Dramatisering i spänningsfältet mellan som om och som är och sexåringars meningsskapande av kemiska begrepp och processer

Author
Åkerblom, A. & Pramling, N.
Source
Educare - Vetenskapliga Skrifter, (2):58-72
Year
2019

Purpose

The study discusses dramatisation as a form of play-based teaching in kindergartens. The aim is to show how the use of drama pedagogy can help children understand science by engaging in common fantasising about fundamental processes and concepts in chemistry.

Result

The analyses indicate that the key part of the dramatisation and play-based teaching was how the children (participants) distinguish, relate to and switch between engaging with the phenomena and processes of imagination (‘as if’) and the scientific content (‘as is’). There is a dynamic tension between ‘as if’ (imagination, characters, play) and ‘as is’ (established, conventional knowledge), i.e. a tension between imagination and a scientific content. The results show a significant variation in how the children deal with this tension. Nevertheless, the researchers believe that dramatising forms of teaching can help create a relationship between imagination and knowledge. The interviews with the children show that the activities in which they were allowed to participate and dramatise themselves were the ones they remembered best afterwards. The children recalled what they were doing, but also what this activity (‘as if’) represented as a scientific concept/process (‘as is’).  The researchers believe that such play-based teaching can be used to introduce younger children to scientific concepts and processes.

Design

The empirical data was obtained through interviews with eleven 6-year-olds in a pre-school class outside Gothenburg, after they had participated in a teaching session in which they dramatised various chemical concepts and processes. After the activity, individual interviews were conducted with the children to create an overview of their knowledge about water as a phenomenon and the concept of molecules.

References

Åkerblom, A. & Pramling, N. (2019). «Dramatisering i spänningsfältet mellan som om och som är och sexåringars meningsskapande av kemiska begrepp och processer». Educare - Vetenskapliga Skrifter, (2):58-72.