Very Young Children's Development in Moviemaking

Abstract

In this study, I gave a group of six to eight very young Chinese Singaporean children (between 2 and 4 years of age) three identical digital video cameras, plus tripods, and tracked their development in moviemaking over a 2-year period. The children were allowed to explore the cameras freely, though the investigators offered advice and support as and when necessary. Before this study, I had made detailed longitudinal studies of British and Asian children's representational development in pencil- and-paper technologies. I was interested to find out whether insertion of a different, electronic moviemaking medium into development would change developmental histories fundamentally or whether it was possible to discern key patterns of development and developmental principles, despite change in media. Previous studies suggest that, by changing the medium, the new tools of representation would reconfigure development, emphasizing aspects of representational thinking less apparent in other media. For example, physical paint redirects the child's development of linear shape, but key structures persist despite a new interest in color and texture. Golomb's (1974, 1992, 1993) work also shows that giving young draftspersons clay, instead of crayons or pencils, also causes interesting developmental variations but that key patterns of action still persist.