The Study On The Development Of Seriation And Event Seriation In Young Children Aged 3-6

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental levels and characteristics in young children's seriation and event seriation, and the relationship between children's seriation abilities and event seriation development. A sample of 180 children aged 3-6 was randomly selected in two ordinary preschools in shanghai. The test to assess children's seriation abilities in this study was developed by the investigator, and the other tests to examinate young children's event seriation abilities was adapted from the measures created by Brown & French(1976), Xeromeritou & Natsopoulos(1990), and Fivush & Mandler(1985). Seriation tasks include length seriation, size seriation, width seriation and hight seriation. Event seriation tasks include three-picture seriation, four-picture seriation and five-picture seriation. The study examined the statues of young children's seriation and event seriation by means of Descriptive Statistics; the effects of age and gender on their performances of seriation and event seriation using MANOVA; the relationship among these two kinds of seriation through Correlation Analysis. The implication of the study was also discussed.The result indicated: 1) with age increasing, the seriation abilities of young children aged 3-6 improved. Less than half of the 3-4 years' old children can finish seriation with 4 items, while almost eighty percent of the 5-6 years' old children can accomplish seriation with 10 items. 2) There was significant age difference on seriation between children aged 3-6. But no gender discrimination was found on the children's seriation performance. 3) There was significant difference on event seriation between children aged 3-6. 4) The event seriation ability of 3-6 years' old children was affected by life experience. That is, the familiarity affected children's event seriation performance. 5) No gender discrimination was found on the children's event seriation. 6) The significant positive correlation emerged among children's performance on magnitude seriation, and performance on event seriation.