CORRELATES OF CURIOSITY RATING BY TEACHERS IN YOUNG CHILDREN

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  • 教師による幼児の好奇心評定の関連要因
  • キョウシ ニヨル ヨウジ ノ コウキシン ヒョウテイ ノ カンレン ヨウイン

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The ‘construct validity’ of curiosity rating by teachers, using five behavioral criteria (See TABLE, 1), was examined. First, relationships between curiosity rating by teachers, and exploratory behaviors observed in specific situations and performances on intellectual tasks requiring exploration, were investigated among 51 kindergarteners with a mean age of 5 years 10 months. Secondly, it was examined whether curiosity rating by kindergarten teachers for 37 of the above subjects would be able to predict first-grade school achievement, which was considered to indicate the performances in complex learning permitting children to explore to some degree.<BR>The results were as follows: curiosity rating by teachers was significantly related to the performances on intellectual tasks involving exploration, i. e., test performance for exploratory learning and accuracy of visual matching, and partial correlation between curiosity rating by teachers and test performance for exploratory learning was still significant when verbal ability was held constant. However, teacher rating of curiosity was not highly correlated with exploratory behaviors observed in specific situations.(See TABLE 2)<BR>These findings were interpreted as follows: curiosity rating by teachers reflected product-oriented curiosity, which differed from process-orientedcuriosity. Product-oriented curiosity was regarded as a tendency to explore efficiently in order to produce excellent performances and was expected to be closely related to verbal ability or intelligence. On the other hand, process-oriented curiosity was consideredas a tendency to engage in ‘self-sustaining’ exploration, and was expected to appear as exploratory behaviors observed in situations requiring no special demands.<BR>This interpretation was supported by the findings from the longitudinal study, that is, curiosityrating by teachers was highly correlated with first-grade school achievement, whereas the variety of exploratory behaviors in a specific situation (‘object curiosity’ score) was not (See TABLE 3).<BR>Some directions of future research on the process-product distinction in curiosity were discussed.

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