動物の相対的な大きさに対する児童の認識に関する研究 : ゼニガタアザラシを基準に

抄録

The aim of this study is to examine elementary schoolchildren's understanding of the relative size of animals based on the size of the earless seal. We asked the children to guess the relative size of animals based on the size of the earless seal. We asked the children to pick an animal of a size which was the same as that of the earless seal from among ten kinds of animals. We compared their answers among the first graders, the third graders, and the fifth graders. The findings of this study are as follows : Children of the first, third and fifth grade had a common understanding of the size of the animal. The rate of the number of first graders who recognized the ant, the grasshopper, the rat, the cat and the dog as the relatively bigger animal was higher than that of the third and fifth graders. The rate of the number of the third graders and fifth graders who recognized the horse, the cow, the bear and the elephant as the relatively smaller animal was higher than that of first graders.