Faculty of Education - Theses

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End date: 1989 × Start date: 1980 × Subject: Concept learning ×

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    Mathematics and the preoperational child : why and how to use stories didactically
    Padula, Janice ( 1986)
    Premathematical concepts such as more/less are important for an understanding of mathematics in the primary school. The literature concerning the preoperational child's acquisition of concepts, their level of intellectual development, and the use of stories to introduce concepts is reviewed along with the literature concerning the way young children form an understanding of the concepts "more/less". Thirty preparatory children from a working class area were divided into two groups - one group was taught mainly with stories and the other group with the activities described in the Boehm Resource Guide for Basic Concept Teaching (1976). They were pre- and posttested with the Boehm Basic Concepts Test (1971). It was found that teaching using selected stories is as effective as using Boehm's special activities and that girls learn better with stories than boys. The children's knowledge of "more/less" and "most/least" was assessed in individual testing sessions using toy cars and sweets as stimuli. Approximately fifty per cent did not know "less", while a majority of the children had a stable knowledge of "more" in the sense of "greater in number". Approximately 65% of the. children understood "most" and approximately 19% understood "least". The Boehm Test was critically analysed and lists of books currently available from children's book shops or libraries, suitable for introducing and reinforcing children's knowledge of concepts of space, quantity and time, and miscellaneous concepts, have been compiled.
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    Conceptual development in science practical work
    Williamson, Stephen Mark ( 1987)
    In an investigation of the effect of practical work upon the conceptual understanding of high school biology students the author employed concept maps as the primary research tool. Practical reports and responses to interview questions were also analysed. Misconceptions were identified in the concept maps, practical reports and interviews. The interviews appeared to reveal the greatest detail of the students' misconceptions. The component scores of the students' concept maps were substantially unaltered by the performance of a practical exercise selected from a year 11 biology course. If concept maps are reflectors of conceptual understanding then it appears that the conceptual frameworks of the students were stable over the duration of the practical exercise. Several component scores of the concept maps were found to be significantly correlated with either the students' exam results or their practical work assessment. Concept maps may have application as predictors of academic performance or be used to supplement or replace traditional measures of achievement.