Work

Assessing knowledge conveyed in gesture: Do teachers have the upper hand?

Year: 1997

Type: article

Abstract: Children's gestures can reveal important information about heir problem-solving strategies. This study investigated whether the information children express only in gesture is accessible to adults not trained in gesture coding. Twenty teachers and 20 undergraduates viewed videotaped vignettes of 12 children explaining their solutions to equations. Six children expressed the same strategy in speech and gesture, and 6 expressed different strategies. After each vignette, adults described the child's reasoning. For children who expressed different strategies in speech and gesture, both teachers and undergraduates frequently described strategies that children had not expressed in speech. These additional strategies could often be traced to the children's gestures. Sensitivity to gesture was comparable for teachers and undergraduates. Thus, even without raining, adults glean information, ot only from chil-dren's words but also from their hands. How does a skilled teacher identify when a child experi-ences a "teachable moment " and decide what type of in-struction to offer that child? For instruction to be beneficial, it must be timed appropriately vis4t-vis the child's devel-

Source: Journal of Educational Psychology

DOI: 10.1037//0022-0663.89.1.183

Authors: Martha Wagner Alibali, Lucia M. Flevares, Susan Goldin-Meadow

Institutions: Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago

Language: English

Topic: Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development