Papers by Vasilia Christidou
Greek children’s views of COVID-19 preventive practices
This paper explores 4- to 9-year-old children's views of the COVID-19 pandemic preventive pra... more This paper explores 4- to 9-year-old children's views of the COVID-19 pandemic preventive practices. The sample consisted of 189 children from different parts of Greece, who expressed their views verbally and through drawings. Content data analysis yielded different categories of preventive practices falling within two main themes: Hygienic (e.g., handwashing), and Social (e.g., staying at home). Overall, children proposed appropriate practices, in line with official guidelines and previous research findings. Moreover, they seem to focus on social preventive practices more than hygienic ones. Age-related differences as well as differences between the two modes of expression were also recorded.
Science & education, May 11, 2016
This study explores American and Greek primary pupils' visual images of scientists by means of tw... more This study explores American and Greek primary pupils' visual images of scientists by means of two nonverbal data collection tasks to identify possible convergences and divergences. Specifically, it aims to investigate whether their images of scientists vary according to the data collection instrument used and to gender. To this end, 91 third-grade American (N = 46) and Greek (N = 45) pupils were examined. Data collection was conducted through a drawing task based on Chambers (1983) 'Draw-A-Scientist-Test' (DAST) and a picture selection task during which the children selected between 14 pairs of illustrations those that were most probable to represent scientists. Analysis focused on stereotype indicators related with scientists' appearance and work setting. Results showed that the two groups' performance varied significantly across the tasks used to explore their stereotypic perceptions, although the overall stereotypy was not differentiated according to participants' ethnic group. Moreover, boys were found to use more stereotypic indicators than girls, while the picture selection task elicited more stereotypic responses than the drawing task. In general, data collected by the two instruments revealed convergences and divergences concerning the stereotypic indicators preferred. Similarities and differences between national groups point to the influence of a globalized popular culture on the one hand and of the different sociocultural contexts underlying science curricula and their implementation on the other. Implications for science education are discussed.
Children’s conceptions of coronavirus
Public Understanding of Science, Oct 9, 2021
The present study aimed to examine children’s conceptions of coronavirus as denoted in their verb... more The present study aimed to examine children’s conceptions of coronavirus as denoted in their verbal descriptions and drawings and whether these vary as a function of children’s age and the mode of expression. Data were collected in Greece during spring 2020 and 344 children aged 4 to 10 years were first asked to verbally describe coronavirus and then to produce a drawing of it. Content analysis of data revealed the following main themes: (a) Coronavirus, (b) Medical, (c) Psychological, and (d) Social. Results showed that children from an early age present a remarkable level of understanding of coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease as a multidimensional construct, which can be designated not only through characteristics of the Sars-Cov-2 but also through its medical, social, and psychological consequences on people’s lives. Moreover, children were found to emphasize different aspects of this construct depending on their age and the mode of expression.
Visual images in science education
Frontiers Research Topics
Frontiers in Education, Apr 5, 2023
Frontiers in Education
Despite the growing body of research on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s w... more Despite the growing body of research on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s wellbeing, few studies so far have explored children’s points of view, while the majority were based on data collected during the first year of the pandemic. The present study attempted to capture children’s views 1 year after the beginning of the pandemic, and to this end, data were collected during Spring 2021 in Greece. Specifically, by combining verbal and visual data, the study attempted to explore children’s views of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 preventive practices. Participants involved 320 children, ranging in age from 4 to 12 years, who were asked to verbally describe and draw (a) Coronavirus and (b) the preventive measures adopted to mitigate the pandemic. Data analysis indicated that overall, children’s views involve elements of scientifically appropriate information since from an early age they are able to describe and depict SARS-CoV-2 in ways that reflect the abundance of availa...
Journal of Visual Literacy, 2022
COVID-19 e-books have emerged as means for communicating information about coronavirus and the re... more COVID-19 e-books have emerged as means for communicating information about coronavirus and the resulting disease to children during the pandemic. This material is multimodal, with images forming the most prevalent and crucial semiotic mode. Except for representational and compositional meaning, an image realises interpersonal meanings. The degree to which the reader is activated (address) and prompted to become engaged with what is represented (involvement) constitute interpersonal meaning dimensions that reflect crucial pedagogical perceptions about children's learning. This study explored how address and involvement are visually realized in young children's e-books about COVID-19. The sample consisted of 100 randomly selected images of living or anthropomorphic entities included in 18 COVID-19 e-books for young children. The framework of analysis was based on the Grammar of Visual Design. Results indicate that the analysed images mostly assign children both roles of information receivers and active learners, while encouraging their engagement with what is represented. These interpersonal meanings largely align with the socio-cognitive perspective on young children's learning. The study could support teachers in the selection, design, and use of multimodal learning materials to promote children's visual literacy, especially in emergency conditions as those imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper explores 4- to 9-year-old children's views of the COVID-19 pandemic preventive pra... more This paper explores 4- to 9-year-old children's views of the COVID-19 pandemic preventive practices. The sample consisted of 189 children from different parts of Greece, who expressed their views verbally and through drawings. Content data analysis yielded different categories of preventive practices falling within two main themes: Hygienic (e.g., handwashing), and Social (e.g., staying at home). Overall, children proposed appropriate practices, in line with official guidelines and previous research findings. Moreover, they seem to focus on social preventive practices more than hygienic ones. Age-related differences as well as differences between the two modes of expression were also recorded.
Accounting for Natural Phenomena: Explanatory Modes Used by Children
The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review, 2006
A framework for classifying children's explanations about di... more A framework for classifying children's explanations about dissolution, floating, magnetic forces, plant nutrition and the water cycle is presented. Explanations are classified as naturalistic, non-naturalisic, or synthetic.
Review of Science, Mathematics and ICT Education, 2010
The aim of the present study is to compare the science competencies that students need to demonst... more The aim of the present study is to compare the science competencies that students need to demonstrate during school examinations on the one hand and when they participate in PISA on the other. Through their comparison similarities and differences will be detected. To this end, 1.357 test item sets relative to the subject of Biology used in the Gymnasium examinations (lower secondary education) and 50 PISA science items from the category “living systems” and the context life, health, environment were analyzed. The results of the comparative analysis indicate a clear differentiation between the competencies that students need to demonstrate during the school examinations of Biology in Gymnasium and the competencies that students need to demonstrate in order to answer the PISA items correctly. The fact that students have to demonstrate unfamiliar competencies during their participation in PISA could be a factor –among others– that explains the low performance of Greek students in the P...
Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education relies heavily on visual images. ... more Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education relies heavily on visual images. Images constitute a system of meaning making, parallel with language or symbolic representations. Understanding, creating and communicating with visual images in STEM requires competence in using the specialized visual codes pertinent to the STEM disciplines. Therefore, STEM Visual Literacy (STEM-VL) is considered as a fundamental aspect of STEM literacy, hence a crucial instructional objective for all education levels. The development of students’ STEM-VL presupposes that they are continually, systematically, and purposefully engaged in active ‘reading’ and construction of visual representations during instruction. The paper reviews recent research in the field of STEM-VL and proposes a taxonomy of commonly used categories of STEM visual images. Research-based instructional practices to ‘scaffold’ the development of students’ STEM-VL are discussed. Lastly, implications for teaching and ...
Multimodal Text Comprehension and Production by Preschool Children
Page 1. 1 Multimodal Text Comprehension and Production by Preschool Children: An Interdisciplinar... more Page 1. 1 Multimodal Text Comprehension and Production by Preschool Children: An Interdisciplinary Approach of Water Conservation 1 Main Description The paper presents a program on water conservation, designed and implemented in two nursery schools in a Greek ...
Within the research community in science education, there has been a tendency to show limited int... more Within the research community in science education, there has been a tendency to show limited interest in examining PISA results with reference to the national context of participating countries although this approach can give valuable insight into a country’s students’ achievement. Since the interpretations of PISA results could be based on a thorough analysis of the actual items used in international and national contexts, the main issue addressed in this study is to compare PISA test items with assessment tasks used in the Greek school context. 281 PISA science test items as well as 947 assessment tasks included in science school textbooks and 4,248 science examination test items in Greece, were analysed in regard to the frequency of inclusion, the type and the functional role of visual representations within this assessment tasks. The results demonstrate that while PISA test items use visual material in order to communicate scientific information in everyday life contexts by mea...
Drawing a scientist: using the Emo-DAST to explore emotional aspects of children’s images of scientists
Research in Science & Technological Education, 2021
Background: There is a long research tradition on students' images of scientists based on... more Background: There is a long research tradition on students' images of scientists based on their drawings. However, the dimension of scientists' emotions, as a critical aspect of these images has not been thoroughly investigated. Purpose: The present study aims to investigate scientists' emotions as depicted in children's drawings to shed light on less explored aspects of the complex construct of the image of scientists. Sample: 245 boys and girls divided into three age groups with a mean age of 5, 8, and 11 years, participated in the study. Design and Methods: In this cross-sectional design, participants were first asked to draw a scientist experiencing an emotion and to produce a control drawing (a person feeling nothing) and then to describe their drawing of the scientist, to label and to justify the depicted emotion. The drawings of the scientists were rated against their controls to identify the graphic cues employed to denote the depicted emotions. Results: Data analysis showed that children in all age groups mainly attributed positive emotions to scientists, which they primarily associated with scientists' self-efficacy. The vast majority of children altered the scientist's facial expression to denote the intended emotion, while other types of cues were less frequently used. Justifications of the emotions attributed to scientists varied as a function of age, indicating that as they get older children seem to acquire a broader and more sophisticated image of scientists' emotions. Conclusion: By shifting the focus on drawing the emotions prompted by scientific work, this study provides a novel, complementary perspective to the kaleidoscopic construct of students' image of scientists.
Education Sciences, 2021
Verbal text and images constitute the principal semiotic modes interacting to produce interperson... more Verbal text and images constitute the principal semiotic modes interacting to produce interpersonal meanings in multimodal science texts for young children. These meanings relate to pedagogical perceptions about children’s learning. This study examined verbal text–image relations regarding the interpersonal meaning dimensions of address (the way the reader is addressed), social distance (the kind of the relationship between the reader and represented participants), and involvement (the extent to which the reader is engaged with what is represented) in multimodal text excerpts from science-related books for preschool children. The sample consisted of 300 randomly selected units of analysis. For each unit, the verbal and the visual content was analyzed along each dimension, and the relevant verbal text–image relation was determined. Results indicated that regarding address and involvement, relations of convergence appeared significantly more frequently than relations of complementarit...
Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2015
While little is known about how young children understand noise and its environmental aspects, th... more While little is known about how young children understand noise and its environmental aspects, this topic is suggested to be included in science curricula from early years on. To investigate if and to what extent preschool children’s level of noise awareness could be improved the ‘Young Noise Researchers’ educational scenario was designed, implemented and evaluated. Research design involved a pretest-posttest procedure. Participants were 52 Greek preschool children, who attended public kindergarten classes. The scenario involved 9 activities following the principles of context-based, socio-cognitive and multimodal teaching and learning, which were implemented by the teachers of the classes in a 4-week period. Prior to and after the intervention participants engaged in individual, semi-structured interviews. The results indicated improvement in children’s noise awareness in regard to acknowledging everyday noises, understanding annoyance and subjectivity of noise, adopting negative a...
The interplay between interpersonal and compositional meanings in multimodal texts about animals for young children
Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics, 2019
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION METHODOLOGY, 2016
This study examined the effect of explanatory captions of a multimedia summary on understanding t... more This study examined the effect of explanatory captions of a multimedia summary on understanding the explanation of ozone depletion by primary school pupils. Participants were 54 eleven-year-old pupils of two share-sheltered primary schools in a medium-sized city in central Greece, who lacked adequate prior knowledge of ozone depletion, as they had not been systematically instructed about this phenomenon. Participants were randomly given one of the two versions of a printed material which concerned ozone depletion and were individually interviewed in an empty classroom. The first version of the printed material consisted of a main verbal text and a multimedia summary –namely a concise, coherent and coordinated presentation of ozone depletion explanation using words and images- with explanatory captions. The second version was identical to the first, except that it did not include explanatory captions. Each student was invited to answer to 8 questions aiming at assessing their under...
Journal of Science Communication, 2010
Public images of scientific researchers –as reflected in the popular visual culture as well as in... more Public images of scientific researchers –as reflected in the popular visual culture as well as in the conceptions of the public- combine traditional stereotypic characteristics and ambivalent attitudes towards science and its people. This paper explores central aspects of the public image of the researcher in Greek students’ drawings. The students participated in a drawing competition held in the context of the ‘Researcher’s Night 2007’ realized by three research institutions at different regions of Greece. The students’ drawings reveal that young people hold stereotypic and fairly traditional and outdated views of scientists and scientific activity. Research institutions are faced with the challenge of establishing a sincere and fertile dialogue with society to refute obsolete and deceiving notions and to promote the role of researchers in society.
Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal, 2012
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Papers by Vasilia Christidou