An analysis of children’s drawings of what they think is inside their bodies: a South African regional study

Abstract

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.

What’s in the body? Children’s annotated drawings

“…Numbers of internal organs shown in children's drawings are closely correlated to the age of the child, reflecting increases in children's knowledge with age (Glaun and Rosenthal, 1987). Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2001) developed a 7-level scale for scoring children's drawings in this respect, which has been subsequently applied in several studies (Dempster and Stears, 2014;Óskarsdóttir et al, 2011). The participants and methods used in previous studies in which children's drawings of the human body have been examined are listed in Table 1, while the numbers of organs shown in drawings by children of various ages, and the mean scores of their drawings, according to Reiss and Tunnicliffe's scale are presented in Table 2.…”

An Investigation of Primary Student Teachers’ Drawings of the Human Internal Organs

“…The main intention in this study was not to see whether student teachers list the human internal body organs, rather, to reveal how knowledgeable they are about location and size of them. As seen in the drawings, the knowledge that primary student teachers have of their internal body organs largely have its sources in informal experiences they have had personally or socially outside school, because of the fact that their drawings do not reflect formal information they experienced through the school years (Dempster & Stears, 2014). Misconceptions are still too common in their drawings.…”

“…In the drawing approach, participants are required to present their mental models as pictures rather than as verbal or written statements (Boulter & Buckley, 2000;Dempster & Stears, 2014). In this context, drawings can provide teachers very valuable information and clues that can be taken into consideration during teaching-learning process.…”

“…Given that children usually obtain their science knowledge through personal experience, Dempster and Stears (2014) explored seven-year-old South African children' understanding of their internal anatomy. They used drawings to determine young children's knowledge of systems and organs.…”

Analiza rysunków/szkiców i wypowiedzi werbalnych dzieci na temat budowy anatomicznej człowieka

“…Podobne wyniki otrzymali inni badacze (Reiss & Tunnicliffe 2001;Prokop & Fančovičova 2006;i in.). Jedynie w badaniach przeprowadzonych wśród dzieci z południowej Afryki najczęściej rysowanym organem był żołądek, serce znajdowało się na około 50% rysunków (Dempster & Stears 2013). Ciekawym przypadkiem rysunku był rysunek chłopca, który narysował jelita w nogach, wyjaśniając, że wie, że "one są długie i" -jego zdaniem -"nie ma innej możliwości, żeby się pomieściły w ciele człowieka jak ta, żeby sięgały aż do kolan".…”