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Cognitive assessment and health education in children from two different cultures
M Sivaramakrishnan1, J F Arocha, V L Patel
1Centre for Medical Education, McGill University, Montreal, Que., Canada.
Insights
Children
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Children's cognitive processes are influenced by their existing beliefs and local knowledge.
- Understanding these influences is crucial for effective educational assessment and instruction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate high-level comprehension and problem-solving in children aged 2-14 in India and Colombia.
- To examine the relationship between cognitive task performance, nutritional status, and parasitic load.
- To inform approaches to cognitive assessment and classroom instruction.
Main Methods:
- Development and application of health-related cognitive tasks assessing sequence comprehension, concept organization, health routine understanding, and hypothesis evaluation.
- Testing children aged 2-14 in India and Colombia.
- In one study, correlating cognitive task performance with nutritional status and parasitic load.
Main Results:
- Children's prior beliefs and local knowledge significantly shape their reasoning, comprehension, and problem-solving approaches.
- Cognitive task performance varies based on these pre-existing understandings.
- Nutritional status and parasitic load may also influence cognitive performance.
Conclusions:
- Educational assessments must account for children's prior knowledge and local understanding.
- Current assessment methods often fail to integrate this prior knowledge with classroom learning.
- Developing assessment tools that tap into and analyze prior understanding is recommended for improved educational strategies.
Abstract:
This paper presents research aimed at investigating high level comprehension and problem solving processes in children in two different countries, India and Colombia. To this end, we use a series of health-related cognitive tasks as assessment tools. In one study, we also examine children's performance on these cognitive tasks, in relation to their nutritional status and parasitic load. The ages of the children tested ranged from 2 through 14 years. The tasks were designed to assess comprehension of sequences, organization of concepts, understanding of health routines (hygiene practices) and evaluation of hypothesis and evidence. The results show that children approach the different tasks with a baggage of beliefs and local knowledge of the world which determines their reasoning process, their comprehension and their problems solving. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive assessment approaches, as applied to classroom instruction. Given that children construct their understanding of reality based on what they already know and that education does not take this into account, we recommend that assessment tools should be devised that can tap prior knowledge and understanding, such that this can be analyzed and understood in relation to knowledge taught in the classroom. Current educational assessment fails in such an endeavor.