Diagram production in Biology: comparing children and pre-service teachers’ performance

ABSTRACT

This study compares anatomy diagram production skills as a part of Visual Literacy competence in Biology Education in schoolchildren (n = 254) and pre-service teachers (n = 282). Both groups produced cross-sectional anatomy diagrams from knowledge acquired using frontal views and answered a questionnaire on their difficulties with the exercise. Overall, children performed better than teachers. However, both groups scored very low, revealing a lack of Visual Literacy, but also low content knowledge. Participants recognised their difficulty visualising the requested cross-section, especially with the distribution and size of organs. These results provide evidence of the need to improve anatomical knowledge and Visual Literacy skills in teacher training, since future teachers must teach these topics in schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Biology education
• visual literacy
• primary education
• teacher training
• anatomy diagrams

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the primary schools that have made this research possible. We are also grateful to prof. Milena Bandiera, who inspired this work.

Ethical concerns

This is a non-interventional study and ethical approval is not required in Spain beyond informed consents. Informed consent was obtained from all adult individuals and the families of all participant children.

Declaration of interest

The authors state that there is no conflict of interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest to be reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.