ORBIS SCHOLAE
ORBIS SCHOLAE

We inform authors and readers that, following an agreement with the Karolinum publishing house, from 2024 (Volume 18), the journal Orbis scholae will be published only in electronic form.

Orbis scholae is an academic journal published by Charles University, Prague. It features articles on school education in the wider socio-cultural context. It aims to contribute to our understanding and the development of school education, and to the reflection of teaching practice and educational policy.

ORBIS SCHOLAE, Vol 3 No 2 (2009), 97–112

Pupils’ understanding of mammals: an investigation of the cognitive dimension of misconceptions

Milan Kubiatko, Pavol Prokop

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363177.2018.214
published online: 23. 02. 2018

abstract

The investigation of misconceptions among children is a favorite kind of investigation among researchers. It is possible to meet with the term “cognitive dimension of preconcept”. Misconceptions about animals have been reported in various research reports on pupils of different ages. This cross-age study is focused on finding misconceptions about mammals among elementary-school children of various ages (from 10 to 15). A questionnaire consisting of 35 multiple choice and open-ended questions was used. This questionnaire was administered to 468 children from 6 elementary schools. We divided the questionnaire items into five categories according to their character. We focused on finding the differences in results between the gender and age of the respondents. We found numerous misconceptions across all age groups. Our study provides implications for teaching biology/science especially in the field of zoology.

keywords: misconceptions; mammals; pupils; questionnaire

230 x 157 mm
periodicity: 3 x per year
print price: 150 czk
ISSN: 1802-4637
E-ISSN: 2336-3177

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