Group Concept Mapping, Language and Children’s Learning in Primary Science

This investigation is set in the context of a substantial body of research findings showing that children continue to use scientifically inappropriate ideas in spite of the teaching they experience in school. A burgeoning range of literature in this area over the past twenty years testifies to the seriousness with which the problem is regarded (see, for example, Carmichael et al., 1990), and it hardly seems necessary to rehearse the findings again. Here, then, is the problem to be addressed in this study.