How can visual representations transform primary school students’ understanding of abstract scientific concepts such as “heat”?

What the Research Study Is About

This study examines how a science teacher utilized visual representations to teach the concept of “heat” to primary students. It highlights the importance of teachers’ awareness of different visual modes and their pedagogical choices in facilitating student understanding of abstract scientific concepts through multimodal teaching strategies.

Key Findings 

Use of Visual Representations

• • • • It is important to use a sequence of visual representations to aid students’ understanding of abstract scientific concepts.
      • This includes moving from concrete images (e.g., diagrams) to analytical images (e.g., numerical tables) and finally to abstract symbols (e.g., textual definitions), indicating that effective teaching involves a multimodal approach rather than relying on a single representation.

Teacher’s Role in Meaning-Making

• • • • Teachers must actively engage students in discussing and interpreting visual representations.
      • Verbal questioning guides students in interpreting their diagrams. This is essential for exploring students’ understanding and ensuring that they have grasped the intended meanings of the visuals.
      • Teachers need to develop pedagogical-visual-content knowledge (PVCK). Selecting appropriate visual representations can effectively facilitate student understanding, avoiding the assumption that students can intuitively understand the visuals.

Professional Development Needs

• • • • The article highlights the need to strengthen teacher training programmes by incorporating strategies for effectively using different modes of representation as well as providing an understanding of their affordances and limitations.

This research summary was generated by Coral AI and has been reviewed by the authors.