Students’ Ability to Pose a Problem: The Case of Waste

Abstract

The present paper reports on the abilities of young students to pose a problem and explores how these abilities relate to the solutions suggested as well as whether the age of the student influences these abilities. Specifically, twenty-seven 6-year-olds and thirty 9-year-olds from two state schools located in Volos, a small provincial town in Greece, were used as a sample. The inductive analysis of the data, collected in the form of drawings and interviews indicated that the majority of the students were able to pose the problem; albeit in an incomplete way. According to them, the problem of waste is created when people discard whatever is not useful to them. Few of them connected the waste issue to consumption or were aware of the possibility of reusing or recycling. Even fewer students suggested solutions other than just throwing waste into a bin. The results showed that those students, who knew about reusing and recycling at the posing phase, suggested them as ways of reducing waste. It may be assumed that focusing more on improving the way students pose the problem could affect their suggestions for addressing it. It was also noted that third-graders seemed better able to pose the problem than younger students.