Abstracts Education

Preschoolers using narrative to evidence an understanding of mind

by Diane Louise Szarkowicz

Children's theories of mind have been researched extensively over the past two decades. Generally, studies concerning this understanding have focused on children between three and five years of age because it is believed that an understanding of mind develops during this period. However, evidence from naturalistic contexts suggests that many younger children can demonstrate an understanding of the mind. Despite this, the focus in many studies has been the age at which children are able to demonstrate a representational understanding of mind. Less interest has been directed towards how children use their understanding during their everyday interactions. Evidence suggests further investigations need to consider the social nature of a theory of mind. For example, a growing amount of research indicates that social contexts are important in facilitating an understanding of mind. Relationships have been reported between a theory of mind and the following: peer popularity, family size and level of fantasy play. Given these, it appears necessary for research to address the social implications of an understanding of mind in 3-5 year olds. Interview and observation methods were adopted for data collection. The interview phase of this study investigated whether or not selected characteristics of narrative influenced children's performance on four non-traditional literature based false belief tasks. Results indicated that narrative style, active participation and narrative detail were significant predictors of children's ability to demonstrate an understanding of false belief. Age was not identified as a significant variable. The results from both phases in this study suggest that 3-5 year olds can demonstrate an understanding of mind during non-traditional false belief tasks and everyday interactions. It is argued that an understanding of mind is characterised by a range of behaviours and that not all these are addressed in the traditional paradigm. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)