評論
打印
Educational psychology
教育心理學
Now you know
現在，你要知道
When should you teach children, and when should you let them explore?
什么時候應該告誡孩子，和什么時候應該讓孩子自己摸索？
It is one of the oldest debates in education.
這是教育界最古老的爭論之一。
Should teachers tell pupils the way things are or encourage them to find out for themselves?
老師應該告訴學生事物的本質還是要鼓勵學生自行摸索？
Telling children truthsabout the world helps them learn those facts more quickly.
告訴孩子們世界的真理”有助于他們更快地了解現實。
Yet the efficient learning of specific facts may lead to the assumption that when the adult has finished teaching,
對具體事物的高效率學習也許導致孩子們會有這個假設”的假設。
there is nothing further to learn—because if there were,
當長輩停止教育時，那就不需要進一步的學習了——因為如果有的話，
the adult would have said so.
長輩們也應該應經告訴他們了。
A study just published in Cognition by Elizabeth Bonawitz of the University of California, Berkeley, and Patrick Shafto of the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, suggests that is true.
伯克利加州大學的Elizabeth Bonawitz和路易斯維爾大學的Patrick Shafto剛剛共同發表在《認知》中的研究表明這是對的。
Dr Bonawitz and Dr Shafto arranged for 85 four-and five-year-olds to be presented, during a visit to a museum, with a novel toy that looked like a tangle of coloured pipes and was capable of doing many different things.
Dr Bonawitz和Dr Shafto安排了85名四到五歲的小朋友帶著看起來像一團亂七八糟的著色的管子且能夠做成不同形狀的新奇玩具參觀博物館。
They wanted to know whether the way the children played with the toy depended on how they were instructed by the adult who gave it to them.
他們想知道孩子們玩這玩具的方式是否會取決于給他們玩具的大人們的提示。
One group of children had a strictly pedagogical introduction.
按照嚴格的教學方法進行介紹給第一組孩子。
The experimenter said Look at my toy! This is my toy.
示范者說：看著我的玩具！這是我的玩具。
I'm going to show you how my toy works.
我將展示給你們看這玩具是怎樣玩的。”
She then pulled a yellow tube out of a purple tube, creating a squeaking sound. and then demonstrated the effect again.
然后她把一個黃色管子從紫色管子抽出，發出吱吱的叫聲。
Following this, she said, Wow, see that?
接著，她說：哇，看到了嗎？
This is how my toy works!”
我的玩具就是這樣玩的！”然后再展示一下它的效果。
With a second group of children, the experimenter acted differently.
對于第二組孩子，示范者以不同的方式展示。
She interrupted herself after demonstrating the squeak by saying she had to go and write something down,
她演示完怎樣發出吱吱聲后，聲稱要記下些東西而打斷了，
thus suggesting that she might not have finished the demonstration.
因此暗示她可能沒有完成演示。
With a third group, she activated the squeak as if by accident. To a fourth, the toy was simply presented with the comment,
對于第三組孩子，她展示發出吱吱聲好像意外發出一樣。而對于第四組，
Wow, see this toy? Look at this!”
簡單地用哇，看到這個玩具了么？看看它？”這樣的話語來進行介紹。
After these varied introductions, the children were left with the toy and allowed to play.
經過這些不同的介紹后，就留下玩具給孩子們讓他們自己玩。
They might discover that, as well as the squeaker, the toy had a button inside one tube which activated a light,
他們可能會發現，除了可以發出那吱吱聲外，在玩具的一個管子里還有一個電燈按鈕，
a keypad that played musical notes, and an inverting mirror inside one of the tubes.
一個可以播放音樂的鍵盤和其中一條管道里面的倒像鏡。
All the children were told to let the experimenter know when they had finished playing and were asked by the instructor if they were done if they stopped playing for more than five consecutive seconds.
所有孩子都被告知，當他們結束玩耍時要告訴實驗人員，而且如果他們停止玩耍連續超過五秒鐘，老師便問他們是不是不想玩了。
The entire interaction was recorded on video.
整個互動過程都被錄成了視頻。
Footage of each child playing was passed to a research assistant who was ignorant of the purpose of the study.
每個孩子玩耍的片段被傳給一個不知道該研究目的的研究助理。
The assistant was asked to record the total playing time,
助手需要記錄孩子們的總玩耍時間、
the number of different actions the child performed,
孩子進行不同動作的數量、
the time spent playing with the squeak, and the number of other functions the child discovered.
花在發出吱吱聲的玩法上的時間和孩子所發現的其他玩法的數量。
The upshot was that children in the first group spent less time playing than those in the second, the third or the fourth.
其結果是，第一組孩子們的玩耍總時間比第二的，第三的和第四的都少。
Those in the first group also tried out four different actions, on average.
平均下來，第一組的孩子也嘗試出四種不同動作。
The others tried 5.3, 5.9 and 6.2, respectively.
其他組的嘗試出不同動作數量分別為5.3、5.9和6.2。
A similar pattern pertained to the number of functions other than the squeak that the children found.
孩子們發現不同于發出吱吱聲的新花樣的數量分別為0.7、1.3、1.2和1.2。
The researchers' conclusion was that, in the context of strange toys of unknown function, prior explanation does,
研究人員的結論是，事實上，在面對不知道其功能的新奇玩具的情況下，事先說明會抑制探索和發現能力。
indeed, inhibit exploration and discovery.
由此得出的歸納概況可能太大膽性急。
Generalising from that would be ambitious.
但它表明，進一步研究也不失為一個好主意。
But it suggests that further research might be quite a good idea.
盡管如此，進一步的研究還是十分令人期待。
