Children’s ideas about the human body – A Nordic case study

Gunnhildur Óskarsdóttir,Finnur Lützen,Birgitte Stougaard,Roar Kråkenes,Eila Jeronen,Ane Fleischer

doi:10.5617/nordina.240

Abstract

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.

Highlights

Making drawings has always been a part of children’s activities at school
The term ‘case study’ draws attention to the question of what can be learned from a single case
We used clear instruction and emphasized that words and phrases used for instructions should be as similar as possible in all the countries

Summary

Introduction

Making drawings has always been a part of children’s activities at school. Children’s drawings are important to get access to their ideas (Walker, 2007), or as Fisher (2005) says: Drawing is a wonderful way of making thinking visible (p. 57).Children’s drawings have been viewed by researchers as a means of investigating children’s understanding of specific concepts. Anning and Ring (2004) argue that children’s drawings are undervalued in school education and that drawings should be taken into account as an important part of children’s development. They believe that drawings are a powerful tool for knowing what children are telling us and offer insight into their thinking and understanding of their world. They build their conclusions on their own study of children’s drawings that were collected over three years, between the ages of 3 and 7 (Anning & Ring, 2004). Their research that related to the transition to school showed that when children draw and talk, they construct and convey their meaning

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion