児童の知的興味の質的分析

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Problem : Many researchers have studied children's interests. They define children's interests as a feature of the larger dynamic patterns of growing capacities and powers (Jersild 1933), as concerns (Yamashita 1949), or as emotions with self-involved attentions (Takemasa 1958), and so on. They studied such interests through the survey of children's play, questions, collections, and preferences among academic subjects and reading. But so far, there are few studies which analyzed the functional or the qualitative features of interests. In the present paper we are interested in the perceptual or cognitive aspects of the interest, i. e., the intellectual curiosity. It is assumed that the development of intellectual interests may be affected by the individual faculty and his developmental factors similar to the developmental processes in the child's logical thinking as J. Piaget (1926) has suggested. Purpose : The purpose of this study is to analyze the qualitative feature of the intellectual interests of children and their developmental levels under a controlled condition in which thematic pictures were employed as stimuli. Procedures : I Pretest In order to find out different areas toward which children's intellectual interests are directed, a survey of children's questions was made. Eight hundred and fifty one 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders were asked to write freely about what they wondered and about what they felt curious. Then 11 areas were selected which covered the range of questions raised by many subjects. II. Stimuli Eleven cards were made, each depicting a simple scene by photographs or drawings, each representing the above mentioned 11 areas respectively. These 11 themes were as follows : 1. birth 2. dream 3. school life 4. plant (morning glory) 5. manufacturing processes 6. television 7. magnetism 8. rain 9. space 10. war 11. human occupations III. Method Twenty boys and twenty girls of the 3rd grade were interviewed individually. Each was shown the 11 cards one by one, and was asked to tell 'what he knew about, ' and 'what he wanted to know more abut.' The responses were analyzed qualitatively into 6 categories, according to the developmental levels. These 6 categories were as follows : 1. Describing the picture itself (pointing to the objects of the card or naming them). 2. Subject's own feelings (describing the card from the subjective point of view). 3. Subject's experiences (associating the theme with his experiences or memories). 4. Describing the phenomenon itself. 5. Describing the cause or process of the phenomenon or asking for such explanation (extending the interests to the how and why of the phenomenon). 6. Functional explanation of the phenomenon or asking for such explantion (grasping the principle and the function of the phenomenon). Each individual protocol for each card was sorted out into 6 categories, and they were plotted down in one sheet so as to show the individual interest-profile. IV. Results a) The 3rd graders have many questions, and these questions cover a wide variety of areas. b) There are individual differences in the intellectual interests. Some children show the scattered interest-profile, while others show the narrow interest-profie. c) About 52% of the total responses have fallen under the category of describing the cause or process of the phenomenon or asking for such explanation. It may be said that the children of this age (8 & 9 yrs) have their modal developmental level of thought under this category. d) As to the themes, 'Space'and 'War' were popular with the subjects. e) There are few differences between boys and girls in the intellectual interest. f) The developmental level of the intellectual interests do not always correspond to the academic achievement. From the above outcomes, the authors conclude that children who are advanced in their intellectual interests but are relativly low in academic achievement need to be studied very carefully. They may have potentiality for bet
日本教育心理学会の論文
1964-10-30

児童の知的興味の質的分析

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