The application of repertory grid analysis combined with concept mapping in the elicitation of children’s constructions of plant nutrition.
Naughton, Yvonne Marie
(2015)
The application of repertory grid analysis combined with concept mapping in the elicitation of children’s constructions of plant nutrition.
Other thesis, Dublin City University.
Concepts shape our view of the world. They enable us as humans to construct new meanings
and actively form more accurate viewings. Student’s conceptual structures have been an area
of study and research in science education, however, minimal study has been carried out on
children’s constructions of plant nutrition. This project seeks to find the relationship of the
learners’ conceptual knowledge as they have constructed it in plant nutrition with the
application of Repertory Grid Analysis (RGA) as an instrument for analysing the learners’
presented constructs. RGA is a means whereby constructs are represented in matrical and
graphical form, and concept mapping, which is a visual structural representation of a child’s
understanding and ideas. In this work, the use of concept maps will be employed and
combined with RGA to form a detailed visual representation of a learner’s ideas in plant
nutrition. The study, as it is currently conceptualised, consists of a pre-test free concept map,
a questionnaire and a structured post-test concept map containing four branches from the core
concept of PLANTS administered to convenience samples involving two groups of sixth
class primary students. In the closed concept-map task, the four branches will consist of the
concepts ANIMALS, REPRODUCTION, GROWTH and PHOTOSYNTHESIS. Both sixth
class groups will be involved in varying lessons based on plant nutrition and then requested
to complete a post-test concept map. Both concept maps were coded and analysed using RGA
under principal component analysis (PCA) and co-ordinate grid analysis (CGA). Similar
concepts and links between concepts can be visually represented on graphs produced using
the results, and that these have a relationship to the visual representations the children would
produce in their concept maps. The findings of this study will highlight the rich insight into
children’s constructions in plant nutrition, which were visually represented using RGA
combined with the method of concept mapping and triangulated with CGA. The study will
contribute to raising the need for greater awareness of the structures of children's thinking
about plants but also in general.