The Effects of Mediated Computer Environments on Young Children's Representation of Replay

컴퓨터와 교사의 상호작용이 유아의 재연에 대한 표상력의 발달에 미치는 효과

This study investigated the effect of young children's interaction with a teacher and computer environments on their development of representational competence cf replay, the children's ability to construct and reconstruct actions. A pretest-posttest design with one experimental group and one control group was used; quantitative analyses, including interview assessments and coded observations of children's work in the context of educational interventions were supplemented by qualitative analyses of this work. Thirty-nine children (2-5 years of age) were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. The educational intervention provided to the experimental group involved a sequence of twenty sessions incorporating a series of three computer environments. A teaching strategy, based on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Sigel's distancing theory, was used to mediate children's interaction with these computer environments. Results indicated that children's representational competence kept developing and reached a higher stage and the educational intervention fostered the development of representational competence, with strong evidence of near transfer but no evidence of far transfer. These results suggest that representational competence is a teachable concept and that a complex mediating structure allows children to reconstruct their previous experiences and apply them to problem situations.