An Investigation of Preschool Children’s Usage Level of Concepts Related to Position-in-Space

Abstract

The acquisition of spatial location concepts for children starts in the early years and
has significant progress with the impact of education in the early years. In this study, a
sample picture was used to examine the usage of the concept of location in space for 83
children attending preschool education. 43 girls and 40 boys attending preschools in four
different cities participated in this research. In the sample picture, the locations of nine
different people were described, and the answers were recorded. Then, four different
categories (those who described using location concepts, those who described correctly
without using location concepts, those who failed to describe using location concepts, and
those who failed to describe without using location concepts) were determined for each
person as a result of the researchers’ analysis. Children’s responses for each person were
evaluated according to these categories. As a result of the research, some answers describe
the children correctly using location concepts as well as those that describe them correctly
without using location expressions. Thus children generally know the correct answer, but
their conceptual development may not be sufficient to describe using conceptual words.