ABSTRACT

Background

It is stated that it is necessary that students develop their nanoliteracy in order to come up with everyday issues arising from Nanoscale Science and Technology (NST) applications, taking informed decisions and estimating the potential risks and benefits. Even though the inclusion of NST in compulsory education is supported by many researchers, the research on students’ preconceptions of NST concepts and phenomena is in its infancy.

Purpose

We aim to identify students’ preconceptions of (a) the conceptualization of size in the context of NST and (b) the explanation of the lotus effect (superhydrophobic materials).

Sample

The participants of our research are 250: 5^th and 6^th grade primary school students in Greece.

Design and methods

The data collection tool is a written questionnaire. Regarding the coding, both the inductive and deductive qualitative process is followed.

Results

Concerning the concept of size, approximately half of the students are aware of non-visible objects. However, their classification of objects based on size is naive and based on vague criteria e.g. ‘Large, Medium, Small objects’. For the lotus effect we identify three categories consisting of thirteen subcategories that reflect students’ ideas about their macroscopic view of the lotus effect explanation.

Conclusion

Students see the explanation of the lotus effect as a Direct process (explanations based on an identifiable causal agent). We argue that we could support them shift their explanations to the Emergent process (explanations based on non-identifiable causal agents) using appropriate tasks. Concerning the concept of size, students are aware of two main categories: the visible and non-visible objects. We could help them create the macro-, micro- and nanoworld categories based on qualitative criteria.

中文翻译：

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纳米科技教育：小学生对荷花效应的先入之见与尺寸概念

摘要

背景

据称，有必要培养学生的纳米素养，以便解决纳米科学技术 (NST) 应用中出现的日常问题，做出明智的决定并估计潜在的风险和收益。尽管将 NST 纳入义务教育得到许多研究者的支持，但关于学生对 NST 概念和现象的先入之见的研究还处于起步阶段。

目的

我们的目标是确定学生对 (a) NST 背景下尺寸概念化和 (b) 莲花效应（超疏水材料）的解释的先入之见。

样本

我们研究的参与者是 250 名：希腊 5^年级和 6^年级的小学生。

设计与方法

数据收集工具是书面问卷。关于编码，遵循归纳和演绎定性过程。

结果

关于大小的概念，大约一半的学生知道不可见的物体。然而，他们基于大小对对象进行分类是天真的，并且基于模糊的标准，例如“大、中、小对象”。对于莲花效应，我们确定了三个类别，其中包含十三个子类别，反映了学生对莲花效应解释的宏观观点的看法。

结论

学生将莲花效应的解释视为一个直接过程（基于可识别的因果关系的解释）。我们认为我们可以支持他们使用适当的任务将他们的解释转移到紧急过程（基于不可识别的因果代理的解释）。关于大小的概念，学生知道两大类：可见物体和不可见物体。我们可以帮助他们根据定性标准创建宏观、微观和纳米世界类别。