The Study Of Preschool Children‘s Drawing Activity Based On Implicit Learning

Human has the strong capability of learning.Not only do the children learn all sorts of skills and knowledge consciously,but also they can acquire and use external information unconsciously.Reber identifies implicit learning as the process of obtaining the complex knowledge from the environment and materials unconsciously.People can‘t be aware of the rules that affect their manners during the implicit learning,but actually they capture the rules.Implicit learning is an essential ability for neonatal growth and plays an important role in learning of early human language skills including the native and second language learning,the classification ability,the reading and writing ability,the environment adaption and social skills acquisition.Implicit learning is the unconscious learning process that the object contacts with the environment to acquire the relationship between the subjects or events unconsciously and purposelessly.Implicit learning is not affected by age and the children learn a lot of knowledge about social and natural environment unconsciously,which they are barely aware of the knowledge.Comparing with verbal material,nonverbal material is more suitable for implicit learning,because the unconscious learning motivate a kind of special perception,intuition.In fact,most of the artistic creation depend on intuition which is important for the artists.Recently,the research on implicit learning arouses the public attention.The scholars creates many new paradigms in different aspects and accumulate a lot of evidences that prove the existence of implicit learning and reveal the psychological mechanism and characteristics of the process of unconscious learning.It impacts the traditional conception of learning,and provides new method for education reform.However,the study of implicit learning in preschool children has just started.The current research on implicit learning focus on the language and behavior areas barely involving art area.This study attempts to set the children's drawing education as the research subject and identify whether the implicit learning exist in children's drawing activity.From implicit learning perspective,the study analyzes and discuss the conceptions and the issues about children's drawing education and find out the optimal path of children's drawing activity.In the present research,4 experiments was carried out to investigate whether the children have implicit learning in drawing activities,identify whether teacher‘s demonstration behavior has implicit influences for children and the stability of implicit learning.The experiment follows the basic logic of implicit learning study,namely experimental dissociation.Firstly,let children to draw the graph with the dot and arrow tips(experiment 1 –experiment 3)or observe teacher drawing(experiment 4),and then the experimenters implement explicit and implicit tests for the children.If the result appears experiment dissociation,it means that there are two different types of processing happened in the process of children‘s drawing.The methodology applies ?the neutral parameter procedure? proposed by French scholars Venter and Perruchet.Let the subjects to focus on a task,so that they cannot pay their attention on other things,which guarantees the index and the task are independent,and ensures the subject‘s performance is the result of unconscious processing.In the experimental process,the children are asked to draw the geometric figures according to the instruction of dots and arrows.The dot represents the starting point of drawing,and the arrows indicate the direction of the rotation.The drawing follows the spectacular principle: the ?start-rotation principle?,which states that the direction of movement in the drawing of closed geometrical figures is dependent on the starting position,if the starting point is located in the upper part of the figure,subjects predominantly rotate clockwise;if the starting point is located in the lower part of the figure,subjects predominantly rotate counterclockwise.During the process,the children are required to try to draw quickly and well and emphasized that the speed and accuracy are the most important indicators in their assessments without any mention about the ?start-rotation principle?.But the final assessment is up to the ?start-rotation principle?.The independent variable observed is the learning method of the subjects.The subjects are divided into three subgroups,the principle-congruent group receives a set of training figures that 80% of the drawing training are congruent with the principle;The principle-incongruent group receives a set of training figures that 20% of the drawing training are congruent with the principle.The experiment starts after the training and includes two implicit test and two explicit test.The dependent variable mainly investigated is the number of the subjects who accord with ?start-rotation principle?(implicit test),as well as the number of the subject who can recall the answer in line with the principle(explicit test).The result shows that implicit learning exist in children‘s drawing activities.The children capture the implicit drawing principle according to repetitive practice without any?start-rotation principle? clue and the implicit learning reflects on the implicit test.But the explicit test indicates that the children do not know they have learned the principle or they have implemented the principle(experiment 1).The effect of implicit learning is relatively stable.The effect of learning is significant in different test order and different time(experiment 2).Different drawing materials do not have influence on their implicit learning results(experiment 3).The children imitate their teachers‘ drawing behavior unconsciously meanwhile the children don‘t aware their teachers‘ drawing behaviors has displayed some regular changes or that they are drawing in their teachers‘ way(experiment 4).Then,it is necessary to discuss the condition and the problems of pre-school children‘s drawing education based on the experimental result that the children have the capability of implicit learning and the implicit learning exist in the children‘s drawing activities.The research methods conclude observation and interview.The researchers visited a number of kindergartens and children's art centers with different levels and use participant observation and interview to make clear the condition and problems of children's drawing activities from three dimensions of content selection,development mode and evaluation method.At the same time,we invite the teachers of Reggio school to share their experience of drawing activity in Reggio and learn the advanced western educational experience in order to reveal the problems and reasons of domestic children's drawing education by reference to relevant experiences of other countries,and think about the state it should be.In the next step,we do the further action research on implicit learning of pre-school children and try to integrate the concept of implicit learning into the design and implement of pre-school children‘s drawing activities,which is based on studying the value and significance of implicit learning.The theme activities which are designed and implemented in the process of action research are The Undersea World and Throwing the Handkerchief.In the theme activities,drawing is regarded as a way of thinking and expression,which can develop children‘s abilities of observation and logic thinking.Drawing also provides a visual window for the researchers to explore the development and change of cognitive ability in the process of drawing.According the results of action research,the drawing shows the development and change process of children‘s cognitive ability,and effectively promotes the reflection and reconstruction of their existing experience.Therefore,children's drawing activities does not need to provide a demonstration painting.The activities should be designed with children‘s painting activities.Also,the assessment should be based on children's thinking and emotional expressing.Finally,it proposes the optimization path of pre-school children's drawing activity based on experimental research,practical investigation and action research.Firstly,it should be given to children for creating the interactive and participatory art environment,giving full play to its role as the environment influence.Secondly,developing drawing activities that full of experience and comprehensiveness is very necessary in order to enrich the aesthetic experience,inspire the interest in drawing and promote the mastery of knowledge.Again,the autonomy,enlightening guidance should be adopted to inspire the children to explore the world by themselves and improve their ability of communication and creation.Finally,it should be adopted for using incentive and diverse ways of evaluation.Moreover,paying attention to children's participation during the process,learning to appreciate children's drawings,and giving positive assessment,encouraging children to appreciate,communicate and explore ideas in the mutual learning should be also valued highly.