Abstract

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how conceptions of the internal body changes with increasing age. The subjets consisted of 410 children from two kindergartens and one elementary school. Kindergarten and three grade levels were tested: Kindergarten(78 children), second(102 children), forth (112 children), sixth(118 children). All but kindergarten children were asked to draw and label their internal body parts. Kindergarten children were interviewed individually. The group differences were tested by X T test, one-way ANOVA, and two-way ANOVA. The results were following: First, children knowledge of internal body parts were increased according to age. Specially it increased sharply around the age of 9. Second, most frequently reporting items were bones at kindergarten, bones, heart, veins, brain, and liver at second grade, heart, brain, bones, liver, lung, stomach, small intestine, vein, and large intestine at forth grade and at sixth grade all above items plus bladder and kidney were reported. Third, organs of the musculostkeletal systems were decreased and organs of the gastrointestinal, urinary, and reproductive systems were increased as the child's age was increasing. Forth, at every age level boys reported more body parts than girls. The difference was especially noticiable with sixth grade. Fifth, verbal report was more effective than projective technique for child to represent their knowledge about the internal body parts. It was evident espicially at school children. With these results, couple of points could be suggested. First, the children's concept changes of the content of the internal body parts can be explained by Piaget' s cognitive theory. But further attempt should be made to ascertain above explain with individual test and more diverse questions. Scond, the health education and education of human body parts should be done according to each grade children's conceptions of contents and functions of body parts. It could be started earlier than sixth grade.