The Development and the Effects of Verbalization on Representational Redescription in Children`s Drawings
Hee Sook Park
Abstract
Karmiloff-Smith was first to propose the ‘Representational Redescription model’. It describes a process through which children elaborate their knowledge from the unconscious and implicit levels to the conscious and explicit levels. The model also assumes that children in perfectly explicit levels are able to express their own representation of knowledge verbally. This study was conducted to investigate Karmiloff-Smith`s Representational Redescription(RR) model(1990, 1992, 1999) within the drawing domain. Additionally, how verbalization training influences children`s development of representational redescription in drawing were also examined. First, 331 children (4- to 6-year-olds and an older comparison group of 7- to 9-year-olds) were asked to create six drawings of both familiar and novel topics. From these drawings, children were measured for procedural rigidity and developmental differences. Thereafter 80 5-year-olds children who were not able to manipulate their drawings with flexibility were selected. They were divided into an experimental group and two control groups. A group of verbalization training was given a session using 5 tasks. Compared to the control groups, children who practiced verbalization in the training group showed more advanced levels of representation than their previous levels in the pretest. The results were interpreted as meaning that verbalization is likely to facilitate children`s reorganization of implicit knowledge within the drawing domain and to transfer this toward explicit forms. Further research needs to pay more attention to the educational applications of learning processes based on representational redescription.
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