Children’s conception of selected environmental concepts in pupils of the primary and lower-secondary school
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Abstract
Teachers’ understanding of which concepts (= phenomena) pose problems for pupils, is a prerequisite for successful teaching. It is possible, however, that pupils see the difficulty of the phenomena differently from the teacher. In our research, we compare the perception of the difficulty of 20 selected environmental phenomena by teachers of 10 primary and lower-secondary schools (N=60; the research tool was a questionnaire) and their pupils (N=1341; the research tool was a cognitive test). In addition to perceiving the difficulty, we were also interested in understanding the meaning and the conception of this understanding.
Using the methodological triangulation, we further worked with 8 phenomena which proved to be the most difficult for the pupils according to the results of the cognitive test while using follow-up qualitative research, where the research tool was a conceptual map (N=79) supplemented by an interview (N=4) with some respondents (= R).
A statistically significant difference in the understanding of the significance of the phenomena was found, depending on the research tool used (Z=6.8, p <.001). Possible reasons for childhood conceptions and misconceptions are discussed here, which, according to the research results, persist with the age of the pupils.
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