A cross‐sectional study of Portuguese primary school pupils' conceptions on digestion and the digestive tract was carried out before and after teaching this topic. Pupils of the prior four school years (5/6 to 9/10 year old) drew what happens to a cookie inside their body. In some cases they also wrote a short text or were interviewed. To identify their level of graphic development, they produced a free‐hand drawing. The main conceptual changes in explaining digestion were strongly linked to teaching. Children's previous conceptions were not epistemological obstacles to learning about digestion. The main obstacles were of didactical origin, as images of primary school books do not represent (i) the path of food from the intestine into the blood, (associated to the epistemological obstacle of the permeability of the gut wall); (ii) a clear continuous tract from stomach to anus, which causes a specific confusion at the intestine level.

Portuguese primary school children's conceptions about digestion: identification of learning obstacles

Dans un premier temps, il categorise ces recherches (a partir principalement des theses et memoires de DEA realises a Lyon 1 et en partie a Grenoble 1). R en presente les methodes et les nouveaux resultats acquis ces dix dernieres annees, en les regroupant en trois types : l'identification de conceptions et obstacles ; l'analyse de situations didactiques et des processus d'apprentissage ; l'analyse de la transposition didactique (externe et interne).

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La biologie et sa didactique, dix ans de recherche

Our previous studies have shown that Portuguese primary school pupils and teachers have three main difficulties in the representation of the digestion process: the sequence of the digestive tract, blood absorption, and the relationship of the digestive function with other human functions. In this study we analysed the topic of digestion in 63 Portuguese textbooks (1920–2005). In general, the textual explanation of the digestive process (including reference to blood absorption) is clear, but “confusion” in images is persistent throughout the period studied. To demonstrate the influence of the period of the Portuguese dictatorship (1926–1974), a brief comparison with French textbooks (which developed during the same period with the aim of presenting clearer representations of the digestive tract) was carried out. Results suggest that inadequate images in textbooks may be the main didactic obstacle to accurate learning of the digestive function.

Historical analysis of portuguese primary school textbooks (1920-2005) on the topic of digestion

A partir d'une analyse epistemologico-langagiere de trois debats scientifiques mettant au travail des concepts relevant de la biologie fonctionnaliste (nutrition dans une classe de 3e) et de la biologie historique (mecanismes de l'evolution dans une classe de premiere ES ; ancetre hypothetique commun dans un groupe d'etudiants preparant le concours de recrutement de professeur des ecoles), notre recherche vise a comprendre comment les pratiques de savoir et les pratiques langagieres des eleves s'articulent etroitement pour permettre une problematisation scolaire visant des apprentissages biologiques. Le type d'analyse mene a permis d'expliciter les liens qui existent entre l'activite de problematisation des eleves, la dynamique de construction d'une explication en biologie et la secondarisation des textes produits oralement par les eleves. Nous avons distingue plusieurs niveaux de problematisation et precise la fonction des obstacles par rapport au processus de problematisation.

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00376892/document

Problématisation, activités langagières et apprentissage dans les sciences de la vie. Étude de quelques débats scientifiques dans la classe dans deux thèmes biologiques : nutrition et évolution

The concept of epistemological obstacle, as defined by Bachelard (1938), is often used in French science education research and teaching. New data are presented on the classical example of conceptions on digestion / excretion. Differences between biology and other sciences students’ samples appear significant, except in the first year of University. The work reported in this paper illustrates the notion of “situated conceptions”, which differs when a student answers different questions on digestion / excretion. We discuss how the concept of obstacle is useful to interpret the conceptions. We propose three complementary categories of obstacles: epistemological, didactical and psychological.

Donatille Mujawamariya

Papers

Pratiques de formation en didactique des sciences