Abstract
Temperature and heat are difficult concepts for children to grasp due to their abstractness. An image-to-writing approach, guided by the visualisation practices of scientists, was designed to engage elementary students with constructing images to represent their ideas about phenomena and translating these images into text using scientific terminologies. Taking a quasi-experimental approach, the experimental group students received inquiry-based instruction based on the image-to-writing approach, while the control group students received a mix of direct instruction and inquiry activities without explicit focus on multimodal representations. An instrument consisting of four free response questions was developed and administered to 129 primary 4 students (aged 9–10) before (pre-test) and after (post-test) instruction to determine their conceptual understanding and representational competences. ANCOVA showed that students in the experimental group perform significantly better than those in the control group in their conceptual understanding. Further analysis revealed that a larger percentage of students in the experimental group demonstrated higher levels of conceptual understanding after instruction, compared to the control group for more complex phenomena, even though both groups showed similar levels of representational competences. The findings suggest that an image-to-writing approach can help students develop deeper conceptual understanding as well as use representations to demonstrate their conceptual understanding. The use of images could have helped students in their thinking and learning of complex phenomena, which allowed them to better convey their understanding of the concepts.
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This study is funded by a research grant from the National Institute of Education (Singapore) (AFR02/15JY).
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Appendices
Appendix A
Codes and description of CU scores for Question 2: A specific example
Score | [Code] | Description | Example of students’ responses |
|---|---|---|---|
0 | [Blank] | No response / response cannot be interpreted | - |
1 | [NU/NS] | Minimal use of scientific explanation / illustrate phenomenon with concrete depiction only | “because marble flooring is very cold.” |
2 | [AC] | Illustrate scientific concept inappropriately | “the marble is a bad conductor of heat.” |
3 | [PUAC] | Combination of AC and PU. | “marble is made out of glass, hence glass is a bad conductor of heat so it is cold. So wood is a bad conductor of heat and don't lose heat easily.” |
4 | [PU] | Identify some key attributes and relations of the phenomenon appropriately | “marble flooring is made out of glass so even if the temperature is high or low. It will always be cold as for wooden flooring is made of wood so it depends on the temperature unlike marble flooring.” |
5 | [SU] | Identify all key attributes and relations of the phenomenon appropriately | “it is because the marble flooring gains heat from Han's feet as it is a good conductor of heat meanwhile, wood is a poor conductor of heat so it does not gain as much/any heat than the marble floor.” |
Appendix B
Codes and description of RC scores for Question 2: A specific example
Score | [Code] | Description | Examples of students’ responses from Q2 |
|---|---|---|---|
0 | Blank | No response / response cannot be interpreted | – |
1 | Iconic | Response is produced with iconic drawings alone. | No data |
2 | Early symbolic | Response is produced with iconic drawings with some symbolic representations (e.g., labelling with words or symbolic images); or single word or short phrases |
|
3 | Syntactic | Use of some or all of linguistic resources in a syntactically sound manner to construe cause-and-effect (e.g., because), comparison (e.g., better/poorer conductor of heat, rate of heat flow, transfers heat faster/slower), processes (e.g., transfer, flows, heat flow); technical terms (e.g., heat). | “because marble flooring attracts air but wooden do not.” |
4 | Semantic | Ability to use all of the linguistic resources identified in Level 3 in a syntactically consistent manner to produce semantically-correct responses. | “Marble is a better conductor of heat than wood, so heat is lost from Han’s feet more quickly through marble than wood.” |
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Yeo, J., Lim, E., Tan, K.C.D. et al. The Efficacy of an Image-to-Writing Approach to Learning Abstract Scientific Concepts: Temperature and Heat. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 19, 21–44 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-019-10026-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-019-10026-z