CTS Guide: Macroscopic Structure and Function of Organisms pp 102-103- Section IV Research Summaries

Organization of the Body

  • Rogat, Hug, and Duncan (2017): Reasoning across levels of organization may be counterintuitive to students as structure and function at one level may look entirely different at a higher level.

  • Driver et al. (1994): Children recognize that the body is made up of external parts before they appear to understand internal structures.

  • Carey (1985): Young children may think of the human body as a single entity, but by age 10 they begin to understand that it has different functional parts that work together to maintain life.

 Digestive System

  • Allen (2014): A common misconception is that the stomach is larger and lower in the body than it really is. Students’ drawings show that it takes up most of the abdomen, with the center of the stomach roughly where the navel is.

  • Millar (2011): While most students recognize the stomach as part of the digestive system, its role is not well-understood. Many students perceive the stomach as the main place where digestion occurs.

  • Teixeira (2000): The word ‘tummy’ is commonly used by children up to age 10 to refer in a non-organ-specific way to the abdominal area. Children up through age 10 may not recognize that food is pushed through the digestive tract by waves of muscle contraction (peristalsis), believing instead that gravity and body movements such as walking and bending are responsible for moving food through the digestive tract.

Circulatory System

  • Allen (2014):  Allen and other researchers noted common misconceptions about the heart, circulation, and blood including 1) the heart filters or cleans the blood; 2) arteries carry ‘clean’ blood, while veins carry ‘dirty’ blood; 3) arteries only carry oxygenated blood, while veins only carry deoxygenated blood (applying a ‘rule of thumb’ that ignores the direction of blood flow relative to the heart, and also ignores arteries and veins carrying blood to and from the lungs);and 4) deoxygenated/venous blood is blue in color and arterial blood is red.

  • Bartoszeck, Machado and Amann-Gainotti (2011): Misunderstandings about the human circulatory system that are commonly observed in science classrooms include the idea that the heart is located on the left side of the chest (rather than in the center), and that it has a cartoon-like or emoji-like heart shape.

Nervous System

  • Johnson and Wellman (1982): Children and adults, when questioned about the brain and activities that involve the brain, most knew the brain as an internal organ and some regarded the mind as additional to the brain. The brain was regarded as a mental organ necessary for thinking, dreaming, remembering, and knowing facts. However, the brain was not always recognized as needed for overt behaviors. Young children associate the brain with feelings (emotions) but not with senses. Only older children associated the brain with both voluntary and involuntary acts. Elementary age children recognize the brain as needed for many activities. By age 10 most children recognize the brain as helping other body parts function. By age 14 the brain was recognized as essential for all behaviors. 

  •  Gellert (1962) and Cary (1985): Elementary age children have little knowledge of nerves.

Muscles and Skeleton

  • Driver et al.(1994): There is little evidence that school age children recognize that muscles are involved in the digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems.

  • Bartoszeck, Machado and Amann-Gainotti (2011):  When children up to age 15 were asked to draw what is inside the human body, most drew organs but very few drew muscles, and when muscles were drawn, they were commonly only depicted in the limbs. (Reiss et al., 2002; Bartoszeck, Machado and Amann-Gainotti, 2011). Driver’s review of the research literature suggested that there was no evidence that school-age children recognize the involvement of muscles in the digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems (Driver et al., 1994).

  • Tunnicliffe and Reiss (1999): Students struggle up to age 20 to appreciate that bones do not exist as separate, individual structures, but are connected to make a functional skeleton . While young children rcognize that the skeleton supports and protects, older children understand that the skeleton is necessary for movement.

  • Caravita and Tonucci (1987): Children do not relate muscles to meat.

Respiratory System

  • Bartoszeck, Machado and Amann-Gainotti (2011): At age 11 students are aware that there are “air tubes” that link the mouth to the lungs and that humans have 2 lungs in their chest. However, some students also believe that there are similar ‘air tubes’ that connect the lungs to the heart and that this is how oxygen from air enters the blood.