The Role of Intermediary Objects of Learning in Early Years Chemistry and Physics

The study investigates what is detrimental to the common academic understanding between teacher and children in exploratory learning about chemistry and physics in kindergarten. The researchers focus in particular on the verbal communication between the kindergarten teacher and the children and discuss possible ways of continuing teaching when the common understanding of the learning activity is lost. The research questions are: 1) What possible explanations are there for instances of lost common academic understanding in scientific learning activities? 2) How can teaching be continued in a productive manner when the common understanding has been lost?

The results show that it is often necessary that a learning activity, such as water purification, should be divided into smaller learning stages, where the process is explained in order to prevent the common academic understanding between teacher and children from being lost. The researchers therefore distinguish between the terms ‘primary learning object’ and ‘intermediate learning object’. The intermediate learning objects are categorised into three topics: The role of words, the role of theoretical models and concepts of science, and analogies and abstractions. The researchers believe that the teacher’s awareness of these intermediate learning objects is important for children’s learning.

The data material consists of video observations of a learning programme for chemistry and physics teaching in five Swedish kindergartens, in which a total of 27 children between the ages of three and five participated. The topic was on the purification of water, water consumption and wind power, and each learning activity lasted between 20-50 minutes. The kindergartens in the project were multicultural and the children came from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Only a minority had Swedish as their first language.

Fridberg, M., Jonsson, A., Redfors, A. & Thulin, S. (2020). “The Role of Intermediary Objects of Learning in Early Years Chemistry and Physics”.  Early Childhood Education Journal, 48:585-595.