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Childrens
TypicallyPerceivedSituations of
Floating and Sinking
Yong Jae Joung

Monash University, Australia

Version of record first published: 12 Dec 2008.

To cite this article: Yong Jae Joung (2009): Childrens TypicallyPerceivedSituations of Floating
and Sinking, International Journal of Science Education, 31:1, 101-127
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International Journal of Science Education

Vol. 31, No. 1, 1 January 2009, pp. 101127

RESEARCH REPORT

Childrens Typically-PerceivedSituations of Floating and Sinking

Yong Jae Joung*
Monash University, Australia
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0csn1csn1@chol.com
Dr.
000002007
Yong
JaeJoung
International
10.1080/09500690701744603
TSED_A_274415.sgm
0950-0693
Research
Taylor
2007
00
andReport
&
Francis
(print)/1464-5289
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JournalLtd
of Science
(online)
Education

The purpose of this study is to explore childrens typically-perceived-situations (TPS) of floating

and sinking. TPS refers to the situation rising spontaneously in an individuals mind when they
first think of a phenomenon or concept. Data were collected from 148 Year 5 Korean children. As
a result of analysing the data according to three categoriesspatial background, main object,
and position of main objectthe children mainly thought of a river or a sea with a human or a
boat on the water surface or half-submerged as a floating situation; and a river or sea with a boat or
a human on the bottom or mid-way between the water surface and the bottom as a sinking situation respectively. Considering the whole context of childrens TPS, the contexts of a boat is on the
water surface of the sea or river and a boat is half-submerged in the sea or river were the most
frequent ones, as a floating and as a sinking situation respectively. In addition, it appeared that
these childrens TPS affect their judgment of floating and sinking, in that they showed stronger
tendency to regard the situation where an object is just beneath the water as a floating situation,
while the position of a main object in their TPS of a sinking situation was nearer to the bottom of
the water. Based on these results, several suggestions for science education are given.

Given a free hand children will generally express themselves, their true selves
(p. 6) Men and women appear in vehicles, balloons, ships, aeroplanes, on horseback,
playing games or looking on; women are often found guilty of wearing gaudy hats or
earrings, and men of smoking (p.16) (Roberts, 1916).

Introduction
When you hear the words something is floating in water, what situation do you
first think of? When you hear the words a force is acting on something, there is
energy transformation, and so on, what situations do you first think of? If we gain

*Centre for Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education, Faculty of Education, Monash
University, Australia, Melbourne, Australia. Email: csn1csn1@chol.com
ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/09/01010127
2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09500690701744603

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102 Y. J. Joung
information from children relating to these questions, what kind of use for science
education could this have?
Conceptual learning is one of the most important issues in science education. In
the last three decades, attention to conceptual learning of science has resulted in
about 7000 research articles (Duit, 2006), including childrens preconceptions of
particular science concepts and strategies for their change to more scientific
conceptions (Gunstone & White, 2000). Many researchers have argued that childrens preconceptions are not easily changed by the traditional ways of instruction
(e.g. Carey, 2000; Hashweh, 1986; Kuhn, Amsel, & OLoughlin, 1988; She,
2002). To overcome this barrier, or at least to explain why this barrier exists, many
researchers have undertaken studies relating to questions such as what are the
contents and features of childrens preconceptions? (e.g. Driver, Guesne, &
Tiberghien, 1985; Gunstone & Watts, 1985; Wandersee, Mintzes, & Novak,
1994), what should we count as concept and conceptual change? (e.g. Carey,
1985; Gilbert & Watts, 1983; Thagard, 1992) and what factors and strategies
should be considered to foster conceptual change? (e.g. Chinn & Brewer, 1993;
Duit & Treagust, 2003; Novak, 1998).
As another step toward answering to these questions above, exploring childrens
typically-perceived-situation (TPS) was suggested, based on the features of pupils
preconceptions (i.e. experience-based, intuitive, network-like, and context-dependent), and discussions about the nature of concept (i.e. about, similarity-based
categorisation, typicality effects, context effects, etc) (e.g. Joung & Song, 2004a,
2004b). TPS is defined as a kind of mental representation rising spontaneously and
immediately in an individuals mind when someone is thinking about, or in relation
to, any object such as physical objects, words, phenomena, situations, and so on
(Joung & Song, 2004a, p. 787). The word typically represents especially the features
of intuitive, experience-based, and typicality, and perceived-situation represents
especially the features of network-like and context-dependent.
From a case study of four Year 6 children (Joung & Song, 2004a), it was found
that childrens TPS not only illustrated childrens conceptions but also gave more
fruitful information of their ideas including (a) clues as to why their conceptions
were being formed in the ways they were; (b) concrete situations related to target
concepts; and (c) childrens past experiences containing emotional components
related to target concepts. In addition, Joung and Song argued that TPS would give
us useful information to provide suitable anomalous situations or reinforcing situations for conceptual learning, in respect that TPS might affect childrens judgments
of given situations where particular science concepts were embedded. Therefore,
exploring childrens TPS is expected to give us helpful information for understanding better childrens ideas of science concepts, and designing specific situations for
childrens conceptual learning of science.
The purpose of this study is:
(a) to explore childrens TPS of floating and sinking, known to be difficult
phenomena for children to judge what is happening, and to understand why

Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

103

(Biddulph & Osborne, 1984; Carr et al, 1994; Heywood & Parker, 2001;
Rowell & Dawson, 1977); and
(b) to explore the relationship between their TPS and their judgment of a given
situation related to floating and sinking.
The theoretical background of TPS is described first, and then the results of an
empirical study of childrens TPS of floating and sinking are presented.

Theoretical Background of Typically-Perceived-Situation (TPS)

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TPS and Features of Childrens Preconceptions

TPS was conceptualised based on some features of childrens preconceptions revealed
in previous studies. One of the features on which TPS is based is that childrens preconceptions are experience-based and intuitive. Many researchers agree that most preconceptions are affected by various experiences in interacting with the world (Duit, 1991;
Hashweh, 1986). That is, children, even young children, are interested in a wide
variety of objects and events in the world around them (Osborne & Freyberg, 1985,
p.1), and, like scientists, attempt to make sense of the world in an orderly fashion
towards the construction of an initial framework theory of physics that allows children
to function adequately in the physical environment (Kaufman, Vosniadou, diSessa,
& Thagard, 2000, p. 7). From almost the time of birth, children start to interact with
their environments. For instance, when an infant pulls his/her parents hair, takes a
stick, pushes away a toy, he/she tests and investigates continuously. Such interaction
with environments where an infant lives makes his/her experiential gestalt enlarged.
In the end, the infant comes to think, for example, that the greater the effort he makes,
the bigger the effect on the object (Andersson, 1986, p.137).
While children continuously and repeatedly use their preconceptions, these
preconceptions come to spontaneously interpret events and shape expectations.
That is, these preconceptions become intuitive, and their usage is automatic at an
unconscious level (Hashweh, 1986) like procedural knowledge (Newell & Simon,
1972). In Newell and Simons system, a production, such as a childrens preconception, is composed of knowledge of the if-then form, and when the conditions of the
first part are met the second part is automatically executed. Although the meaning of
intuition is not simplesometimes the term intuition is used as synonymous with
insight and inspiration to the nature of world, in other contexts sometimes the
term is used as synonymous with common sense, naive reasoning, and empirical
interpretationthe common feature of intuition can be said to be immediacy
(Fischbein, 1987, pp. 57). Childrens preconceptions can be regarded as intuitive
things because mostly these conceptions spontaneously are used to interpret certain
phenomena. As well, these conceptions are naive by comparison with scientific
concepts. Such a feature of experience-based and intuitive concepts suggests that we
should explore childrens ideas that enter immediately their mind, insofar as we are
concerned with their preconceptions.

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104 Y. J. Joung
Another of the features on which TPS is based is that childrens preconceptions
are tied to and affected by contexts and situations. The context (or situation) effect
on childrens preconceptions was revealed well by Dreyfus and Jungwirth (1980).
They examined the assumption that logical thinking ability in science context problems could be transferred to thinking ability in daily context problems. They
concluded that this assumption is wrong. The ability to find logical errors was
different according to which context, science or everyday, was given to children. In
addition, Driver et al. (1985) pointed out that childrens ideas depend on the
context or situation of problems. For example, the childs idea of heat transfer and
the features of metal appeared different according to which situation (coffee pots
made of aluminium keep the heat well or a metal one as conductor) is connected
to the problem. More broadly, Mori, Kitagawa, and Tadang (1974), who
compared conceptions of time between Japanese and Thai children, showed that
childrens concepts were affected by socio-cultural contexts such as the religion
dominant in the country. The context-dependent features of childrens preconceptions extended the scope of conceptual learning by being connected to situated
cognition theory (Gilbert, 2006). This theory focuses on activities as they are
shaped by individuals-acting-in-settings (Roth, 1998, p. 162). Here activities arise
from the interaction of multiple aspects of a setting, including psychological, material, social, historical, political and economic factors, as they are seen by the actors
themselves. Such a view is reflected in the claims that scientific knowledge is
socially constructed and continuously evaluated in the community in which it is
embedded (Lemke, 2001); that concepts should be regarded as socio-cultural tools
developed in a process of enculturation into communities through shared social
practices (Slj, 1999), and that conceptual change should imply change in ways of
thinking about a knowledge domain and differentiation among different contexts
(Caravita & Halldn, 1994).
Considering such a context-dependent feature of preconceptions, what should we
do to foster childrens conceptual learning of science? We may need to set up useful
situations where children, on the one hand, can change their preconceptions to more
scientific ones (e.g. Finkelstein, 2005; She, 2004), and on the other hand, can
adequately participate in a community of practice and experience the culture of their
community of practice (e.g. Rogoff, 2003). However, what situation is a useful one
for such purposes? For example, what situation is useful to stimulate childrens
conceptual ecology and to raise cognitive conflict; what situation is useful to lead
children to actively participate in learning? In order to answer to these questions, we
need to explore situations perceived by children.
Although identifying a universally agreed meaning of context seems to be impossible, many scholars agree that context is the meaning maker. For example, van Oers
(1998) pointed out context generally refers to the concrete or ideal field of a signmeaning unit that supports the specification of meanings at a given moment in time
(p. 475). In addition, context implies various things tied to a concept or event, such
as social and spatial settings, behavioural environments, the use of specific language
and other background knowledge (Duranti & Goodwin, 1992; Gilbert, 2006). These

Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

105

mean that when children confront a certain science concept and use it to interpret a
certain phenomenon they usually do these with many situations where the concept is
embedded. Furthermore, insofar as children already have their conceptions before
entering science class, they already have situations perceived by them as relating to
the present concept, and these perceived situations affect their conceptual learning
of science more than ones just provided by the teachers judgment (White, 1985).
That is, if we want to know authentically childrens conceptions, we need to explore
situations which children already perceive as relating to a certain concept.

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TPS and Views of Concept

Many scholars have agreed that categorisation is one of the major properties (or
roles) of concept (e.g. Gilbert & Watts, 1983; Howard, 1987; Komatsu, 1992),
although there is no one definition, structure, and existential status of concept
universally agreed (Thagard, 1992, pp. 1319), and various views of concept have
been argued to explain the mechanism of categorisation. One view of concept, the
classical view, regards concept as a logical atom, which is defined by necessaryand-sufficient conditions (Gilbert & Watts, 1983; Medin, 1989). However, many
studies have shown that this view is not enough to explain characteristics of human
cognitive processing; for example, existence of failure to specify defining features for
most lexical concepts like chairs, games, existence of unclear cases like wheelbarrow (whether is it vehicle or not?), and existence of typicality effect like the difference between a robin and a penguin as a good example of bird (Komatsu, 1992;
Medin, 1989; Way, 1997).
In order to explain these characteristics of human cognitive processing, some alternative views of concept have been developed, considering similarity-based mechanism of categorisation. Since Wittgenstein (1953) conceptualised family
resemblance theory, categorisation theory has focused on similarities between
present objects and something in an individuals mind. Some scholars regard
prototypes as something. A prototype is a typical example abstracted from many
individual examples, and has a role of criterion in categorising an object as an
instance of a concept (Rosch & Mervis, 1975). In this model the problem of typicality
effect can be solved with the degree of similarity between an object and a prototype,
and the problem of the existence of unclear cases can be solved by posing categories
do not have clear boundary (Medin, 1989).
Another alternative view of concept is the exemplar view (e.g. Medin & Schaffer,
1978). This view regards exemplars as something which is not abstract, rather an
actual and specific example related to the object. This model has some things in
common with a prototype view in respect of posing ill-defined concepts and similaritybased categorisation. The different thing in this view is that judgment of similarity is
carried out through comparing with specific exemplars in our mind (Komatsu, 1992).
Given that the exemplar that would be used for the criterion of categorisation is
dependent on particular contexts, this view accounts for the context-dependent
property of typicality (Brooks, 1987).

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106 Y. J. Joung
The connectionist (or Parallel Distributed Processing) view, another similaritybased view of concept, has been widely used as a model to explain the process of
similarity-based categorisation with statistical calculation (Bereiter, 1991; Plunkett,
2001; Way, 1997). The connectionist view of concept is that a concept is represented as a pattern of activity distributed over many connected units (Quinlan,
1991, p. 217) in a neural network. The cases of categorisation of connectionist view
have been realised by artificial neural networks where many units form a particular
architecture composed of various layers, i.e. input, hidden, output layer (e.g. Shanks,
1991; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1985). The connection weight, that is, strength of
connection between two units, is moderated by thousands of cycles of training,
according to simple activation rules (for details, see, McClelland, Rumelhart, &
Hinton, 1986; Rumelhart, Hinton, & Williams, 1986). Once a set of connection
weights, in other words a weight matrix, is built and becomes stable, this weight
matrix has a role in activating units of the network with a particular activation
pattern, and retrieving a particular output pattern in correspondence with input
pattern. Consequently, it can be said that the connectionist view regards the role of a
weight matrix as the role of something which is an emergent function, not entities,
to categorise objects based on similarities. This view explains the process of
constructing a prototype and retrieving a particular exemplar from plenty of repeated
experience, with statistical vector superposition based on similarity (Way, 1997).
Given such similarity-based views of concept, what should we do for childrens
conceptual learning of science? One of the suggestions these views give us is that we
should explore the first thing to enter childrens minds when they think about particular objects, concepts, phenomena, and so on. Similarity-based views, basically, have
a common assumption that there is a something in an individuals mind. This
something has a role in categorising objects based on similarity between something
and objects. In addition, as argued above, one of the main characteristics of the
process of categorisation is existence of better and poorer examples of a particular
concept. It has been reported by many studies that this typicality and its level
depends on the similarity between those examples and something, such as a prototype, an exemplar, and so on (Medin, 1989), and a high level of typicality makes
reaction times short in the various tasks (Komatsu, 1992). That is, when we are asked
to categorise an object (e.g. Is a robin a bird? Is a penguin a bird?, etc.), something,
such as a prototype or exemplar (e.g. a bird with properties of flying, singing, eating
worms, etc.), is activated first, and the process of comparing similarity between the
object and something happens; and greater similarity makes the time taken to
categorise shorter. Therefore, the first thing entering an individuals mind when he/
she thinks about an object or a concept has an important role in the categorisation
based on similarities. For example, if a person who first thinks of an animal with
properties of swimming, walking, having a beak and wings, etc. while he is thinking
about a bird, is asked to categorise a penguin, he might judge a penguin as a bird
faster than other people do. In the connectionist view, such a thing first entering an
individuals mind is similarly important, although the connectionist view regards
concepts as fictional nonentities (Thagard, p. 19), because the weight matrix which

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Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

107

produces the first output pattern when an individual hears the word bird and thinks
about a bird would work again when the individual undertakes categorisation of a
penguin.
However, similarity-based views of concepts do not explain all of the nature of
concepts (diSessa & Sherin, 1998; Komatsu, 1992; Medin, 1989). In particular,
many studies show that judging similarity does not occur only by comparing and
matching perceptual (or superficial) attributes of something and target objects (e.g.
Gelman & Markman, 1986; Medin, Wattenmaker, & Hampson, 1987; Rips, 1989).
It has been argued that the explanation-based (or theory-based) overcomes these
limits of the similarity-based views. The claim of explanation-based views is that
categorisation is not simply based on a direct matching of properties of the concept
with those in the example, but rather requires explanatory relations to the theory
organising the concept (Medin, 1989). For instance, people judge the terms white
hair and grey hair as more similar than grey hair and black hair, but white
clouds and grey clouds as less similar than grey clouds and black clouds. Medin
and Shoben (1988) interpreted this judgment to result not from superficial
attributes of hair and clouds, but from peoples background theory, i.e. theory of
aging, which more closely links two colours, white and grey, of hair than of clouds.
Considering the explanation-based views of concept and the limits of the similarity-based views, then what and how should we explore for childrens conceptual
learning of science? One of the approaches we could pay attention to is to explore
the answers to three questions related to childrens conceptions: what judgments do
children bring relating to an object (or concept)? (e.g. is any force acting on a
stationary book on a table?); what theory (or prior knowledge) do children have
relating to the object or concept? (e.g. what do you think about the properties of
force?) and what is the relation between childrens judgments and their intuitive
theory? (e.g. why do you think there is no force acting on a stationary book on a
table?). This approach is not new. In fact, it can be said that many empirical studies
of childrens preconceptions focusing on constructivist views of conceptual learning
for the last three decades are based on this approach.
Another approach we could pay attention to is to explore the question, what situations do children typically think of, relating to given objects, words, phenomena, and
so on? (e.g. when you hear the word force, what situation do you first think of?).
This approach focuses on exploring which factors affect theory-dependency and
context-dependency of childrens conceptions and categorisations, by assuming situations as a kind of whole thing implying objects (or concepts), physical
environments where the objects embody themselves, contexts that make the objects
exist as what they are, and so on. For example, consider with Murphy and Medins
(1985) example, a person who jumps into a swimming pool with his/her clothes on
(p. 295). Let us suppose that you judge the person to be drunk. Why do you judge
that? In a view of explanation-based concepts, the answer might be that you have a
theory that links jumping into a swimming pool with clothes on and drunkenness.
However, why do you use that theory of all theories? This problem can be said to
be another circular problem, as Murphy and Medin (1985) call the problem that

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108 Y. J. Joung
theories explain concepts at the same time theories themselves are made out of
concepts (p. 313) a circular problem. The assumption that the situations that children typically perceive affects childrens judgments provides another interpretation as
to how particular judgment is made beyond superficial attributes of the given object
or phenomenon, and so on. Again, with the example above, one of the possible interpretations of the reason why you judge the person to be drunk is that you have lived
near water such as a brook, and have often experienced a drunken man, for instance
your father, jumping into the water with his clothes on. Therefore, you come to first
(or typically) think of the situation jumping into the water with your clothes on
whenever you think about a drunken person. When you see a person jumping into the
pool with his/her clothes on, you find that situation is similar to the one of the
drunken person in respect of jumping into the pool with clothes on; therefore you
infer the person is drunk. Such an interpretation has things in common with attempts
to explain the process of inferences (particularly, inference for generating a hypothesis, i.e. abductive inference), as the process based on similarities (e.g. Hanson, 1958,
pp. 8589; Magnani, 2004); that is, as the process of we find that in certain respects
that two objects have a strong resemblance, and infer that they resemble one another
strongly in other respects (Peirce, 1878, p. 375).
TPS is based on this approach. The situation which you perceived typically might
have a role as something in the similarity-based views of concept, as well as implying and showing the strong links between an object/phenomenon (i.e. jumping into a
swimming pool with clothes on) and a theory/prior knowledge (i.e. a drunken person
can jump into the water). Of course, this interpretation also has the limit of being a
circular argument, because it needs to consider the influence of theory, such as prior
knowledge, in order to explain how you come to know what features of drunkenness
are, what criteria for judging the degree of drunkenness are, and so on. However,
having information of the linked theory and context, such an approach of exploring
the situations which children perceived typically might give us helpful information
about which theories and contexts are linked strongly to the objects and the
phenomena, why childrens categorisation is undertaken like that, and what
situations we should set up in science classes in order to stimulate childrens theories
(or prior knowledge, or preconceptions) as relating to conceptual learning of science.
Methods
Data Collection
A total of 148 Year 5 children (77 boys, 71 girls) from four classes of the same
primary school in Seoul, Korea, were involved. The primary science curriculum in
Korea does not include the concept of buoyancy until Year 6 (Department of
Education, 1997). However, the children would have experienced tasks that asked
them to predict whether several given objects would float or sink, and to examine
their decision by observation, starting in Year 1.
The subjects were asked to respond individually to a questionnaire that was developed by the author, and not to perceive the questionnaire as a test with right or wrong

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Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

Figure 1.

109

Task for deciding whether the object is floating or has sunk (originally in Korean)

answers. The questionnaire is composed of two parts: one related to exploring childrens TPSs of floating and sinking (see Appendix), and the other related to examining
TPSs influences on the childrens judgment of floating and sinking (see Figure 1).
Firstly, gathering data for exploring childrens TPS of floating was undertaken by
three main questions:

Figure 1. Task for deciding whether the object is floating or has sunk (originally in Korean)

(a) When you hear the words a thing is floating in the water, what situation do you
first think of?
(a) Draw the above situation in the following box.
(a) Please write the reason why you think the above picture is a situation describing
a thing is floating in the water.
The aim of question (a) is to gain an outline of childrens TPS of floating, focused
on its immediacy. They were asked to give a short description about the first situation they thought of.
The aim of question (b) is to gain details of childrens TPS of floating. Drawing
has been known for many years as one of the methods of exploring childrens ideas.
For example, nearly one hundred years ago, Roberts (1916) explored 6,060 Sydney
childrens ideas (their interests) by asking them to draw free hand and analysing the
features of their pictures. He argued that children draw pictures based on not objective observation but their thinking and that given a free hand children will generally
express themselves, their true selves (Roberts, 1916, p. 6). Other examples of
childrens drawing being used as a tool, in ways closer to science education, are
some studies of childrens understanding of scientific concepts (e.g. Ben-Zvi Assraf

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110 Y. J. Joung
& Orion, 2005; Dove, Everett, & Preece, 1999; Novick & Nussbaum, 1981) and
childrens images of science (e.g. Newton & Newton, 1998; Scherz & Oren, 2006;
Song & Kim, 1999). These studies commonly showed that childrens pictures are
helpful in revealing the details of childrens ideas.
In addition, considering TPS is a kind of situation, the pictures drawn by children
are expected to give details of TPS, including the background, objects, and states of
the situation. To reduce possible side effects of their disliking drawing or being
concerning about drawing skills, the author clearly gave the following statement:
Dont worry about your drawing skill. This is not a Drawing Test. You dont
have to draw well. At the same time, to gain more details, the author said: Try to
draw as much detail as possible including, for instance, who, what, where, how, etc.
You could add any explanations on your picture in words.
Furthermore, the children were also asked question (c) above. The aim of question
(c) is to gain additional information as relating to interpretation on the childrens
pictures. The analysis of the data was undertaken by considering all responses to these
three questions.
Data about childrens TPS of sinking were also collected by the same method,
with the initial sentence a thing is floating in the water replaced with a thing has
sunk in the water.
The second part of the questionnaire, examining TPSs influences on the
childrens judgment of floating and sinking, involved asking children to make a decision to the question, What do you think about following situation? Whether is it the
situation of a thing is floating in the water or a thing has sunk in the water?.
They were asked to choose one option from is floating, has sunk, and others
(including additional description). The given situation is that an object is fully
immersed in water, but no part of the object is above the water surface and no part
touches the bottom of the water tank (see Figure 1). Biddulph and Osborne (1984)
have shown that children feel difficulties in deciding whether a situation like this is
about floating or not, because of the objects position. In order to help children focus
on one variable (i.e. the vertical position of the object), the object was not given a
name or description because the shape and material of the object might have influence on the childrens decision of floating and sinking, as shown in previous research
(e.g. Biddulph & Osborne, 1984; Dentici, Grossi, Borghi, Ambrosis, & Massara,
1984).
Data Analysis
For interpretation of the collected data, the TPSs generated by the children were
categorised in three ways: the spatial background of the TPS (i.e. what place does
the situation happen in?); the main object of the TPS (i.e. what object is floating or
has sunk in the situation); and the position of the main object (i.e. which position
does the main object have, particularly in comparison to the water surface?).
The spatial backgrounds and the main objects of TPS were first categorised based
on the terminology used by the children themselves and the name used widely by the

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111

general public. Then, the second categorisation was carried out based on the
common features among the first categories by criteria such as size of body of water,
weight, species, and so on. For example, the spatial backgrounds were first categorised into the categories, sea, river, sea or river, pond, pool, water tank, (just)
water, sky, and then secondly into the large bodies of water, middle sized bodies
of water, small bodies of water, (just) water, sky. In the present paper, the
results of the first categorisation, as well as the seconds, will be presented and
discussed, because, while we could not ignore the possibilities that there might be
other criteria for the second categorisation, the first categories could provide more
concrete and clearer information about childrens TPSs although the number of
them might be very large.
The positions of the main object were categorised based on the position relationship between the main object and the water surface as follows; in the air, on the
water surface, half-submerged, just beneath the water surface, halfway between
the water surface and the bottom, on the bottom (see Figure 2).
To analyse the relations between the features of childrens TPSs and their judgment of floating or sinking, the cross tabulation of position by judgment was
conducted. That is, the frequencies of the childrens judgments (floating, sinking,
other) were compared within each position of the main object (in the air, on the
water surface, half-submerged, just beneath the water surface, mid-way between
the water surface and the bottom, on the bottom). Then, whether there is any relationship between the position and the judgment was examined. Considering the
data of position and judgment can be regarded as ordinal data, a Gamma test was

Figure 2. Categories of the positions of main object (a) in the air (b) on the water surface (c) half-submerged (d) just beneath the water surface (e) mid-way between the water surface and the bottom (f)on the bottom

Figure 2. Categories of the positions of main object (a) in the air (b) on the water surface
(c) half-submerged (d) just beneath the water surface (e) mid-way between the water
surface and the bottom (f)on the bottom

112 Y. J. Joung
applied to determine if there are significant relationships between them. For this, the
data were coded to be having positive direction when the data are respectively
toward the sinking and the on the bottom (i.e. floating 1, others 2
(because all the children who chose this item answered that the state of the object in
the given task is between floating and sinking), sinking 3, and in the air
1, on the water surface 2, half-submerged 3, just beneath the water
surface 4, mid-way between the water surface and the bottom 5, on the
bottom 6). SPSS (version 14) was used in the analysis.

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Results and Discussion

Spatial Backgrounds
The childrens responses to the question, When you hear the words a thing is floating/has sunk in the water, what situation do you first think of? contained sea,
river, pond, pool, water tank, (just) water, and sky as spatial backgrounds
(see Table 1).
In both the cases of floating and sinking situations, more than 60% of the
children stated and drew the situations which happened in the sea or a river (this
includes some cases where the response was clearly one or the other of these, but it
was not clear which one). That is, the majority of the children first think of large
bodies and deep water as the spatial background of the situation of something
floating and sinking. It is already known that children tend to think that the size and
depth of water affects the level at which an object floats. For example, Biddulph and
Table 1.

Spatial backgrounds of the childrens TPS

Frequency (%, n=148)
Places

Large bodies of water

(42.9%)a

Middle sized bodies of water

(70.6%)
Small bodies of water
(72.2%)
(just) Water
(56.8%)
Sky (in the air)
(41.2%)
No/Uninterpretable response
a The

Floating

Sinking

Sea
River
Sea or River (not sure but one of
both)
Pond
Pool (swimming, bath)
Water tank (beaker, bowl, cup)

18.2
14.9
27.7

29.7
6.1
31.1

6.8
2.0
4.1

0.7
2.7
8.1

(just) Water

12.2

17.6

Sky (in the air)

10.8

0.7

3.4

3.4

proportion of responses for this category from females (the average proportion across all
responses is 48.3%)

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Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

113

Osborne (1984) demonstrated that more than 40% of about four hundred 812 year
olds thought that the level at which a plastic boat floated would be different according to whether the boat was floating in a bowl of water or in a deep lake.
The second context frequently mentioned was (just) water, without any specific
place name or context or other forms of identification information. For the third
most frequently shown spatial background (context), however, the childrens
responses were different according to the situation, floating or sinking, as shown
Table 1. An interesting thing is the third most frequent context for the floating
situation. As the spatial background for the floating situation, about 10% of the
children thought of sky (or, in the air) (e.g. the situation where soap bubbles are
floating in the air), even though they were given questions that included the phrase,
in the water. Such responses seem to be affected by childrens everyday usage of
the words is floating. In Korean, the words is floating (
) are generally used to
refer to situations where something is floating in the air as well as floating in the
water. The meaning in everyday life, and its frequent usage, seems to affect the
floating situation children first think of. The influence of childrens everyday
language on their conception of floating was also argued by Hewson (1986)
through the study of scientific knowledge acquisition by non-western students in
South Africa. The fact that, in the case of the sinking situation, only one child
thought of sky (in the air) as the background of his TPS also supports this interpretation in respect that, in general, the Korean word has sunk (
) is used
much more frequently to refer to situations which happen in the water rather than
in the air. It is likely that the same general characteristics would apply in contexts
where English is the first language.
It also appeared that spatial backgrounds chosen are dependent on the childrens
gender. Regarding the total cases of both the floating and the sinking situations,
there were 81 girls (42.9%) and 108 boys (57.1%) among the 189 children who
thought of large bodies of water as the spatial backgrounds of their TPS, as shown
in Table 1. However, 70.6% of the 18 children who answered middle sized bodies
of water and 72.2% of the 18 children who answered small bodies of water were
girls. That is, the girls tended to think of smaller backgrounds than the boys did.
This shows the possibility that childrens behavioural tendencies or the culture
where they are embedded might affect their TPS.
Main Objects
It is already known that various features of an object, not only its density, affect childrens judgment as to whether the object would float or sink in water. For example,
sometimes children focus on superficial shape such as the edge shape of the object,
the length of the object, the existence of holes in the object, etc. (Biddulph &
Osborne, 1984; Hewson, 1986), and sometimes they focus on the material the
object is made of (Dentici et al., 1984). It has also been found that children sometimes focus just on the weight of the object, not the compared weight to its
volume (Dentici et al., 1984; Heywood & Parker, 2001; Kang, Scharmann, & Noh,

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114 Y. J. Joung
2004). This means that children have a tendency to decide whether an object would
float or not based visible features like the shape and the material of the object, as well
as invisible features like density and weight. In this respect, the examination of the
main object of childrens TPS of floating and sinking situation would provide
information about the visible and invisible features of the object about which the
children in the situations children typically think of.
As a main focus of the TPS, the children stated and drew various objects that were
floating or sinking, as shown in Table 2. In the case of the floating situation, the
children mentioned a total of 34 kinds of objects at the level of a common name, and
in the case of the sinking situation, 33 kinds of objects. Despite such variety, the
objects about half the children thought of could validly be classified into just a few
groups: as the main object of the floating situation; human (21.6%), boat (12.2%)
and litter (10.8%), and as the main object of the sinking situation; boat (21.6%),
human (20.3%), and stone (13.5%).
Table 2.

Main objects of the childrens TPS

Frequency (%, n=148)

Main Objects
Living things (47.3%)a

Non-living things (47.2%)

No/Uninterpretable
response
a The

Human (51.6%)
A marine animal (12.0%)
A marine plant (87.5%)
A land animal (80.0%)
A land plant (66.7%)
Others (Living things) (40.0%)
Boat (34.0%)
Litter (41.7%)
Inflatable balls (57.1%)
Bottle (37.5%)
A flying object (25.0%)
Planet (66.7%)
Paper (66.7%)
Buildings (50.0%)
Stone (65.0%)
Submarine (62.5%)
Heavy balls (25.0%)
A mass of iron (60.0%)
Doll (50.0%)
Powder (50.0%)
Others (Non-living thing) (72.7%)

Floating

Sinking

21.6
10.8
5.4
3.4
3.4
2.0
12.2
10.8
8.8
4.1
2.7
2.0
1.4
0.7

2.0
8.8

20.3
6.1

0.7
1.4
21.6
5.4
0.7
1.4

0.7
2.0
13.5
5.4
2.7
3.4
1.4
1.4
5.4
6.8

proportion of responses for this category from females (the average proportion across all
responses is 48.3%)

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Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

115

At the level of a common name, the main object of the floating situation the
children most frequently drew and described was human (21.6%). Human
showed also high frequency (20.3%) in the case of responses to the sinking situation.
These results indicate that children have a tendency to connect the character of a
physical situation to human actions and states, as argued in Gilbert, Osborne, and
Fensham (1982). A similar tendency was shown in previous research related to
childrens TPS of the situation where force is acting on something and force is not
acting on something. For example, in the case study of four Year 6 children, 14 of
24 TPSs the children generated contained a human as the agent of force or the
object of force (Joung & Song, 2004a). The agent or the object of force most
frequently mentioned by 152 Year 6 children was also human(s) (Joung & Song,
2004b). However, the state of the human in the childrens TPS was different
according to the situation, floating or sinking. In the cases of floating situations,
75.8% of humans as the main object (in the 29 cases of TPS containing a human as
a main object) were on the water surface or half-submerged in the water (swimming,
playing with water, etc). On the other hand, in the cases of the sinking situation,
59.5% of humans as the main object (in the 27 cases of TPS containing a human as
a main object) were beneath the water surface, or halfway between the water surface
and the bottom, or on the bottom diving, drowning, etc. This means that even the
same kind of object has a different cast in a different situation.
The frequency of boat was also high in both the cases of floating (12.2%) and
sinking (21.6%) situations. An interesting thing is that the frequency of boat in the
cases of sinking situations is higher than that in the cases of floating situations, as
it is dissimilar to what might generally be expected. In addition, the state of nearly
half of the boats (48.4% of 31 cases of TPS containing a boat as a main object in the
sinking situation) was half-submerged because of shipwreck, while 12.9% were just
beneath the water surface, 12.9% mid-way between the water surface and the
bottom, and 25.8% on the bottom. That is, the most frequent main object of the
sinking situation the children first thought of was a boat which is shipwrecked in
the water, even though the state of the boat at the moment the children were
describing was not under the water. This result shows that children tend to first
think of an object (boat) when it is not under the water but will soon change to move
toward the bottom of the water, rather than an object which is under the water
already. Such a tendency of the children to focus on continuity (i.e. the ability to
maintain the state) and dynamicity (i.e. the possibility of change of the state) of the
state of an object was demonstrated and discussed also in some previous studies (e.g.
Biddulph & Osborne, 1984; Carr et al., 1994). Consistent with previous studies, the
results in this study show that while the childrens tendency to focus on continuity
and dynamicity is just one of the many tendencies shown in judging floating and
sinking situation, it is a very important tendency.
It was also found that the frequencies of some main objects were different
according to childrens gender. For example, a low proportion of girls thought of a
boat (34.0%) or a marine animal (12.0%), as shown in Table 2. On the other
hand, the proportion of girls who thought of a marine plant like a water hyacinth

116 Y. J. Joung
as the main object was very high (83.8%). This shows again the possibility that
childrens behavioural tendencies or the culture where they are embedded might
affect their TPS.

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Positions of the Main Objects

Table 3 show the frequencies of the positions of the main object of the childrens
TPS of the floating and sinking situation.
In the cases of the floating situations most the children first thought of the situation where the main objects were on the water surface (48.0%) and halfsubmerged (30.4%), and, in the cases of the sinking situations 63% of the children
mentioned the situation where the main objects were under the water surface (i.e.
on the bottom (33.8%), mid-way between the water surface and the bottom
(28.4%), just beneath the water surface (5.4%)), as it is generally expected. That is
to say, the situations the children first think of as the floating and sinking situation
are based on the position the main object is at relatively to the water surface. These
results have things in common with the results that most children described the
given object which floated with a sizable proportion above the water surface as floating (Biddulph & Osborne, 1984).
However, many of the children first thought the position of half-submerged in
both the floating situation (30.4%) and sinking situation (19.6%), as shown Table 3.
This result predicts that the children might rather hesitate to decide the state of
objects when they are half-submerged in the water, than when they are clearly on the
surface or on the bottom. In addition, it is appeared that this result has a relationship
with the kind of the main object and the continuity of the state of the object. In the
floating situation, more than half the 40 cases where the main objects were halfsubmerge in the water contained human (32.5%) and marine animal (20.0%) as
the main object, while in the case of sinking situation 60% of the 25 cases were
boat. These results remind us that the children tend to consider various things
when they think about the floating and sinking situation, as discussed in the previous
section.
Table 3.

Positions of main object of the childrens TPS

Frequency (%, n=148)

Positions
In the air
On the water surface
Half-submerged
Just beneath the water surface
Mid-way between the water surface and the bottom
On the bottom
No/Uninterpretable response

Floating

Sinking

11.5
48.0
30.4
1.4

8.8

0.7

19.6
5.4
28.4
33.8
12.2

Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

117

On the other hand, the presence of the position of in the air (11.5%) in the floating
situation seem to result from the daily usage of the word floating, as discussed before.

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Whole Scenes of the Childrens TPSs

As a results of analyses according to the three categories, i.e. the spatial background, the main object, and the position of the main object, it was found that
the most frequent answer was as follows: in the cases of the floating situation, the
sea or river as the spatial background, the human as the main object, and on the
water surface as the position of the main object; in the cases of the sinking situation,
the river or sea as the spatial background, the boat as the main object, and the
on the bottom as the position of the main object, as shown Table 1, Table 2, and
Table 3.
Additionally to these, considering that these three categories of the situations of
the floating and sinking may not exist separately, the whole scene of the childrens
TPS (i.e. the scene that an individual children answer, including all the spatial
background, the main object, and the position of the main object) was examined.
Table 4 shows the whole scenes that more than 5% of the participants first think of
as the floating or the sinking situation.
In the floating situation, the most frequent whole scene was the scene of a boat is
on the water surface of the sea or river (10.1%). The second most frequent whole
scene of the floating situation was the scene of a human is half-submerged in the sea
or river (7.4%). In the sinking situation, the most frequent whole scenes were a
boat is half-submerged in the sea or river (9.7%), a stone is on the bottom of the
sea or river (6.0%), and a boat is on the bottom of the sea or river (5.4%).
Theses results were not much different from those analysed according to the three
categories mentioned above, except for the change of the rank of the human. This
difference resulted from the distributions of the position of the human, the boat
and the stone. That is, although the human was the most frequent main object of
the floating situation, the position of the human was distributed into the on the
water surface (31.0%), the half-submerged (44.8%), etc. while most the position
of the boat was on the water surface (94.4%). Similarly, in the case of the sinking
situation, the position of the human was distributed into the half-submerged
(37.0%), the mid-way between the water surface and the bottom (33.3%), the on
the bottom (14.8%), etc. while nearly three quarters of the stone (72.2%) was
located on the bottom. This shows also that some objects (like a boat and a stone)
tend to be connected by the children to the particular position where the objects are,
relating to the floating and sinking situation.
Relationship Between the Childrens Judgments of the Floating or Sinking Situation
and their TPS
Table 5 shows the frequencies of the childrens judgments in the task in which they
were asked to make a decision whether the given situation (i.e. an object fully

118 Y. J. Joung

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Table 4.

Whole scenes of the childrens TPS of the floating and sinking situation (the cases that
more than 5% of the participants thought of)

Situation

PlaceMain ObjectPosition

Floating

Sea (or River)BoatOn the

water

Frequency
(%, n=148)
10.1

Sea (or River)HumanHalf

submerged

Sinking

Sea (or River)BoatHalf

submerged

7.4

9.5

Sea (or River)StoneOn the

bottom

6.0

Sea (or River)BoatOn the

bottom

5.4

Example

Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

Table 5.

Judgment of floating or sinking by the children

Judgment
Floating situation
Others (Between floating and sinking situation)
Sinking situation
No/Uninterpretable response

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119

Frequency (%, n=148)

48.6
6.8
35.8
8.8

immersed in the water, but neither any part of the object is not above the water
surface nor any part does not touch the bottom of the water tank, as illustrated in
Figure 1) is the situation of a thing is floating in the water or a thing has sunk in
the water.
About half the children (48.6%) regarded the given situation as the floating situation. However, more than one third of the children (35.8%) regarded the situation
as the sinking situation, and 6.8% of the children chose others (all the children who
chose others stated that the given situation was between the floating situation and
the sinking situation). This result is similar to the results reported by Biddulph and
Osborne (1984), that some children thought the object of which only a small portion
was above the water surface was partly floating and partly sinking, and 48% of the
76 children said the bottom part would sink when the top of the object was cut off.
To explore the relationships between the childrens judgments and the features of
their TPS, the frequencies of each of the childrens judgment (i.e. floating,
between floating and sinking, sinking, as shown in Table 5) within each position
of the main objects (i.e. in the air, on the water surface, half-submerged, just
beneath the water surface, mid-way between the water surface and the bottom, on
the bottom, as shown in Table 3) were compared respectively to the floating and
sinking situations. Table 6 show the results.
A comparison of the proportions of each judgment within each position of
the main object of the childrens TPS showed that, in the situation that the children first thought of as the sinking situation, the proportion of the judgment
floating increased as the position of the main object went toward the position
on the bottom, while the proportion of the judgment sinking decreased. That
is to say, as the position changed (half-submerged just beneath the water
surface mid-way between the water surface and the bottom on the
bottom), the proportion of the judgment floating within each position generally
increased (44.0% 33.3% 42.5% 68.1%), while and the proportion of
the judgment sinking tended to decrease (48.0% 50.3% 50.0%
25.5%), as shown in Table 6. Although the opposite tendency was shown
between the two positions half-submerged and just beneath the water surface,
considering the gaps of the proportions and the number of respondents, it can
be said that there was such a broad tendency on the whole. This tendency
between the judgment and the position was also statically significant (the
value of Gamma = 0.295, the approximate significance = 0.02). The negative

120 Y. J. Joung
Table 6.

Crosstabulation of the Position by the Judgments

Judgments by the children

Situation

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Floating

Sinking

Floating

Others
(Between floating
and sinking)

Sinking

Total
(Count)

In the air
On the water surface
Half-submerged
Just beneath the water
surface
Total

61.5%a
50.7%
50.0%
100.0%

0.0%
13.4%
2.5%
0.0%

38.5%
35.8%
47.5%
0.0%

13
67
40
2

52.5%

8.2%

39.3%

122

In the air
Half-submerged
Just beneath the water
surface
Mid-way between the water
surface and the bottom
On the bottom
Total

100.0%
44.0%
33.3%

0.0%
8.0%
16.7%

0.0%
48.0%
50.3%

1
25
6

42.5%

7.5%

50.0%

40

68.1%
52.9%

6.4%
7.6%

25.5%
39.5%

47
119

Position of the Main Object

of the Childrens TPS

a The proportion of each Judgment within each Position in the floating and the sinking situation
respectively

sign of the value of Gamma indicates that the proportion of the judgment
floating increases as the position of the main object goes toward the on the
bottom, because the data of the judgment and the position were coded to
have bigger positive value as they went toward the sinking and the on the
bottom, as mentioned in the section above about the methods used in this
study. On the other hand, there was no significant pattern in the relationship
between the childrens judgment and the position of the main object in the
situation that the children first thought of as the floating situation. It appears
that the fact the object of the given situation is under the water (specifically, just
beneath the water) leads the children to focus heavily on the situation under the
water rather than above the water.
In summary, the children in the study have stronger tendencies to regard the
situation where an object is just beneath the water as the floating situation, while
the position of the main object in the situation that they first think of as the sinking
situation is nearer to the bottom of the water. Regarding the similarities and the
differences of the situations, it could be interpreted that the childrens judgments
were affected by their TPS of the sinking situation, based on the similarities (particularly, in aspect of the main position) between two situations, the given situation
and the childrens TPS, as discussed in the theoretical backgrounds of TPS in this
study.

Childrens Typically-Perceived-Situations of Floating and Sinking

121

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Conclusion and Suggestions

When children hear the words a thing is floating/has sunk in the water, what situation do they first think of? That is, what are childrens TPS of floating and sinking?
The children in the study first thought of a floating situation as a river or a sea as the
spatial background, a human or a boat as the main object, and the on the water
surface or the half-submerged as the position of the main object. As a sinking
situation, the children in the study first thought of, mainly, a river or sea as the
spatial background, a boat or a human as the main object, and the on the bottom
or the mid-way between the water surface and the bottom as the position of the
main object. Considering the whole scene of childrens TPS, the scene of a boat is
on the water surface of the sea or river and a human is half-submerged in the sea or
river were rather frequent ones as the floating situation, and the scenes of a boat is
half-submerged in the sea or river, a stone is on the bottom of the sea or river, and
a boat is on the bottom of the sea or river were rather frequent ones as the sinking
situation.
In these TPSs, the children tended to focus on continuity (i.e. the ability to
maintain the state) and dynamicity (i.e. the possibility of change of the state) of the
state of an object as well as weight-dependent features. Some objects (such as boats
and stones) tend to be connected by the children to the particular position where the
objects are, relating to the floating and sinking situation; some backgrounds and
objects of the floating and sinking situations were dependent on the childrens
gender.
In addition, it appeared that these childrens TPS affected their judgment of floating and sinking, in that the children showed a stronger tendency to regard the situation where an object is just beneath the water as the floating situation, and the
position of the main object in the situation that they first think of as the sinking
situation was nearer to the bottom of the water.
The results of this study suggest that childrens TPSs could be useful sources for
their conceptual learning in science classes. It has been argued for many years that
tasks given to children in science classes should be chosen by considering personal
issues such as what prior knowledge they have, what interests they have and what
situations they are familiar with, etc. For example, providing anomalies to trigger
childrens dissatisfaction with their existing conceptions is often argued to be important for conceptual learning. However, childrens responses to discrepant events that
are frequently experienced in everyday life have a low percentage of rejection, reinterpretation, and uncertainty, and a high percentage of belief change (Kang et al.,
2004) when compared with childrens responses to the more complicated and expert
scientific discrepant events (Chinn & Brewer, 1993). Just recounting historical
anomalies (such as the Michelson-Morley experiment) wont always do! (Posner,
Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982, p. 221). Regarding discrepant events, childrens
TPSs could play a role in providing useful events and situations for conceptual
learning of science. This is because TPS is one of the most familiar situations for
children and includes information related to target concepts or phenomena. This

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122 Y. J. Joung
affects childrens judgments (at least initial judgments) of the state of the phenomena, as shown in this study. Therefore, if we want to encourage childrens effective
conceptual learning of science, we would need to examine their TPS of target
concepts before entering science classes, and to provide examples and situations in
the science classes regarding their TPS and influences of TPS on their initial judgements. For these, we should give attention to the way to examine childrens ideas
with their daily language and spontaneous drawings on which their intuitive ideas
are reflected in specific contexts, as well as with formal test for diagnosing their
misconceptions.
More specifically, the findings of this study suggest some situations (or events, or
examples) that will be useful for promoting conceptual learning of floating and
sinking. For example, if we want to provide a floating situation that is more familiar
to children to make them feel cognitively stable, we could provide the situations
where a boat is on the surface of a sea or a river. In the case of a sinking situation,
we could provide a boat is half-submerged in a sea or a river or a stone is on the
bottom of a sea or river. Or, if we want to provide a sinking situation to stimulate
childrens existing ideas to make them feel cognitively dissatisfactory or curious, we
could provide the situations where a boat is half-submerged, but maintains its state
for a long time in a sea or a river, or a stone is not on the bottom, but beneath or
mid-way between the water surface and the bottom. There could also be various
combinations of the backgrounds, the main objects and the positions of the objects
shown in the study, according to what we want to achieve. While trying to create
these, however, we should remember that the meaning of the words used by teacher
could be different from the meaning understood by children, even though the words
are the same and look very easy to understand such as floating, sinking, and so on.
On the other hand, some features of childrens ideas of floating and sinking found
by exploring their TPS in this study and the limits of this study suggest some future
research. First, for example, considering that the judgment task used in the study
was rather simple (e.g. the task was not a real situation but a pictorial thing, and was
designed to minimise information about the object), and, at the same time, that the
childrens TPS reflected that they regarded various things such as continuity,
dynamicity, the features of the object etc., we may need studies with more complicated judgment tasks. The results of these future studies might show more various
relationships between childrens TPS and their judgment. Second, considering that
some features of the childrens TPS were dependent on the childs gender, it is
worthwhile to explore their TPS more in terms of a range of socio-cultural aspects.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the
Korean Government (MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion Fund) (KRF-2006214-C00032). In addition, I wish to thank Richard Gunstone at Monash University.
The comments on an earlier version of this paper from him were most helpful in its
development.

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Appendix
Extract from Questionnaire
Exploring TPS (of floating) (translated from the Korean version):
When you hear the words a thing is floating in the water, what situation do you first
think of?
The first situation I thought of:

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Draw the above situation in the following box, please.

Dont worry about your drawing skill. This is not a Drawing Test. You dont have
to draw well.
Try to draw as much detail as possible including, for instance, who, what, where,
how, etc. You could add any explanations on your picture in words:

Please write the reason why you think the above picture is a situation describing a
thing is floating in the water.
The reason: