Children's conceptions of the changes of state of water

Osborne, Roger; Cosgrove, Mark

doi:10.1002/tea.3660200905

Cited by 316 publications

(253 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In accordance with previous studies (e.g., Osborne & Cosgrove, 1983;Tytler, 2000;Johnson, 1998bJohnson, , 1998c, representative responses were ' the water is absorbed by the sun ', ' the plate absorbs the water ', ' the heat absorbs the water ' or 'the water does not exist anymore '. However, a number of pupils' responses such as 'the water has been transformed into a gas and it left the plate ...' was considered 'sufficient', while an answer such as 'the water becomes small drops and goes up in the air' was considered 'intermediate'.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Tsikalas

Stamovlasis

Papageorgiou

2014

Ppej

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Summary. Students' understanding of physical phenomena is determined by their relevant representations, which are very crucial for science education. Since these representations are often incompatible with the scientific view, their functional role in the learning processes has been the main interest of a plethora of research work over the last decades. In the present research students' representations for boiling and evaporation are investigated and an attempt is made to correlate them with two cognitive variables, which have been shown to be involved in mental processes of learning science, namely convergent and divergent thinking. The study took place with the participation of 375 sixth-grade elementary school pupils (aged 11-12). Methodologically the ordinal logistic regression was implemented to correlate the categorical-type dependent variable with scale-type independent predictors. The results show that both convergent and divergent thinking are significantly associated with pupils' sufficient responses. Interpretation of the results and implications for science education are discussed.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Tsikalas

Stamovlasis

Papageorgiou

2014

Ppej

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“…Some such students consider that molecules are in substances, rather than that substances consist of molecules, and believe something to be between the molecules. Osborne and Cosgrove (1983) found that 8-17-year-old students in New Zealand knew little about the particulate nature of matter. With little knowledge or an alternative understanding about the particulate nature of matter, students might not understand that a chemical equation represents a chemical reaction involving atom rearrangement and bond breaking and formation (Krajcik, 1991).…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of designing and evaluating molecular animations on how well middle school students understand the particulate nature of matter

2009

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ABSTRACT:In this study, we investigated whether the understanding of the particulate nature of matter by students was improved by allowing them to design and evaluate molecular animations of chemical phenomena. We developed Chemation, a learner-centered animation tool, to allow seventh-grade students to construct ßipbook-like simple animations to show molecular models and dynamic processes. Eight classes comprising 271 students were randomly assigned to three treatments in which students used Chemation to (1) design, interpret, and evaluate animations, (2) only design and interpret animations, or (3) only view and interpret teacher-made animations. We employed 2-factor analysis of covariance and calculated effect sizes to examine the impact of the three treatments on student posttest performances and on student-generated animations and interpretations during class. We used the pretest data as a covariate to reduce a potential bias related to students' prior knowledge on their learning outcomes. The results indicate that designing animations coupled with peer evaluation is effective at improving student learning with instructional animation. On the other hand, the efÞcacy of allowing students to only design animations without peer evaluation is questionable compared with allowing students to view animations.

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“…The instrument was synthesized by selected items/questions, which have been used to access students' knowledge on this specific domain in a number of research studies (Johnson, 1998a, b, c;Osborne, & Cosgrove, 1983;Author 3, Author 2 et al, 2008). In particular, it was especially based on an extended and more elaborated version of the instrument used by The first 3 items (1A, 1B, and 1C) concern the solid state.…”

Section: Pupils' Achievement Concerning Their Understanding Of the Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As far as the changes of state are concerned, Osborne and Cosgrove (1983) investigated students' perceptions by interviewing forty-three school pupils ranging in age from eight to seventeen years. The findings were consolidated by means of a paper-pencil survey technique.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effect of Three Cognitive Variables on Students’ Understanding of the Particulate Nature of Matter and its Changes of State

Tsitsipis

Stamovlasis

Papageorgiou

2009

International Journal of Science Education

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To cite this version:Dimitrios Stamovlasis, Georgios Tsitsipis, George Papageorgiou. The effect of three cognitive variables on students' understanding of the particulate nature of matter and its changes of state. In- The effect of three cognitive variables on students' understanding of the particulate nature of matter and its changes of state AbstractIn this study, students' understanding of the structure of matter and its changes of state, such as, melting, evaporation, boiling and condensation was investigated in relation to three cognitive variables: logical thinking, field-dependence/field-independence and convergence/divergence dimension. The study took place in Greece with the participation of 329 ninth-grade junior high school pupils (age 14-15). A stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that all of the above mentioned cognitive variables were statistically significant predictors of the students' achievement. Among the three predictors, logical thinking was found to be the most dominant one. In addition, students' understanding of the structure of matter, along with the cognitive variables, were shown to have an effect on their understanding the changes of states and on their competence to interpret these physical changes. Path analyses were implemented to depict these effects. Moreover, a theoretical analysis is provided that associates logical thinking and cognitive styles with the nature of mental tasks involved when learning the material concerning the particulate nature of matter and its changes of state. Implications for science education are also discussed. KeywordsParticulate structure of matter, changes of state, logical thinking, cognitive styles, field-dependence/field-independence, convergence/divergence thinking.

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Children's conceptions of the changes of state of water

Cited by 316 publications

References 11 publications

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

The impact of designing and evaluating molecular animations on how well middle school students understand the particulate nature of matter

The Effect of Three Cognitive Variables on Students’ Understanding of the Particulate Nature of Matter and its Changes of State

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