Learning and Evaluation: A Study of School Children's Views on the Social Uses of Energy

Abstract

Exploring children's reactions to a subject which is both close to school learning and also dependent upon personal evaluation, requires consideration of many external influences. Television learning, for example, although clearly important, generates a kind of para-social knowledge that does not marry easily with more formal school learning. Personal influences, such as the growing child's identification with society, success at school learning, gender, and perception of school science, may also affect how pupils respond when asked to form a science-based opinion. The project on which this paper is based was carried out in the classroom, between a physics teacher and some of her regular school classes. Such a natural setting allowed the use of a wide variety of research methods in exploring children's views on the social uses of energy, and the relationship between their informal understanding and formally taught knowledge.