EVOLUTION IN THE INTUITIVE MASTERY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MASS, VOLUME, AND DENSITY FROM NURSERY-SCHOOL TO COLLEGE

We investigated levels of intuitive mastery of the relationships betwe en the concepts of mass, volume, and density in subjects of different ages from nursery school to university using the methodological framew ork of Information Integration Theory (Anderson, 1991). When asked to infer mass from information on volume and density, the rule applied mo st frequently by the subjects was an additive rule, density + volume. An alternative rule used by the majority of younger children was unifa ctorial, involving only density. When asked to infer density, the rule used most frequently was a unifactorial rule involving volume. Only s cience students primarily used the subtraction rule, mass - volume. Wh en asked to infer volume, the most frequent case was the absence of a coherent rule. When a rule was applied, the most common was a unifacto rial one involving mass. University students, however, tended to use t he subtraction rule, mass - density.