Abilities of 4-7 years old children to provide independent explanations and generalisations of causality

Abstract

The understanding and generalisation of causality are important thinking abilities, as they form the basis for a person's activity. Researchers exploring these abilities do not have a unified opinion regarding the age of children when they develop causative understanding and its determinant factors (e.g. age, prior knowledge, the content of a task, etc.). The aim of the current research is to investigate the abilities of 4-7-year-old children to explain causative relations and independently generalise them. An original experiment using spatial figures of animals was chosen for the research. 66 pre-school children participated in the research, each group being represented by 22 children (4-5-year old, 5-6-year old, and 6-7-year old respectively). The research results revealed that pre-school children (4-7-year old) are able to distinguish and explain causative relations. Besides, no difference was determined between the children's abilities to explain and generalise causalities in relation to age (4-5, 5-6, and 6-7). It is assumed that the children of different age understand causal structures in the same way when the spatial figures of animals, which are close and familiar to children, are used as simulation material in the research. The obtained results of the experiment are discussed in the context of the works of other researchers.