Content area
Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the relationship between age and the propositional content of childrens' definitions of natural categories. Thirty-six subjects, 12 first grade students, 12 fourth grade students, and 12 seventh grade students, were asked individually to define six natural categories--ball, dog, flower, bird, tree, doll--and allowed one minute to freely respond to each stimulus word. Their responses were recorded and analyzed according to propositional content, into six response classifications--logical, featural, functional, actional, spatial, and affectional.
A chi-square ($\chi\sp2$) test on proportions revealed a significant overall relationship between age and propositional content, $\chi\sp2$ (12,N = 36) = 24.66, p $<$.005. The nature of this relationship was found to involve primarily quantitative differences which is not in accordance with a general assumption that categorization criteria change qualitatively with age (e.g., Bruner, 1966). Thus, a number of theoretical and practical issues were raised.
