本研究使用自编平衡秤测验测试468名6—15岁儿童,通过潜在类别分析对认知规则进行分类。结果发现,被试使用了重量规则、重量规则:重量距离规则、补偿规则、力矩规则、距离优势规则等六种规则;6~9岁儿童主要使用重量规则;10~13岁儿童主要使用补偿规则;14岁以上儿童主要使用力矩规则;13岁到14岁之间是掌握力矩规则的关键时期。与规则评估技术相比,潜在类别分析用于认知规则研究具有明显优势,最后对运用此方法的前提假设与局限进行了讨论。
The balance scale task has been frequently studied in developmental psychology. In those studies, Siegler rule assessment methodology (RAM) was often utilized to identify which rule children used to solve each type of balance scale task. However, RAM was frequently criticized for lacking statistical background. It can be solved by latent class analysis (LCA), by which we can statistically test how many rules are needed to fit the data and what these rules are. In this paper, a test made of 20 items, which belong to four different types of balance scale task, was developed, and the latent structure of Chinese children performance on the test was analyzed. The 457 Chinese children aged 6 years to 15 years finished the entire test and the data was analyzed through the latent class approach with Mplus 6.0. Before the analysis of the combinations of items, it is essential to eliminate the ones who could not use the weight rule ( RULE I ). Those children were found by latent class analysis of five weight items. After that, there were 428 people in our dataset for further analysis of the combined items. The results showed that ( 1 ) the LCA had several advantages in classification of the cognitive rules through statistical analysis of combinations of distance, conflict-balance and conflict weight items, two of each type. (2) Model of six classes well fitted the data, in which classes corresponded to weight rule, weight and distance rule, compensation rule, torque rule, distance dominant rule. (3) Chinese children aged from 6 to 9 mainly used weight rule, and with the increase of age, fewer children chose weight rule, weight and distance rule, to solve the test items. Children aged from 10 to 13 mainly used compensation rule. Almost all children older than 14 used torque rule during testing. (4) The increase of the proportion who used torque rule was between age 13 and age ld. The results of the present paper can be weU explained by the Overlapping Waves Model. The rules utilized by Chinese