An Analysis of Student-generated Drawings in Terms of the Types of Scientific Explanations and Levels of Representations

This study examined the features of student-generated drawings to foster their understanding of sound transmission. In this regard, eighteen student-generated drawings constructed by the fifth and sixth elementary science gifted students were collected and analyzed. The students were asked to draw and explain sound transmission between a tuning fork and our ears. The researchers classified the types of student-generated drawings by focusing on ‘air particles’ and ‘their interactions’, which are invisible, and key ideas of sound transmissions, and then analyzed the features of the students’ conceptions, as visually expressed in each type. Consequently, most students focused only on the collisions among air particles, the medium transmitting sound, without conceptualizing the particle vibrations, i.e., the back-and-forth movements of particles. For example, some students drew that the particles themselves vibrate, or the particles literally transmit vibrations as if handing over an object. Finally, the educational implications were discussed in terms of alternative conceptions for elementary and middle school students and how to teach sound transmission.