SPACE Project Research Report: Growth

The Science Processes and Concepts Exploration (SPACE) project research report on Growth was published in 1990 by Liverpool University Press. The SPACE research was conducted at two centres: at the University of Liverpool and King’s College, London, with Wynne Harlen and Paul Black as joint directors. Each centre took responsibility for research in particular concepts and for producing the report of the work. In the case of Growth one of the first reports to be published, the research was conducted from Liverpool and the authors were Terry Russell and Dorothy Watt.

The research took place between April 1987 and November 1988. To guide the research on phenomena related to Growth, a list of related concepts was compiled. These ideas included, for example: that everything that is living has the ability to grow; growth requires energy which is provided by food; the food materials are transformed and incorporated into structural material; growth takes time, which varies with conditions and between organisms. For the first phase of the research activities for primary school students (pre-school to aged 11 years) related to these ideas were compiled. Primary school teachers taking part in the project involved their students in these activities prior to the phase in which their students' ideas were elicited using a range of techniques including individual interviews by the researchers. The next phase was intervention in which four main strategies were used to enable students to develop their ideas. This was followed by further interviews so that pre- and post-intervention ideas could be compared.

The research report provides a large number of representations of students' ideas, mainly through the students' drawing and writing and transcripts of their oral explanations. Tables giving pre-and post-intervention results for particular ideas are included. Results showed an increase with age and from pre- to post-intervention in reference to light being necessary for plant growth and in the conditions suggested as necessary for growth. Appendices provide full details of the activities, interview schedules, materials used in the activities and the classroom intervention strategies.

Contents
Introduction
1. Methodology
2. Activities prior to intervention
3. An informal look at children’s ideas
4. Responses to individual interviews
5. Intervention
6. Outcomes of intervention
7. Summary
Bibliography
Appendices AI – A VI

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