Data Set for <b>Where Learners Struggle First: A Diagnostic Study of Conceptual Understanding and Motivation in Food and Nutrition among Grade 6 Learners at a Semi-Rural South African Science Centre</b>

To address the right problems in informal science programmes, it is first necessary to identify where learning falters. However, comprehensive diagnostic data from semi-rural areas in Africa remain scarce. This study reports the needs-analysis phase of a project to build food-and-nutrition exhibits at a South African science centre. I assessed 731 Grade 6 learners in Limpopo, mapped their understanding across three natural science strands, and gauged their motivation to learn science. Learners were strongest in Energy and Change (96% of the marks) and weakest in Life and Living (64%), which covers food, nutrition, and human health. The hardest single item was an ecological food-web task (30%), and the two nutrition items also fell below the test-average score. The kind of motivation mattered more than the amount: autonomous motivation tracked higher achievement and controlled motivation lower, a split that held once age, gender, and school were allowed for, and one that strengthened as the content grew harder. These early difficulties in nutrition and ecological reasoning appear to foreshadow problems seen later in senior Life Sciences, and the diagnosis is used to set priorities for the planned exhibits.