Development of the Concept of Heat in

Children*

EDNA ALBERT?
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois

Theoretical Motivation for the Study

The general problem motivating this study is that of determining how children, as
organisms living in a complex environment, develop concepts which move progressively
in the direction of those of the adult. Several approaches can be recognized, each em-
phasizing different aspects of the problem.
According to one basic point of view, which underlies psychology in general, concepts
are things which exist independently in our environment. Thus, Hull[ 11, Bruner[2],
Berlyne[3], Kendler[4] and others treat concepts as instances or as combinations of
features. The problem at hand then becomes a matter of finding rules, principles, and
strategies of concept attainment, which can be used to explain how children acquire
concepts from the environment. Environmental control becomes an essential feature of
the approach, in particular the exclusion of variables which are not involved in the ac-
quisition of the concept under investigation and the manipulation of variables that are
relevant to the process.
A different approach is to be found in the work of Piaget. There the emphasis is not
on the external environment surrounding the child, but on the child himself as a living
organism intereacting constantly with his environment. It is the interaction process which
is responsible for the progressive building up in the childs mind of the various notions,
intuitions, and forms of thinking underlying his cognitive behavior.
The investigation described here follows a naturalistic approach similar to that of
Piaget. The primary object is to study the development of the body of concepts which
give meaning to such terms as hot, warm, heat, and temperature. Also, bearing
in mind Piagets thesis (cf. Inhelder and Chipman[S]) that objective knowledge cannot
be understood without analyzing how the developing child comes progressively closer
to more objective and scientific knowledge, an attempt will be made to relate the childs
ideas about heat to scientificknowledge of the physics of heat, such as notions of radiation,
heat flow, and temperature scale.

Heat as a Concept to Study

It might be added that, although the study of the development of the concept of heat
* Partially based on a Ph.D thesis submitted to the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 1974.
t Present address: Dept. of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Science Education 62(3): 389-399 (1978)

0 1978 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 0036-8326/78/0062-0389$0 1 .OO
390 ALBERT

seems to be a challenging one, it is a topic which is almost completely absent from the
studies carried out by psychologists dealing with conceptual behavior. In Piagets book,
the Child Conception of the World[6],there is some discussion of the origin of the sun;
also, in referring to artificial or animistic tendencies in children, the author has something
to say about cold, snow, and simiIar concepts. Recently, Piageti71 has studied the nature
of conduction of heat as conceived by children from age six to nine. Mention should also
be made of the account which Leopold[8] gives of the acquisition of the word hot. His
daughter started to use the word hai (heiss) at the age of 1.4 years. In her vocabulary,
hot is associated with hot objects and is based on her sensory impressions. The final
study supports the finding that heat as a hot-object appears early in the developmental
process.

Methodology
Data Collection
The main source of data for this study is a sample of approximately 40 interviews, which
were spread over a period of eight months. The subjects ranged in age from four to nine
years. Most of the interviews followed a common format involving a fixed sequence of
questions like: Give me examples of heat or Give me examples of warm; when do you
say this is warm? and so on. During this stage of interviewing, some further probing
was done by the experimenter, mostly with subjects of age seven to nine years. The probing
included questions such as What is the hottest thing in the world? or Warm and hot
are the same or not? and so on. In addition, special interviews were carried out to study
specific issues that had been revealed in the spontaneous responses of the subjects. As
examples of specific problems one might mention: (a) the notion of mechanical energy
of car engines and (b) the relation between childrens ideas of varying degrees of heat
and numerical values of the temperature. For a the experimenter included questions such
as: Suppose we have a car without gasoline, and somebody like a ghost, Casper, is
running the engine in the car, moving the piston up and down. What do you think will
happen to the heat in the car?, etc. For b the interviewer included questions such as
What is the difference if one oven is on looo and another is on 200, etc. All interviews
were tape recorded and then transcribed.
Data Analysis
The analysis of the data was carried out in two steps. First it was necessary to identify
the thought patterns which underlie the childrens conception of heat at different stages
of their development. Secondly, the thought patterns were then classified into cate-
gories, each category consisting of one, two, or three patterns. The choice of the categories
was largely based on which are regarded as the major characteristics of the adult con-
ceptualization of heat: hot as a property of objects; cold-warm-hot as a single dimension;
heat as a substance; heat as energy. The categories are related to some extent to scientific
knowledge of the physics of heat (cf. Sears and Zemansky[9]).
Data and Discussion
Category I: Construction of Hot Bodies
Already at an early age (around two years), the child has a concept of a hot-object,
 CONCEPT OF HEAT 391

the hot object being treated as an irreducible whole and not further analyzed into an object
plus a property of hotness. It was found that subjects at age four to six talk about hot
objects in one of two ways: they use either very short sentences of the form X is hot
(where X is an object), or they use sentences of the form X makes me [feel] hot. For
example, to the question Give me examples of heat, Tami (age 4) replied: Sun hot,
Beverly (5): Heat is hot, sun is hot, fire is hot, sun and ah . . ., and so on. Or to the
question Give me examples of warm? Mina (6.6) replied: The sun makes you hot.
The oven is on and that makes you hot too. Boiling water makes you warm; the sun does
too, etc. From such data as these, three thought patterns can be identified as consti-
tuting category I.
(1) Directional spatial constructionof hot bodies. The experience a child has of ra-
diation from a localized source (e.g., the sun, a fireplace, etc.) as he/she moves, so that
different areas of his/her body face the source, combined with visual monitoring of the
source at its constant location (or at least keeping the source at its location in mind) leads
to the mental construction of the source as an indivisible unitary hot-object located
somewhere in space. The childs conception of the source as hot-object is based on
his/her spatial experience with radiation from the sun which fills space and makes
him/her feel hot and on the childs experience of moving around an oven, a fireplace,
etc., where it does matter how far or how close one is to the localized source. The younger
subjects at ages four to six repeatedly expressed the idea that the sun is the radiating object
of maximum hotness and size. For instance, Sharon (3.5) replied: The sun is so hot,
Henry (4.5): It [the sun] has big hot when it is cold outside, and so on. In most of the
cases children ages four to five did not give examples of hotness in any way different from
the form Xis hot (sun is hot, oven is hot, fire is hot, etc.) regardless of how the
experimenter formulated her questions. They did not talk about heat in objects but re-
peatedly used sentences like Xis hot. At age 5-6.6, the form X makes me [feel] warm
occurred often in our interviews. The subjects did not apply warm to objects, but used
it as part of a cognitive system in which an object produces feelings of heat in oneself (e.g.,
sun makes you hot, boiling water makes you warm, coat makes you warm, etc.).
Thought pattern 1, which at ages four to five applies essentially to sources of radiation,
is extended at ages five to six to coats, pants, and to other objects which make the child
feel warm or hot and these objects thereby become hot objects or warm objects for
the child but without the same directional aspect.
At ages five to six the hot object becomes part of another conception implemented
by what we call thought pattern 2.
(2) Spatial constructionof a source of heat and the object affected. Around the age
of five to six years, the original notion of a hot-object is differentiated into the con-
ception of a source of heat which warms other objects. Thus the child expresses the idea
that while in the sky the sun makes the air and many other things hot as well. In other
words, the child makes a distinction between what later would be described as a source
and the object affected by the source. The child clearly feels or imagines the direction
of the movement to be from the sun to the object. For example, to the question Who
makes the outside hot? Tami ( 5 ) replied: The sun makes it, Beverly (6): I dont know,
the sun shines [she raises her hands] you see, like this [moves her hands] it gets from the
sun to the air, etc. Here for the first time children describe the activity of the sun without
connecting it to its direct effect upon themselves. They repeatedly use the source as a
392 ALBERT

very active agent that makes the air hot without talking about their own feeling of
heat.
On the basis of his/her spatial experience over a period of years, the child eventually
comes to see the sun as sitting in its own space and as shining there constantly and making
other objects hot. Thus, there is externalization of the source (and the object) which
means that the source is active there without necessarily affecting the child. External-
ization in this sense is a construction which seems to be essential to the distinction be-
tween an object and a property, and it probably creates in the child the awareness of a
movement from the source to the object.
The third notion which was reflected in our interviews and belonged to category I is
thought pattern 3.
(3) Heat as something suddenly created or destroyed. There is only a very limited
number of ways in which a young child can produce heat, e.g., he/she can turn on ovens,
television sets, lamps, etc. Since these actions are simple, it is not surprising that they
represent commonly found activity elements with a definite expectation of heat. When
subjects aged 4-6.6 describe manipulations with physical objects that can produce heat,
they usually mention the activity of turning or switching the object on or off, and they
expect it to become hot or cold immediately. For instance, to the question: Give me an
example of heat, Sonia (6.6)responded: When you turn it [the oven] on it is hot, and
when you turn it off it is cold, or a boy (6) said: The light bulb is hot when you turn
it on, and so on. Since turning on appliances such as lamps, ovens, and television sets
is usually accompanied instantaneously by light, the child expects hotness also to come
on immediately. For example, when the interviewer switched on lights in a living room,
children at ages four to six individually responded without hesitation that the light bulb
is hot. A similar response occurred when the experimenter turned on the oven and other
appliances as well. Thus, we can see that actions are associated directly with expectations
that the object will become hot; there is no planning or thinking ahead. This suggests that
the idea of hotness as a condition in which objects can be, or hotness as something which
can come to objects arises from a global effect involving many activity elements such
as turning on lights, ovens, and other appliances and also involving an expectation of
hotness.
Category II: Labile Nature of Heat
At ages seven to eight there is a further development in the childs conception of heat
which was not present earlier and which reveals a progress in the direction of a more
objective knowledge of heat. Heat phenomena are seen by the child (at age seven or eight)
as having a conditional nature, i.e., the child is explicitly aware that hot objects are
maybe only hot sometimes. For example, the child is aware of different things he/she
has to do to get objects hot, and also is aware that what he/she has to do is only done
sometimes and under certain conditions. The notion of hotness as a property of objects
thus acquires a conditional character. This new way of thinking is underlined by two
new qualitative cognitive capabilities.
(1) Conditional nature of heat based on systems of plans. At ages seven to eight, children
can and want to do many things involving heat (revealed in expressions such as if you
turn on the oven and you are going to bake or you put it on a grill and the like) and
they know a variety of manipulations, procedures, etc., for producing heat. Also, one can
 CONCEPT OF HEAT 393

note several distinct patterns of verbal usage at ages seven to eight that suggest that
children are aware of the conditional nature of heat. For example, to the question Give
me examples of heat, Anna (8) replied: I mean like if you turn on the oven and you
are going to bake something or cook something, you can sometimes feel the heat. Robin
(8): Because sometimes when you have a fireplace, you have to put charcoal and
somethings, but sometimes you cannot and you dont have to, if you dont want to, and
so on. The first distinct verbal usage is the repeated use of the phrases that things are hot
(or warm) sometimes and that you can make things hot (warm) sometimes. An additional
pattern of responding is the repetitions of statements such as: If you want to heat some-
thing, then you do such and such things (turn the oven, put on the grill, etc.) The words
sometimes and if which occur repeatedly in their phrases suggest that our subjects
are aware of different possibilities of action to get heat and of the fact that these actions
may or may not result in heat. Thus, at this stage of development hotness assumes a
conditional character, it sometimes happens or it can sometimes be produced, depending
on what the child wants to accomplish and on what steps to take. Now, when the child
thinks about hot things, or how to make things hot, the conditional nature of heat must
be a part of the active aspect that directs the production of possible actions to get heat
or to make things hot.
Thought pattern 2 reflects another aspect of the conditional nature of heat.
(2) Conditional nature of heat based on own body activities. At ages eight and nine our
subjects reflected on their own body activities when they talked about heat. For example,
to the question Where else is heat? Ann (8) responded: If you are outside a very long
time, you play a running around game, you can feel it, the heat, or Gill (8.8) replied:
Like if you had a nap and then you get out and start running around, and go fast and
dont stop to rest and anything, you get hot and it is like working, working yourself up.
Such patterns of responding, reflecting on the experiences of the past-that after running
a lot and for a long time, they become tired and hot-is used by our subjects at ages eight
to nine and not before. The data show that at age eight or later children repeatedly use
adverbs like a very long time and a lot in connection with body activities to express
long-term processes involved in these activities. They often use the adverb sometimes
when speaking about becoming hot and they explicitly tie feeling hot to body activities
like running.
Since the child is subconsciously aware that running is his/her own decision and
similarly that how much he/she runs and how long, all depend on his/her own decision
at the moment, the child realizes that getting hot is a conditional aspect depending on
his/her own choice of activities at the moment. At the same time, realization of the
conditional nature of becoming hot seems to depend on occasional reflections on these
experiences.
The third notion which is included in category I1 is thought pattern 3.
(3) Becoming hot as a process. We saw earlier that the idea that the air becomes
hot because of the sun is already formed at age five (category 1(2) above). At ages seven
and eight a new aspect appears: the fact that the sun warms the air is conceived of as a
process. For instance, Philip (7) said: The sun warms it [the air] up, or Holly (7) ex-
plained: She [the sun] makes the air get very hot, and then the air becomes hot, etc.
Thus children have a conception that warming up is a process that takes time (for both
304 ALBERT

the source and the object), and that heat is something active in the object being
warmed.
We suggest that the basic root of the conception becoming hot as a process is the
experience of getting warm when the sun shines on ones own body: When the sun shines,
the warmth is distributed over ones own body, it penetrates and spreads (c.f. Anna(8)):
The sun shines upon and hits upon it [your hair] and makes it lighter). The sun is thus
seen to work on a large area, on innumerable occasions simultaneously, and its working
takes time. This conception is then transferred from ones own body to the object
(air).
Evidence for this thought pattern is the frequent use of intransitive (and sometimes
of transitive) process words (It gets hot, warms up) which appear in many interviews
at ages seven or eight. In addition, the explicit use of the word heat suggests the be-
ginning of a differentiation between the object and heat in the object. At age seven and
later, whenever children give examples of hotness, they describe the process as related
either to the source (e.g., the sun shines or warms up, etc.) or to the objects that become
hot (e.g., water gets hot, light warms, etc.) and talk about themselves as getting
warm.
The adult conception of heat implies that cold, warm, and hot are a single dimension.
The most primitive form of the idea that cold, warm, and hot are a single dimension is
the conception that the object becoming hot needs time to pass from a lower level of heat
to a higher level of heat. This is expressed by children a t age seven and later and not be-
fore.
Category III: Heat as a Single Dimension
At ages 4 to 6.6 our subjects do not consistently distinguish between hot and warm,
even though they use both of these terms. Beginning at age eight, however, the children
distinguish clearly between hot and warm and at the same time, regarding hot and warm
as different instances of the same dimension. They accomplish this essentially by reflecting
on how they act on and react to objects at different temperatures. For example, to the
question Give me examples of heat, Teresa (8) replied: Well, if it is really hot, and
you touch it, then you can get burnt, or Karen (9): And you put your fingers on a candle
real quick then it does not burn you, but when you hold it in for a long while, a long time,
it will burn you, or as Ron (9) pointed: Like hot is sort of burn you and warm is just
feeling nice, etc. The fact that many children repeatedly describe their activity of
touching hot (or warm) objects in different situations and their feeling hot or getting
burned (or feeling nice) as a result of these manipulations, provides evidence for an active
construction of childs distinction between hot and warm as different instances of the
same dimension.
(1) Hot and warm as a single dimension. When asked about the difference between
hot and warm, children at age eight start to describe how they handle and operate hot
objects as opposed to warm objects: If you touch a hot object you get burned; if you touch
a warm object, that feels nice. Later, at age nine, two new aspects appear: If you touch
a hot object like a flame very quickly, you will not get burned, but if you do it slowly, you
will; and if something was heated and you then came and touched it, it may be hot or
warm. Clearly, the children reflect on how they approach the object, what they feel, and
how they react in these different situations. (Most of the explanations involve the fingers,
 CONCEPT OF HEAT 395

which are instruments of explanation and which are at the same time very sensitive to
temperature.) Getting burned is the extreme event which is always on the childrens
minds. When faced with a hot object, the child can operate and manipulate it as long as
it is warm; but if it is hot, he will get burned. Hence warm and hot are juxtaposed and
treated as a continuum precisely because there is a critical point in the childs actions
beyond which he will get burned.
Thus when the eight-year-old child thinks of an object as hot or warm, an awareness
of the various possibilities of the way in which he can approach the object and of his
sensations and of the critical point feature seems to be somehow implicit. Consequently,
the distinction between hot and warm, and at the same time the fact that hot and warm
form a single system, are results of an active construction. More precisely, they are ob-
tained by using the awareness and memory of ones own way of handling hot objects, of
ones way of dealing with the critical point aspect. Although the object exists before
it enters into interaction with the child, ones way of manipulating the object is made into
a property of the object.
Category IT/: Construction of Heat as an Independent Entity
At age eight there evolves the distinction between heat and the object in which heat
resides. Heat then functions as a constant element which is localized visually-spatially
around the hot object in a certain place, so that the child can stand near that place or move
around it.
There are at least two thought forms which underlie this distinction: One notion
underlies the childs conception of heat as something that is started and maintained by
a source. This conception is based on a distinction-juxtaposition of the childs own ac-
tivities: what do you do to make it work in contrast with what is necessary to make the
object work. For example, when Robin (8) was asked What else is hot? she replied:
Well, sometimes, when you get a squirrel and something, you put it on a grill or
something, so to get heat you have to plug it in sometimes or sometimes when you have
a fireplace, you have to put a charcoal and something, etc. The second thought pattern
concerns the localization of heat in certain places (around an oven or a fireplace) and
is based on spatial imaginal effects as well as the actions concerned with getting heat.
For instance, to the question Give me examples of heat, a girl (9) answered: Heat
rises ah . . . the sun has it. It has I think, the sun has heat rises of the gas and it is hot and
the sun burns it and it shines and comes down makes the earth hot. These two new notions
are represented in the childs responses at age eight and later but not before.
(1) Heat started and maintained by a source. At age eight, our subjects continuously
juxtapose descriptions of their activities to get heat with statements that emphasize an
independent role by the object: You put it on a grill or something, so to get heat you have
to plug it in. The emphasis is on the object itself that works and that is active while
it produces heat. The childs own activities are necessary only to start the work of the
object. The work of the object itself is maintained automatically because of the special
nature of the object.
Perhaps the child becomes aware in his actions of the special nature of his own actions
(to turn it on) which refers to how he starts the object as opposed to the remote con-
ditions or events that guarantee that the object will then in fact get hot (e.g., It has to
be plugged in). This creates a certain constancy which is felt by the child as the long
396 ALBERT

and constant work which the object is doing. This constancy then is something that
is started and maintained; and can be regarded as the initial version of the notion of heat
as an independent entity. It is separate from the object, but still in the object (it only shows
itself in the object).
The distinction-juxtaposition of the two processes aspects-what do you do to make
it work, what is necessary to make it work-shows that the child is taking an external
view of his own activity in relation to hotness. Since the childs own activities take time
and he is aware of it (you have to start it, etc.), his conceptualization of heat assumes
a temporal aspect. It gets a real time extension, so that it can proceed together with the
childs own activity and become a stable and independent entity.
The second thought pattern included in category IV is involved with a spatial com-
ponent.
(2) Heat as an extended entity in space. At age eight, a new aspect appears in the
childrens expressions: they refer explicitly to heat in spatial terms (e.g., heat rises),
and describe spatial situations and arrangements in which an object becomes hot or gets
heat (e.g., you could sit by the fireplace and you could get heat). Moreover, the heat
is often depicted as active and moving (it rises, it comes down, it comes to the
window, it goes) and the spatial arrangement includes the childs own activity (sit
by the fireplace, turn on the stove, and open the stove, etc.) Clearly then heat for these
children is something felt and held visually in space, with spatial extent and with move-
ment.
Examination of the data shows a repeated pattern of the form heat comes to me [or
I come near it] and I feel it. This suggests that a crucial component of the conception
that leads to this construction of heat as a localized entity is the experience or awareness
of the change of the heat felt when the child approaches hot objects.
Piaget [ 101 points out that the ability to penetrate volumes in spatial imagination de-
velops at around age eight and not before and that such an imaginal act of spatial pene-
tration is a process that takes time. Our suggestion is that the awareness of the continuous
change in felt heat, when and immediately after the child approaches the hot object,
activates the spatial imagination system.
Before age eight, the child has absolutely no conception of heat as something extended
in space, and never uses spatial terms to describe heat. When he talks about his feelings
of hotness, he talks as if hot objects make him feel hot immediately (at ages four to six)
or he talks about objects that become hot (at age seven). However, he cannot describe
extension and movement of a substance heat in space. Only at age eight and later does
he conceptualize heat as an entity that has spatial extension and is localized in space and
that is different from the hot object itself. One type of evidence for this conception is
represented by the juxtaposition, in the childs responses of his own activities, on the one
hand, and of an overall spatial arrangement of the hot object on the other hand. (For
example, Robin (8): Well, like sometimes in the winter if you dont have a fireplace,
you can use the stove and you turn it on and open it and you can get heat.) In addition,
the child explicitly uses the term heat. Taken together, these features highlight heat as
an independent entity in space which the child harnesses by appropriate spatial activi-
ties.
Category V: Conceptualization of Temperature
Around ages eight to ten, children for the first time have the idea of definite degrees
 CONCEPT OF HEAT 397

of heat, and of distinct levels of heat. Most of our older subjects always spoke spon-
taneously about degrees of heat in conjunction with numbers. For instance, to the question
What can be warm? Jerry (8) replied: Like now in the air, like now it is ninety-five,
it could be like sixty or sixty-five or seventy, it is pretty warm. Or to the question What
is less hot than the sun? Robin (8) answered: Like if you have one griller that was on
three hundred and the other griller was on four hundred, the four hundred will be hotter
than the three hundred only, etc. Some of our subjects, when probed further by the
experimenter about the heat in the oven and the dial setting used verbs like moving
the dial setting, or changing it, or turning it around, to imply a transition from one
level of heat to another. This supports our hypotheses that the manipulations are fused
with the awareness of the resulting temperature change. Many subjects expressed an
awareness that passage of time was necessary for the transition from a lower level of heat
to a higher one. For instance, Rable (8) described that 200 of heat in an oven is higher
than 100 of heat because you changed the oven and the heat, it takes a while for the
other number to get hotter. The construction of the idea of definite degrees of heat
and of distinct levels of heat is represented in the following notions.
(1) Levels of heat constructed on the basis of manipulations involving dial settings. This
conception is concerned with the construction of a continuum of levels and of individual
discrete levels of temperature on the basis of discrete manipulations with the temperature
dial on an oven and settings of the dial. When turning the dial from one temperature
setting to another, the action has (at least for children at ages eight to ten) a definite end
point, the dial is set to a new position and this new position is kept in mind during the
process of turning. In addition, the new position is marked by a discrete mark on the dial,
and at the end of the turning, the dial pointer and the mark form a definite new spatial
configuration, which is then left undisturbed. Starting from this aspect, the child is led
to construct the idea of a specific level of heat, so that the new level which is reached
corresponds to this action and its end point. The passage from the intent to turn to a new
dial position and the action of doing it, to the idea of a specific level, is an act of internal
construction, because it is mediated by other processes. For example, the child is aware
that he has to wait until the hotness reaches its new level. This thought pattern is therefore
constructed on three components: (a) setting the temperature dial on an oven or a heater,
(b) the awareness of the passage of time during the transition from a lower level of heat
to a higher level, and (c) the fact that numbers, which are already independent entities,
are associated with levels of heat, probably helps levels of heat to become independent
discrete entities themselves.
Category VZ: Mechanical Energy as a Source of Heat
At ages eight, nine, and later, children have the idea that heat can be produced in a
physical object by mechanical energy that transforms constantly into heat as long as the
object is active. When asked to give examples of heat, most of our subjects at ages nine
and ten and one eight-year-old subject brought up various machines which they described
as being in use or in operation and as therefore being warm or hot. For instance, to the
question What else can be hot? Jerry (8): Ahm . . .well sometimes, when like if there
is ahm . . . something spinned around a little fast, if you put your finger on it, if it goes
too fast, it sort of burns your finger, sort of and it is hot. Or Amy (10) replied . . . motors
in cars that were driven a lot. Your tires, if you are riding it a lot on your bike, it could
398 ALBERT

be warm, etc. Thus children realize that there is an intrinsic relationship between me-
chanical activity and heat production by the object as a whole. Since the child clearly
becomes aware of the fact that, for a physical object to become hot is a long term process,
older children emphasize the fact that motors in cars or other objects have to be active
for a long time in order to become hot (e.g., Michel(9): Well, if it goes for a long time
it should get hot, but if it goes for a few minutes then it should stay pretty cold).
The notion that heat can be produced by mechanical energy was expressed at eight
or nine and not before. Our older subjects gave many examples of moving objects and
cars. They use process verbs to describe the on-going activity of a motor (like spinned
around, it goes, etc.) In addition, they use expressions indicating long term processes
(like goes for a long time, goes around, getting hot) and expressions of feeling
heat in their own motor activity.

1. CONSTRUCTION OF before L years

HOT BODIES
activity elements

hot bodies
/externolization
/
spatial construct ion
-
source object

II. LABILE 6 years

NATURE
OF HEAT svstems of

AN ENTITY

/
hoot started
k
spotiatizotim
of heat
I
I
A SINGLE
DIMENSION

hot and worn

ond maintained I a s o single
by o source I dimension
--__--
Vl. ENERGY AS
A SOURCE
OF HEAT
theat as a source
of mechanical
energy
--_
--------I--------
\\V. CONCEPTUALIZATION
\ OF TEMPERATURE
\
\
\

\
\
\
\
1
levels of
heat

Figure 1. Thought patterns underlying the concept of heat arranged developmentally-dynamically, and
classified by objective adult categories.
 CONCEPT OF HEAT 399

Summary and Conclusions

In our qualitative analysis of data we have identified 1 1 thought patterns which

underly the concept of heat found in children aged four to nine. The patterns are classified
into six categories which are related to scientific knowledge of the physics of heat (see
Fig. 1). Categories like friction or conduction are missing altogether because of lack of
evidence on these aspects.
Our thought patterns are described chronologically, providing a developmental
approach to the question of how the child develops the concept of heat progressively in
the direction of adults conceptualization.
Thus, when we talk about the concept of heat in any child or when we refer to any
concept at all in an individual, we talk about the possible notions, intuitions, and cognitive
capabilities that underlie his conceptualization. We dont think of the concept as being
a structure that exists independently as a definite entity in the environment and is then
acquired from the environment by the child. From our perspective, the environment
is seen as nourishing the cognitive domain of the living organism. The concepts themselves,
generated in the process of interaction of the human organism with his environment, form
an endless process of creation of the human mind.
With this approach in mind the educational view that we suggest when teaching sci-
entific concepts is to fit the teachers instruction to the childs own conceptualizations,
to encourage his own intuitions and imagination, and to plan the instructional material
in such a way that it will be adapted to his patterns of thinking that underlie the concept
to be taught.
Discussions with Professor K. G . Witz and Professor J. A. Easley are greatly appreciated.

References

1 . Hull, C. L. Quantitative aspects of the evolution of concepts, Psychological Monographs,

28(1):(whole No. 123) (1920).
2. Bruner, J. S., J . J. Goodnow, and G. A. Austin, A Study of Thinking, New York Wiley,
1956.
3. Berlyne, D. E., Structure and Direction in Thinking, New York Wiley, 1956.
4. Kendler, H. H., The concept of concept, in Categories of Human Learning, A. W. Melton
(Ed.), New York: Academic, 1964.
5. Inhelder, B. and H. H. Chipman (Eds.), Piaget and His School: A Reader in Developmental
Psychology, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1976.
6. Piaget, J., The Childs Conception of the World, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1929.
7. Piaget, J., Les Explications Causales (avec la collaboration de R. Garcia), Paris: Press
Universitaires de France, 197 1.
8. Leopold, W. F., Speech Development of a Bilingual Child, New York: AMS Press, 1970,
Vol. 1 .
9. Sears, F. W. and M. W. Zemansky, College Physics, Cambridge, Mass,: Addison-Wesley,
1955.
10. Piaget, J. and B. Inhelder, Mental Imagery in the Child, New York: Basic Books, 1971.

Received September 22, 1977