Investigating middle school students' ability to develop energy as a framework for analyzing simple physical phenomena

Abstract

We investigated whether it is possible for 12-year-old students to develop a qualitative conceptualization of energy and four associate features (forms of energy, transfer processes, conservation, and degradation) as a framework for constructing interpretive accounts for the operation of physical phenomena (specifically, for changes taking place in simple physical systems). We implemented, in authentic classroom environments, a specific teaching-learning sequence designed to promote this particular learning objective. The implementation involved three intact classes (N ¼ 64) and lasted nine 80-minute sessions. We collected data through open-ended tasks and follow-up interviews, so as to investigate what could be achieved by students in terms of employing energy for analyzing the operation of physical systems. The findings suggest that, to a large extent, the students were able to productively meet this challenge. At the same time, the data revealed specific conceptual, reasoning, or other difficulties they encountered. Our findings have implications for specific issues debated in the literature on teaching and learning about energy, including the developmental appropriateness of energy as a learning objective for the lower middle school grades and the instructional value of forms of energy. We discuss boundary conditions in terms of what falls within the reach of lower middle school students and highlight implications for the characteristics of physical systems that could be productively analyzed by students of this age. #

Systems, transfer, and fields: Evaluating a new approach to energy instruction

“…This approach appeared to work well as long as the phenomena being studied involved only few systems. Students began to struggle once the number of systems involved increased (Papadouris & Constantinou, 2016). Lehavi and Eylon (2018) developed an approach that focuses on the idea of energy change-its increase or decrease in systems by various processes.…”

“…Papadouris and Constantinou studied an epistemologically informed approach that is based on different mechanisms for transfer and different forms of energy and is manifested in what they call “energy‐chains.” This approach appeared to work well as long as the phenomena being studied involved only few systems. Students began to struggle once the number of systems involved increased (Papadouris & Constantinou, ).…”

Composition-Effects of Context-based Learning Opportunities on Students’ Understanding of Energy

“…With regard to teaching the energy concept, different approaches exist which also make use of a particular terminology. For instance, some authors advocate a transfer-based approach (Brewe 2011;NRC 2011;Swackhamer 2005), involving the consideration of systems and/or fields, while other approaches focus on energy transformation, providing students with specific indicators to identify different energy forms and transformations between these forms (Nordine et al 2011;Papadouris and Constantinou 2016). Both approaches received considerable criticism.…”

How Should Energy Be Defined Throughout Schooling?

“…At high school, when no formal definition of energy is told to students, most of them tend to conceive energy only in relation to one domain of physics, for instance, as a type of force (in relation to mechanics) or as molecular agitation (in relation to the study of heat) (Authors, 2014c). This leads to the "compartmentalization" problem (Papadouris & Constantinou, 2016, p. 120, see also Jewett, 2008c: students may consider that energy is a quantity relevant only in one domain (e.g., mechanics) and ignore the unifying role of energy (see section 2.4). One possible consequence is that students confuse the principle of energy conservation with the conservation of mechanical energy (which holds only in the specific case without friction) and therefore do not apply the principle correctly (Authors, 2014c).…”