The Study Of The Impact Of Similarity Focus And Differential Focus On Children's Classification Operations

Classification is a progress that things are distinguished or combined according to the similarities and differences of a certain characteristic, which is the basis for the formation of mathematics cognition in early childhood with the correct count, and is also closely related to the development of children’s thinking skills. In order to discover the mechanism and influencing factors of classification for children, investigate the children’s performance in the task of the difference and similarity focus, as well as the influence of task difficulty and the differences of grades and gender when the task is completed. The mixed experiment-2(task operating mode:difference focus and similarity focus)×2(task difficulty:low difficulty, high difficulty) x 2(grade:middle class, top class)×2(gender: male, female) was adopted. The task difficulty is the within-subject variable, and grade, gender as well as task operating mode are between-subject variables. The dependent variable is the classification operation grades.The results showed:(1) The classification grades of difference focus and similarity focus has no significant gender difference, but the grade difference is obvious, the classification operation grades of top class obviously higher than the grades of middle class;(2) The total points of difference focus is higher than similarity focus, which have significance to a certain extent, the interaction affect of classification mode and difficulty is obvious. For low-difficulty task, the classification grades of difference focus is much superior to similarity focus; the interaction affect of classification mode and dimension is marginal significant. On the dimension of color, the classification grades of difference focus is much superior to similarity focus;(3) The main effect of classification of difficulty, dimension and the interaction affect between them is obvious. on the dimension of shape, the classification grades of high-difficulty task is much superior to low-difficulty task; on the dimension of function, the classification grades of low-difficulty task is much superior to high-difficulty task.Conclusions:(1) Middle class and top class children possess the fundamental classification ability of difference focus and similarity focus, top class children perform much better than middle class children. By contrast, children perform better in difference focus.(2) The ability of classification based on shape takes advantages in top and middle class children, the ability of classification based on color and function have some development, the top class is the key period to classify based on function;(3) When classifying based on color and doing low-difficulty task, children are tend to adopt difference focus; When classifying based on shape, children perform well in high-difficulty task; When classifying based on function, children perform well in low-difficulty task.