NAÏVE PHYSICS THEORIES ABOUT SYSTEMS' ROTATIONAL MECHANISM TASKS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AND THEIR TEACHERS' PREDICTIVE CALIBRATION

Date

2026-8-25

Author

Mumcuoğlu, Ayşenur

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This study examined preschool children‟s mechanical reasoning across rotational systems and their teachers‟ predictive calibration. Participants were 41 children aged 50-79 months and six preschool teachers. Across 123 sessions, children completed mechanical reasoning tasks of transmission, direction, and resistance by using Predict-Observe-Explain skills in gear, elevator, and wrench-screw systems. Teachers, without access to children‟s responses, predicted each child‟s performance for every system × mechanical reasoning task. The child and teacher datasets comprised 738 observations and were analyzed with linear mixed-effects models in R. A significant system × task × skill type interaction, F(4, 696.31) = 2.63, p = .033, showed that children‟s reasoning depended on the specific combination of system, mechanical reasoning task, and prediction or explanation skill. Transmission reasoning was the strongest and resistance reasoning the weakest, whereas direction reasoning varied across systems: it was difficult in the gear system, although gear- direction reasoning showed the clearest improvement from prediction to explanation. These patterns suggest that performance was shaped by differences in causal transparency and by whether rotational motion was transformed or reversed. Teachers‟ mean discrepancy was only +0.12, but this near-zero value masked systematic errors in opposite directions. They underestimated transmission, overestimated resistance, and showed their largest overestimation for gear- direction. Thus, teachers identified the general ordering of difficulty but not the magnitude or system-specific structure. Overall, the findings show that early mechanical reasoning is multidimensional and task-sensitive, and better calibration is necessary to avoid support that either underestimates children‟s existing competence or exceeds the level of assistance they require.

Subject Keywords

Rotational mechanisms, mechanical reasoning, predictive calibration, preschool children, early childhood teachers

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/120702

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis