Children's Explanations

Abstract

The work of Piaget showed that children learn to explain in a developmental way, but their tasks in school science put a twofold strain on their powers. Both the content which they are being asked to explain, and the methods of explanation, are novel. Many examples of apparently immature types of explanation are illustrated. In this article precausal explanations—reafftrmation, teleology, tautology, and simple juxtoposition—are exemplified in the words of secondary school children studying science. Explanation by the use of extended metaphor‐as‐theory may be peculiarly scientific. This is shown to lie beyond the merely causal and is related to the use of distanced simile which presents difficulties to children in a way that close description by metaphorical adjectives does not. Reference to new empirical studies is used to illustrate these points. There is some discussion of the analyses of the use of metaphor in scientific theory, along with the educational research which demonstrates how hard students find the manipulation of analogy. The paper ends with a brief reference to recent work on cognitive psychology which may cast light on the difficulties of using parts of a familiar procedure as an explicatory analogy for another happening.