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The effects of raising animals on children's biological knowledge
Author(s) -
Inagaki Kayoko
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-835x.1990.tb00827.x
Subject(s) - raising (metalworking) , psychology , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , mathematics , geometry
The types of knowledge acquired through raising goldfish at home for an extended period were examined for 5‐year‐olds. Goldfish‐raising children acquired a greater amount of not only factual knowledge about goldfish but also conceptual knowledge, from which they could reasonably predict the reactions of goldfish and explain the raising procedures more accurately than children who had never raised any animal. In addition, the goldfish‐raising children could use their knowledge about goldfish as the source in making analogies about an unfamiliar ‘aquatic’ animal (i.e. a frog), and tended to produce reasonable predictions with some explanations for its reactions to novel situations more often than their counterparts. Since the goldfish‐raisers and non‐raisers did not differ in amount of factual knowledge about mammals or in rate of reasonable predictions for humans, it is concluded that the differences found between the two groups were primarily due to the specific experience of raising goldfish.