儿童早期工具创新表现及其影响因素与测评

On Young Children's Tool Innovation

近年来儿童早期工具创新引起国外研究者的浓厚兴趣。已有研究采用与工具有关的问题解决任务“制钩任务”和“拉直任务”考察了3～7岁儿童的工具创新表现，结果发现3～5岁幼儿工具创新的成功比例偏低；5-6岁幼儿的表现明显转好；7-8岁之后接近成熟水平。这表明大部分幼儿在工具创新上存在一定困难，并总体呈现出随年龄增长而表现更好的发展趋势。目前研究未发现幼儿在工具创新上存在显著的性别差异和文化差异。年幼儿童在工具创新上的困难不受目标工具认知、材料属性、指导语、提示等因素的影响，问题结构不良、缺乏认知灵活性等可能是主要的影响因素。未来研究有待纵向追踪儿童工具创新的多样性发展轨迹，包括微观考察其发生过程、系统检验影响幼儿工具创新表现的因素、比较不同教育质量的影响以及不同文化背景下的发展差异等，从而进一步揭示儿童早期工具创新的发生表现、发展轨迹与发展机制。这不仅是理解人类进化的基石，而且是为儿童提供促进其早期工具创新能力发展的适宜实践与教学支持的必要前提。

Hence young children＇s tool innovation triggered scholars＇ great interest these years, most of the researches used the problem-solving tasks related to tools such as the hook making task and the unbending task to explore the tool innovation behavior among 3-7-year old children. It has been found that 3-5-year old children got low rate of success in tool innovation, while 5-6-year old children performed better obviously, and 7-8-year old ones reached almost matured level. It indicated that many young children had certain difficulty in tool innovation and generally this kind of capacity grew along with ages. There wasn＇t significant difference between genders and cultures. Target tool cognition, the characteristic of materials, instruction and prompt didn＇t influence children＇s tool innovation behavior, which was mainly limited by ill-structured prob/em and cognitive inflexibility. Longitude research is needed in the future to identify the multi-developmental trajectories, explore the occurrence of children＇s tool innovation behavior with the micro-genetic method, and test the influential factors systematically, including the effect of education quality and the differences among cultures. These efforts will do help not only understanding human＇s evolution, but also providing critical information to protect and cultivate children＇s innovation capacity in early years.