of health; Human; Preschool age; Concept; Health; Theory; Cognition; Teaching; Learning; Acquisition process; Cognitive development; Causality; Categorization; Child; theory―theory
• ISSN: 0022-0663; 1939-2176
• DOI: 10.1037/a0023392

The theory-theory account of conceptual development posits that children's concepts are integrated into theories. Concept-learning studies have documented the central role that theories play in children's learning of experimenter-defined categories but have yet to extensively examine complex, real-world concepts, such as health. The present study examined whether providing young children with coherent and causally related information in a theory-based lesson would facilitate their learning about the concept of health. This study used a pretest/lesson/posttest design, plus a 5-month follow-up. Children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: theory (i.e., 20 children received a theory-based lesson), nontheory (i.e., 20 children received a nontheory-based lesson), and control (i.e., 20 children received no lesson). Overall, the results showed that children in the theory condition had a more accurate conception of health than children in the nontheory and control conditions, suggesting the importance of theories in children's learning of complex, real-world concepts.