Children's ideas of animals' internal structures (original) (raw)
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What’s in the body? Children’s annotated drawings
Journal of Biological Education
This paper presents a study of children's ideas of the body's internal structure. Children between four and 13 years (N = 170) individually produced drawings. During each drawing session the children explained their drawings to a facilitator and added written labels either by themselves or, if they were too young to write, with the facilitator's help. The results provide an updated comprehensive picture of children in different age groups and their views on the internal structure of the body. The type and numbers of organs drawn are similar to those documented in previous studies. However, in comparison to recent studies, the children drew more organs, the brain was indicated almost as often as the heart, and the Valentine heart was frequently used as a symbol. In contrast with previous research, children drew connections between organs. This result calls for caution regarding conclusions made from decontextualized questions. The importance of providing children with the opportunity to clarify their drawings is emphasised since it otherwise becomes a question of the researcher's interpretation. The connections they draw, and explanations they give to their drawings, have interesting implications for understanding children's ideas, and hence both for teaching and learning and for science education research.
What's inside bodies? Learning about skeletons and other organ systems of vertebrate animals
2001
This paper describes a study of young children's understanding of what is on the inside of animals--skeletons and other organ systems. The study uses 2-D drawings based on the idea that a drawing is the representational model and is the outward expression of the mental model. The 617 drawings made by participants in the study were awarded one of seven levels according to biological quality with Level 1 meaning no representation of internal structure and Level 7 meaning comprehensive representation with four or more organ systems indicated out of skeletal, gaseous exchange, nervous, digestive, endocrine, urinogenital, muscular, and circulatory systems. It is concluded that learning about animals and their internal organization begins at home and reflects public understanding of this area, and that biology educators need to find out what this public understanding is and develop that knowledge into biological knowledge as part of students' education. (Contains 12 references.) (MM)
The purpose of the study is to find out what a group of seven-year-old South African children understand of their internal anatomy. The research is based on the premise that young children obtain most of their science knowledge through personal experience. Drawings are used to determine the level of young children's knowledge of systems and organs. The study also investigates whether there are significant differences between boys and girls' understanding as well as between children from a range of schooling contexts. Teachers were instructed to ask children to draw what they think is inside their bodies, using the language that is most familiar to the children (English, isiZulu, or isiXhosa). The findings show that children are able to draw individual organs, but are unable to show relationships between them. There were significant differences between different schools, but these differences were not due to different contexts. At Grade 1 level, boys were better able to represent what they thought was inside their bodies than girls. The findings show that the informal knowledge children hold of what is inside their bodies appears to be acquired by informal means, outside the school.
Journal of Biological Education, 2013
The purpose of the study is to find out what a group of seven-year-old South African children understand of their internal anatomy. The research is based on the premise that young children obtain most of their science knowledge through personal experience. Drawings are used to determine the level of young children's knowledge of systems and organs. The study also investigates whether there are significant differences between boys and girls' understanding as well as between children from a range of schooling contexts. Teachers were instructed to ask children to draw what they think is inside their bodies, using the language that is most familiar to the children (English, isiZulu, or isiXhosa). The findings show that children are able to draw individual organs, but are unable to show relationships between them. There were significant differences between different schools, but these differences were not due to different contexts. At Grade 1 level, boys were better able to represent what they thought was inside their bodies than girls. The findings show that the informal knowledge children hold of what is inside their bodies appears to be acquired by informal means, outside the school.
Students' understandings of human organs and organ systems
Research in Science Education, 2001
How do people develop their understanding of what is inside them? This study looks at students' understandings of their internal structure. A cross-sectional approach was used involving a total of 158 students in England from six different age groups (ranging from 4 year-olds to first year undergraduates). Students were given a blank piece of A4-sized paper and asked to draw what they thought was inside themselves. Repeated inspections of the completed drawings allowed us to construct a seven point scale of these representations. Our analysis shows the extent to which student understanding increases with age and the degree to which pupils know more about some organs and organ systems than others. While gender differences in the drawings were generally not large there were some intriguing differences in the ways males and females drew reproductive organs.
International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 2022
T he ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has engendered anxieties and concerns among many children, decreasing their health-related quality of life and restricting their psychological well-being (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2020). Children are now more vulnerable to adverse aspects of health, disease, respiratory failure, and ventilation compared to the time before the pandemic. Awareness about one's own body as well as health-promoting measures can
Children’s ideas about the human body – A Nordic case study.
NorDiNa, 2011
This paper explores the findings of a study of the ideas young school children in the Nordic countries have about the human body e.g. structure and location of bones and organs (heart, lungs, stomach and brain etc.) before being taught about it formally at school. The aims of the study were to investigate children's ideas about the human body and to see if their ideas differ between Nordic countries and if so, in what way. Twenty 6 year old children in each country were chosen (7-8 year olds in Finland) and asked to draw the bones and the organs in the body and to explain their drawings. Mixed methods were used in this study to get a broader view of the double aim of the study. Special scales were used to get a quantitative view of children's ideas as put forward in their drawings and the study also had some elements of a case study as it was meant to focus on children's ideas about a special issue, that is, the human body. The results show many similarities between the children's ideas presented in the drawings and also interesting differences. The results also suggest that the culture aspects in each country such as cooking habits, typical foods, pictures in books and language expressions influence children's ideas about bones and organs in the human body.
Development of Biological Literacy through Drawing Organisms
Drawing for Science Education, 2017
This chapter is about how children´s drawings convey their level of conceptual understanding of organisms. Drawings is a useful pedagogical tool as a window to investigate children´s conceptual knowledge and meaning they give to this form of art.. We intend to show how children represent by means of drawings their concepts and ideas of the natural world. Our methodology was to analyze the drawings collected from pupils living in rural áreas, towns and suburbam areas in Brazil will be discussed.
Graphic Representation of Organs ond Organ Systems: Psychological View and Developmental Patterns
Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 2011
The objective of this exploratory study is to characterize by means of drawings if the developmental patterns in the graphic representation of organ and organ systems progresses related to age of participants. Secondly, whether there is an integration of sex organs into the internal body image. The drawings representing the inside of the body in the conception of 396 Brazilian children of both sexes aged 5 to 11 year-olds and 237 adolescents boys and girls of ages 12 to 14 year-olds were classified according to a guide for qualitative scoring criteria. The relationship between age and drawings was found consistent with developmental patterns. The integration of sex organs into the drawings representing body images, were equally evident with pre-adolescents of both sexes and are discussed both on the perspective of psychoanalytical theory and mental models.