Research On Influence Factors Of 4-6 Years Old Preschoolers’ Science-relevant Problem Solving

Problem solving refers to a series of purposeful directed cognitive activities.Over the past decade,with the rise and improvement of STEM（Science,Technology,Engineering,Mathematics）education,many psychology and pedagogy researchers have gradually attached importance to the exploration of early childhood science learning and its’influence factors.Correspondingly,preschoolers’ability to solve science relevant problems has also drawn the attention of researchers around the world.Scientific problem solving refers to problem solving idea that involves scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry ability.Because children are curious about the surrounding environment,and at the same time they have unique advantages in science learning.Therefore,understanding the influencing factors of science-relevant problem solving in early childhood may could help us to teach students according to their aptitude,employ targeted education and intervention measures,to improve preschoolers’ability of scientific inquiry,and further contribute to country’s cultivation of scientific and technological talents.Previous studies have shown us that children’s problem-solving ability and academic achievement are affected by both internal factors and external environmental factors.However,although the preschool science education in our country is becoming more and more complete,there is no empirical research focus on the influencing factors of preschoolers’science problem solving.For children’s problem solving in science field,the existing researches also has certain limitations.First of all,previous studies have separately explored the influence of a certain factor on children’s scientific problem solving（such as language ability）.Moreover,researchers have generally considered individual cognitive variables,and there is no study that considers both internal individual factors and family environment factors that influence preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving.Second,previous studies used scientific knowledge tests to measure the scientific problem-solving abilities of young children,and this measure of scientific problem-solving ability lacks ecological validity,focusing more on measuring young children’s existing scientific knowledge rather than their ability to apply it to comprehensive science-relevant problem solving.Therefore,in order to start the empirical research on scientific learning and science-relevant problem solving of early childhood in China,and further enrich the ecological validity of the existing studies,in this study,two parallel studies were conducted to explore the influence of several important internal factors and external environmental factors on preschoolers’science relevant problem solving.At the same time,we also believe that the effects of these factors on preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving are not parallel.And we hope to explore the mechanism of action through further analysis of mediating effect.Study 1 examined the predictive effect of individual cognitive factors（language ability,spatial ability,executive function）,non-cognitive factors（the level of scientific knowledge）on young children’s preschooler’s science problem solving.At the same time,we examined whether executive function mediates language ability,spatial ability and children’s science problem solving.105 children from senior class of kindergarten took part in this study(M_age=67 months).The experimental tasks were as following:（1）Language ability:the fourth edition of Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test（PPVT-4）;（2）Spatial ability:the block test in Webster’s Intelligence Test-Ⅲ（WPPSI-Ⅲ）;（3）Working memory:the picture memory test in WPPSI-Ⅲ,（4）Inhibition control:Peg-tapping task;（5）Cognitive flexibility:Flexible item selection task（FIST）,（6）Science-relevant problem solving task.Meanwhile,according to California Department of Education’s（2012）preschool science learning standards,we counted the number of solutions involving basic scientific concepts produced by the subjects to reflect their level of scientific knowledge.Correlation analysis,regression analysis and mediating effect analysis were carried out on the data,and the results were showed as follows:1.In preschoolers’individual cognitive factors,language ability and cognitive flexibility of young are significantly positively correlated with their science-relevant problem solving ability,and can significantly predict their science-relevant problem solving ability.2.Children’s level of scientific knowledge is significantly positively correlated with their science-relevant problem solving ability,and can significantly predict their science-relevant problem solving ability.3.Cognitive flexibility plays a mediating role in the effect of language ability on children’s science-relevant problem solving ability,and it is the only mediating variable.4.Children’s scientific knowledge level contributes most to their science-relevant problem solving skill（β=.34）,followed by cognitive flexibility（β=.31）,and finally language ability（β=.17）.Study 2 discussed the predictive effects of external family factors（family socioeconomic status and family science education experience）on the preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving ability.Meanwhile,we also examined whether family science education experience played a mediate role between family socioeconomic status and preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving.Questionnaires were used to measure family socioeconomic status and family science education experience.195 parent of preschoolers filled out the two questionnaires,and the average age of preschoolers was 64 months.For the measurement of preschoolers’scientific problem solving ability,we adopted two methods:parent report and task measurement.The parents of 195 children all completed parent report to evaluate preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving ability,of which 105 children participated science-relevant problem solving tasks.Correlation analysis,regression analysis and mediating effect analysis were carried out on the data,and the results were showed as follows:1.Among the family influencing factors,preschoolers’family socioeconomic status only plays a significant role in predicting their parents’subjective evaluation of scientific problem solving ability（β=.22）,but not in predicting children’s scientific problem solving task performance.2.Family science education experience can significantly predict preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving performance,including the scientific problem-solving ability of the parents’subjective evaluation（β=.23）and the child’s achievement in science-relevant problem solving tasks（β=.31）.3.The family science education experience plays a mediating role between children’s family socioeconomic status and parents’subjective evaluation of their scientific problem solving ability.To sum up,this study mainly found four main factors that played a stable role in predicting the scientific problem solving of young children,respectively are:language ability and cognitive flexibility of individual cognitive factors,scientific knowledge level of individual non-cognitive factors,and family science education experience of external environment factors.We compared the standard regression coefficients for these infactors and found that cognitive flexibility,scientific knowledge level and family science education experience contributed almost equally to early childhood science problem-solving tasks,followed by language ability.It explained that the performance of young children’s scientific problem solving is not only affected by the individual’s cognitive ability as proven by previous studies,but also by the individual’s scientific knowledge level and family education experience.Moreover,individual scientific knowledge and family experience in science education contribute to preschoolers’science-relevant problem solving no less than their basic cognitive skills.At the same time,cognitive flexibility played a full mediating role between individual language ability and science-relevant problem solving,suggesting that the promotion of preschoolers’language ability in solving scientific problems may be achieved by promoting the development of their cognitive flexibility.These results remind us that we should pay attention to the relevant influencing factors.At the same time,although family socioeconomic status can predict parents’subjective evaluation of children’s scientific problem solving ability,and subjects’family science education experience play a partial mediating effect between children’s family socioeconomic status and parents’subjective evaluation of their scientific problem solving ability.Children’s family socioeconomic status did not predict their scientific problem-solving ability.This enlightens us to further improve the research in related fields.