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ABSTRACT
This study describes primary school students’ knowledge about rainfall, clouds and rainbow formation together with teachers’ predictions about students’ performance. In our study, primary school students’ (N = 177) knowledge about rainfall and rainbow formation was examined using structured interviews with open-ended questions. Primary school teachers’ (N = 110) awareness of students’ understanding was measured with questionnaires and the results will be discussed in relation to teaching experience and the use of different teaching practices. Our results show that students in every grade hold a wide-ranging set of misconceptions that reflect different combinations of their own understanding and learnt scientific knowledge. Teachers tended to overestimate students’ performance and described second-grade students’ knowledge more accurately than fourth- and sixth-grade students’ knowledge. Teachers with less teaching experience were found to less overestimate and more underestimate sixth-grade students’ knowledge than teachers with more teaching experience.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Inge Timoštšuk and Tiina Kala for the help with data collection and scoring.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Elina Malleus is a PhD student in Psychology Department at Tallinn University. Her research interest is focused on children’s learning and the development of conceptual understanding in weather-related area.
Eve Kikas is a Professor of School Psychology at Tallinn University. Her research interests are academic and motivational development of children in relation to individual and contextual factors, teachers’ and parents’ beliefs and practices; cognitive skills and supporting the development of students with special educational needs, models of school psychology practices.
Sigrid Kruus gained MA in Psychology at Tallinn University. Her research interests are related to teachers’ teaching practices and workplace well-being.