The relationship between the interdisciplinary activation of children's scientific concepts and their mastery of basic knowledges: a pre study based on reaction times

TL;DR

This study investigates how children's basic knowledge levels influence their ability to activate scientific concepts across domains, revealing that weaker knowledge correlates with faster, more cross-domain activation and more active thinking.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence linking basic knowledge levels to cross-domain concept activation and challenges existing views on divergent thinking as the basis of creativity.

Findings

Weaker basic knowledge correlates with faster cross-domain activation.

Better basic knowledge aligns activation behavior closer to science teachers.

Poorer knowledge enhances cross-domain association ability and active thinking.

Abstract

The activation of scientific concepts (such as association) is not only an important way for children to organize scientific knowledges, but also an important way for them to learn complex concepts (such as compound concepts composed of multiple knowledge points). Inspired by the details of a primary electrical lesson, we used the E-Prime software to study the activation of concepts inside and outside the electrical unit by students with different electrical knowledge levels (taking reaction time as the main index). The results showed that: 1. the levels of basic knowledge was negatively correlated with the cross domain activation ability of concepts, that is, the worse the basic knowledge, the faster the cross domain activation speed (P<0.05); 2. The better the basic knowledges, the closer the activation behavior is to science teachers. Conclusion: 1. the poorer the basic knowledges, the stronger the cross domain association ability and the more active the thinking; 2. The reason for this phenomenon may be human's thinking is patterned; 3. Therefore, there is a potential logical contradiction in the view that divergent thinking is the psychological basis of creativity.