Development And Teaching Intervention On Reference Numerosity Estimation For 4～6 Years Old Children

Based on existing studies, this study investigated the development of reference numerosity estimation of 4-6 years old children, and examined the influence of teaching intervention on it.In study 1, test of reference numerosity estimation varying in quantity and situation was imposed on 111 children from K2 and K3 classes in a kindergarten in Nanjing. Results showed that K3 children outperformed K2 children significantly. Abstraction of situation had no significant effect on K3 children and edge significant effect on K2 children. Size of quantity significantly effected on both ages:they performed lower level with the quantity increased. The researchers also examined children’s strategies of numerosity estimation and found that the most frequently used strategies by children included "benchmark comparison", "no idea","others","eye-ball effects", while "decompose-reorganize" and "using counting "strategies were rarely used. The study found that estimation strategy affected the accuracy of reference numerosity estimation. Children using "benchmark comparison" were likely to get better results. However, children who could not name correctly their strategy estimated unaccurately. Children tended to use "benchmark comparison"strategy when the size of estimated number was closer to reference number.In study 2, a quasi-experimental design was applied to the same participants to examine the influence of teaching intervention on children’s ability of reference numerosity estimation.Results showed that the intervention had no significant effect on children’s ability of reference number estimation in both ages. However, teaching intervention had influence on the utilization of reference numerosity estimation. The experimental groups used "benchmark comparison", "decompose-reorganize" and "other" strategies more frequently, and used "no idea", "eye-ball effects", and "using counting" strategies less. As to the using of reference number, the percentage of using "benchmark comparison with reference number" and "decompose-reorganize with reference number" strategies increased after intervention.Based on the results of the 2 studies, the researcher gave the following suggestions: (1) Organize developmental appropriate activities of numerosity estimation; (2) enrich the children’s experiences of estimation in daily life; (3) start with small quantity to be estimated; (4) provide reference quantity to develop children’s ability; and (5) encourage the children to share their strategies.