The Development Of Primary Students' Informal Reasoning And The Influence Of Family And School Factors

This study was designed to investigate the development characteristic of primary students'informal reasoning. According to the informal reasoning evaluation system putting forward by the author, ill-structured problem tests were administered to 1-6 grade students by prompting clinical interview method. In order to investigate how the family and school environments factors influence students'informal reasoning ability, questionnaire about influence from family and school environment factor to primary students'informal reasoning developed by the author were administered to 1-6 grade students. The results showed that:1. Most of grade 1 students were at reason reasoning and refuting reasoning level, only a few were at pre-reasoning level. On the reason reasoning level, most of grade 1 students were at other-side reasoning level. On the refuting reasoning level, the students were at direct refuting level and indirect refuting level; All of grade 2 students were at the three level of reason reasoning and the two level of refuting reasoning; most of the grade 3, 4 students reached refuting reasoning level and were on the two level of refuting reasoning; The grade 5, 6 students reached the level of refuting reasoning. Most of grade 5 students were at the two level of refuting reasoning and most of grade 6 students were at indirect refuting reasoning level.2. Significant differences were found on the number of functional, conditional, non-justificatory reasons and the total number of all reasons generated by 1-6 grade students. The students of higher grade generated significantly more functional reason, conditional reason and the total number of all reasons than the students of lower grade. The number of functional and conditional reasons increased with grade. The students of high grade generated significantly less non-justificatory reasons than the students of lower grade.3. Significant differences were found on the number of direct refuting, indirect refuting and the total number of refuting generated by 1-6 grade students. The students of higher grade generated significantly more direct refuting, indirect refuting, and the total number of all refuting than the students of lower grade. The students'refuting reasoning ability developed with grade.4. Significant differences were found on the number of reasoning break and the total number of reasoning mistakes. The students of higher grade make significantly more reasoning break and the total number of reasoning mistakes than the students of lower grade. The students made fewer mistakes with grade increasing.5. The questionnaire about influence from family and school environment factor to primary students'informal reasoning had good validity and reliability. The seven influence factors were: the influence of parents, the negative influence of parents, the characteristic of parents, the positive influence of teacher, the negative influence of teachers, the positive influence of accompanier and the negative influence of accompanier.6. The number of functional reasons and the total number of reasons had significant positive correlation with the 7 influence factors; except the influence of parents and the negative influence of parents, the number of conditional reasons had significant positive correlation with the other five factors; Except the positive influence of parents and the positive influence of teachers, the total score of the questionnaire, the number of non-justificatory reasons had significant positive correlation with the other five factors.7 The number of direct refuting and the total number of refuting had significant positive correlation with the 7 influence factors; except the negative influence of teachers, the number of indirect refuting had significant positive correlation with the other 6 factors.8 The number of reasoning mistakes had significant positive correlation with the characteristic of parents; reasoning break had significant positive correlation with the positive influence of teacher, the characteristic of parents, the positive influence of accompanier and the total score of the questionnaire; the total number of reasoning mistakes had significant positive correlation with the total score of the questionnaire.9. The number of reasons had significant positive linear correlation with the positive influence of accompanier, the positive influence of teacher, the negative influence of teacher. The total number of reason and refuting had significant positive linear correlation with the positive influence of accompanier, the positive influence of teacher, the negative influence of parents, the negative influence of teacher and the negative influence of accompanier.