Primary School Students’ Conceptions About Owls, Experiences With Owls and Their Sources of Information

Abstract

The present research explores benefits of using young students’ drawings in combination with written responses for gathering information about science concepts. Younger students are still very limited in their verbal expression and less biologically literate than older students. The aim was to determine primary school students’ conceptions about owls, experiences with owls and their sources of information, and to then determine how beneficial it is to combine information gathered from drawings and written responses in comparison to previous research done with lower secondary school students. Altogether, 280 students attending fourth and fifth grades from schools in Slovenia participated in the research. Students knew well the specific features of owls. Drawings provided more clear information about body parts and proportions, while owls’ specific habitats, behaviours and diet were more thoroughly described in their written responses. Students without experiences with living owls represented owls less thoroughly. Comparison of frequencies of responses in main categories of conceptions about owls showed that using drawings and written responses is equally beneficial for younger and older students. Gathering primary school students’ conceptions about science concepts with both drawings and written responses enables better assessment of a student’s knowledge than using just drawings or written responses. Keywords: primary school student, conceptions about owls, experiences with owls, student’s drawing, student’s written response.

Conceptual Knowledge, Experiences, and Sources of Information Secondary School Students Have About Owls

“…In addition, the data are presented in Tables 1 and 2 as shown in the findings section. Torkar et al (2019) and Gnidovec and Torkar (2019) were used while creating the tables.…”

“…Ten students were randomly selected for interviews from among students who completed the drawings and written responses. Interviews were conducted with open-ended questions about appearance of owls, students' attitudes toward owls and symbolic representations of owls (Torkar and Bajd, 2006;Torkar et al, 2019;Gnidovec and Torkar, 2019).…”

“…While a large amount of research exists concerning the use of drawings to probe learners' understanding of biological phenomena (Bahar et al, 2008;Garcia-Barros et al, 2011;Manokore and Reiss, 2003;Reiss and Tunnicliffe, 2001), the number of Turkish studies is limited. There are many studies in the literature examining students' knowledge of birds (Tunnicliffe, 2011;Hummel et al, 2015;Kubiatko and Balatova, 2017;Gnidovec and Torkar, 2019;Torkar et al, 2019). However, there is not much research on owls, an endemic species.…”

The effectiveness of video-based interaction on professional science teachers to improve elementary school students achievements

“…From the results of interviews with students, it can be concluded that some students had not been able to explain the science concept descriptively . Elementary school students' difficulties in explaining science concepts were because they were still at a very young age who had minimal verbal abilities in gathering information (Gnidovec & Torkar, 2019). The difficulties can be overcome by having a learning environment and technology that fits the context for elementary school students.…”

“…Younger students have limited ability to express information processing about science concepts verbally. However, students who have a better learning experience will be able to describe information about the science concept as a whole (Gnidovec & Torkar, 2019). NGSS shows changes in instruction used in science education lead to inquiry skills (Hoisington, 2018).…”