Exploring the role of a discrepant event in changing the conceptions of evaporation and boiling in elementary school students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how examples used in teaching may influence elementary school students' conceptions of evaporation and boiling. To this end, the examples traditionally used to explain evaporation and boiling in Korean 4th grade science textbooks were analyzed. The functions of these published examples were explanation (empirical recognition, identification, and evidence) and reinforcement (applications). However, few reinforcement functions (such as comparison and supposition) or clarification functions (such as extension and contrast) were employed. The evaporation and boiling conceptions of 41 students in the 4th grade, 55 students in the 5th grade, and 28 students in the 6th grade were surveyed. Many students thought of evaporation phenomena under heating conditions as boiling, and the same phenomena without an obvious source of heating as evaporation. This meant that the presence of heating affected the students' conceptions of evaporation and boiling. In this study, the students were presented with clarifying functional examples that were not included in the textbooks. After exposure to these examples, many students revised their misconceptions and adopted scientific conceptions. Previous studies have argued that students must be able to reason from a microscopic point of view to understand evaporation and boiling phenomena; however, the tested students were able to classify the two different phenomena after experiencing appropriate functional examples.

Promoting Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Conceptual Understanding About Boiling by Dialogic Teaching

“…Consistent with existent literature (Costu, 2008;Çalık, 2008;Paik, 2015), the present study showed that preservice science teachers possessed a range of ACs and SUs about boiling. Looking at ACs that are particularly related to macro level (i.e., sensual changes) (Unal, Calik, Ayas, & Coll, 2006), we can argue that most of the participants could easily envisage joint existence of water vapor, heat and boiling and condensing vaporized air when it encounters cold water.…”

Measurement Tool for The Determination of Misconceptions About Change of State

“…The researchers reported that the question-answer technique was an effective method in eliminating students' misconceptions about the concepts of melting and dissolution. Paik (2015) examined the role of examples in 4th grade textbooks used as textbooks in Korea on students' perceptions of the concepts of evaporation and boiling. In the study conducted with fourth, fifth and sixth grade students, it was revealed that many students thought that evaporation events under heating conditions were boiling, while the same events without an obvious heating source were evaporation.…”

Argumentation Skills of Pre-Service Elementary Teachers on Atmospheric Pressure

“…Since the PSTs generally consider external pressure atmospheric pressure, they think the external pressure remains the same as long as the environment does not change. Students often associate boiling with temperature, and the boiling of a liquid is evaluated according to the height of the sea level (Şimşek, Öztuna-Kaplan, Çorapçıgil & Mısırlı, 2018;Paik, 2015). In scientific terms, giving the essence of the event can minimize this problem.…”