Has the coronavirus pandemic changed students' conceptions of microorganisms? Evidence from elementary school

This article outlines the results from an investigation on elementary school students designed to find out whether the coronavirus pandemic had an impact on their conceptualisation of microorganisms. We compared 9- to 11-year-old children's drawings and answers to questionnaires conducted before the pandemic (during 2017 and 2018, N = 137) with those conducted after the pandemic (during 2022, N = 94). We found that the impact has been deep. On the one hand, the post-pandemic group not only reinforced their negative image about microorganisms but assimilated the group of microorganisms to that of viruses. Moreover, most of their representations showed great similarities to the images of the typical sphere-with-peaks coronavirus presented in public media. On the other hand, the tendency to associate microorganisms predominantly with human beings decreased in this group at the expense of an increase in the notion of their ubiquity. These results are a starting point to design new didactic strategies to capitalise on informal learning during the pandemic and channel it towards scientifically correct models.