Myant Katherine A, Williams Joanne M
School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2008 Jun;78(Pt 2):223-44. doi: 10.1348/000709907X205263. Epub 2007 Apr 27.
Children have been shown to hold misconceptions about illness, and previous work has indicated that their knowledge can be improved through the use of interventions.
This study aims to evaluate interventions based on the provision of factual information for improving understanding of contagious illness.
The participants were 96 children from two age groups: 7 and 11 years.
During the pre-test, the children were asked about three contagious illnesses and one novel illness. There were three intervention conditions, differing in the level of factual information provided: explanations provided, no explanations provided and scientific factual style. The interventions were focused on contagious illnesses (cold, chickenpox). A post-test was conducted 6 weeks later.
Results from the pre-test show that the older children have more sophisticated understanding of illness than the younger children. Mean pre- to post-test change was calculated and analyses revealed that there is greater pre- to post-test change in the explanation and scientific fact conditions when compared with that in the no-explanation condition. The improvements in knowledge generalized to other contagious illnesses, and the older children showed more improvements than the younger children.
These findings add to the literature on children's understanding of contagious illnesses and contribute towards discussions on the best approach to health education.
研究表明儿童对疾病存在误解，先前的研究表明可以通过干预措施来提高他们的相关知识。
本研究旨在评估基于提供事实信息的干预措施对提高对传染性疾病理解的效果。
参与者为来自两个年龄组的96名儿童，年龄分别为7岁和11岁。
在预测试中，向儿童询问三种传染性疾病和一种新出现的疾病。有三种干预条件，提供的事实信息水平不同：提供解释、不提供解释和科学事实风格。干预重点是传染性疾病（感冒、水痘）。6周后进行后测试。
预测试结果表明，年龄较大的儿童对疾病的理解比年龄较小的儿童更成熟。计算了预测试到后测试的平均变化，分析显示，与不提供解释的条件相比，提供解释和科学事实条件下的预测试到后测试变化更大。知识的提高推广到了其他传染性疾病，年龄较大的儿童比年龄较小的儿童进步更大。
这些发现丰富了关于儿童对传染性疾病理解的文献，并有助于就健康教育的最佳方法进行讨论。
