Diagrams in the UK National School Curriculum

Abstract. We review the use of diagrams in the UK National School Curriculum (NC) and assess it in the light of current research on childrens' graph comprehension. It is noted that some diagrams are very ubiquitous (e.g. illustrations and bar graphs) whereas other representations which are potentially appropriate for younger children (e.g. hierarchies) are relatively rarely used. We also query some of the teaching practices advocated in the NC in that, for example, diagrammatic representations are conflated with figurative illustrations (pictographs). Suggestions for improving the NC are offered in the conclusion. 1 Diagrams in the UK National Curriculum Despite the calls for a graphicacy curriculum and the growing evidence on children's diagrammatic abilities (e.g. [2], [6], [7]), it seems that it has yet to influence the UK National Curriculum (NC). We discuss this by presenting (1) results from a survey of the use of different external representations1 (ERs) in the NC acti...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: DIAGRAMS
• Authors: Grecia Garcia Garcia, Richard Cox
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, DIAGRAMS 2008, National School Curriculum, School Curriculum, UK National Curriculum