Children's explanations of air pressure generated by small group activities

Small groups of 7-8 year-old children undertook activities designed to challenge their ideas about air. The dominant impression from transcripts of their conversations and constructed explanations is one of the fluidity and context-dependence of children's ideas, rather than the existence of coherent and stable 'alternative frameworks' dealing with air pressure. Limitations of the generated explanations can be traced to localisation of focus in looking for causative effects, and premature closure. The transcripts show that interaction within groups was characterized by exchanges at significant cognitive levels. © 1992 Australasian Science Education Research Association.