Children's ideas in classifying animals

Over much of this century taxonomy has maintained a prominent position in the school science curriculum. Despite this long history of instruction, performance on tasks requiring children to classify animals has often been found to be poor. This article reports on a study carried out with 12-, 14-, and 15-year old pupils, highlighting justifications made for their classifications. The pupils' attitudes to classification and its uses inside and outside school were also probed by means of a questionnaire. Results of the study show that children often have a restricted view of the concepts involved and that their experiences may need to be broadened. The study also shows that personalized uses for classification might improve performance as might a more general competence in observation.