Uppeldi og menntun - 16.02.2007, Side 137

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GUNNHILDUR ÓSKARSDÓTTIR
years. The paper builds upon a study that explored the ideas children in the first year
of the primary school have about the human body (location, structure, function and
process) before being formally taught about it. It also explores how these ideas change
and develop during the teaching about the human body and what factors especially
influence the development of the children’s ideas. The theoretical background of the
study is the constructivist view of learning and teaching where emphasis is put on
the activity of the learners in the learning process and the importance of taking into
account children’s ideas when planning the curriculum. One class of 19 children in
Primary 1 (and 2) was chosen to take part in the research along with its teacher and
a sample of parents. Data was collected through classroom observation, interviews
with all the participants, drawings the children made and diagnostic tasks presented
to the children. The paper will focus on the results obtained from the drawings. The
children were asked to draw pictures at every stage of the study right from the beginn-
ing. All the drawings were collected and special scales were used to analyse them. The
results show that the children are more aware of both the structure and the location
of the heart and the brain, than of the structure and the location of other organs such
as the stomach and the lungs. The results show that drawings can be very useful as a
method to get access to children’s ideas and to see how their ideas change. They can be
especially important when getting access to the quiet, withdrawn children in the class
that rarely express themselves verbally. However, drawings used alone do not always
give a clear picture of children’s ideas.
Gunnhildur Óskarsdóttir er
dósent við Kennaraháskóla Íslands