A Network Analysis of Children’s Emerging Place-Value Concepts
对279名幼儿园儿童进行网络分析，研究非正式多位数知识如何通过一年正式教学被组织与转化，发现读写多位数等技能成为连接其他能力的关键枢纽。
Examining how informal knowledge systems change after formal instruction is imperative to understanding learning processes and conceptual development and to implementing effective educational practices. We used network analyses to determine how the organization of informal knowledge about multidigit numbers in kindergartners ( N = 279; mean age = 5.76 years, SD = 0.55; 135 females) supports and is transformed by a year of in-school formal instruction. The results show that in kindergarten, piecemeal knowledge about the surface properties of reading and writing multidigit numbers and the use of base-10 units to determine large quantities are strongly associated with each other and connected in a stringlike manner to other emerging skills. After a year of instruction, each skill becomes connected to the “hub” abilities of reading and writing multidigit numbers, which also become strongly connected to more advanced knowledge of base-10 principles. These findings provide new insights into how partial knowledge provides the backbone on which explicit principles are learned.