2018 Volume 58 Issue 3 Pages 239-249
The main purpose of this study is to examine whether pre-service elementary school teachers have a sound scientific knowledge of the structure of the heart. The research method was to evaluate recognition of the interior structure of the heart, as well as the blood vessels connected to the heart, by using a questionnaire. The main findings of this study were as follows: 1) none of the pre-service elementary school teachers had a scientifically correct understanding of the structure of the heart; moreover, the structure of the heart was changed into 44 kinds of diagrams; 2) more than 10% of the pre-service elementary school teachers drew hearts which had closed spaces and showed the routes of blood vessels through the right and left ventricles; 3) 43.3% of the pre-service elementary school teachers drew the valve in the inside structure of the heart, and only one of them showed the four valves (the mitral valve, the aortic valve, the tricuspid valve and the pulmonary valve) in scientifically correct positions and directions; and 4) only one of the pre-service elementary school teachers had a correct understanding of the six blood vessels connected to each part of the heart. From these results, we extracted knowledge of the pre-service elementary school teachers’ lack of sound scientific understanding of the structure of the heart and revealed that further consideration is required for more effective teaching and learning of the structure of the heart.
