Promoting fourth graders' conceptual change of their understanding of electric current via multiple analogies

Abstract

For the past two decades, a growing amount of research has shown that the use of analogies in science teaching and learning promotes meaningful understanding of complex scientific concepts This article presents a study in which multiple analogies were used as scaffolding to link students' prior understanding of daily life events to knowledge of the scientific domain. The study was designed to investigate how multiple analogies influence student learning of a complex scientific concept: the electric circuit. We used several analogies in a set of learning materials to present the concepts of parallel and series circuits. Thirty-two fourth graders participated in this study and were randomly assigned to four groups. The four groups were named nonanalogy (control), single analogy, similar analogies, and complementary analogies, according to the materials they used in this study. The results demonstrated that using analogies not only promoted profound understanding of complex scientific concepts (such as electricity), but it also helped students overcome their misconceptions of these concepts. In particular, we found that the reason the students had difficulty understanding the concept of electricity was because of their ontological presupposition of the concept. Implications for teaching and learning are discussed. ß 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 2005 We always try to use old memories to recollect how we solved problems in the past. But nothing's ever twice the same, so recollections rarely match. Then we must force our memories to fit-so we can see those different things as similar. To do this, we can either modify a memory or change how we represent the present scene . . . . How hard it will be to make such a match depends both on which agents are now active in your mind and on the levels of their priorities-in short, on the context already established. -Marvin Minsky (1985, 1986.

A comparative cross-cultural study of the prevalence and nature of misconceptions in physics amongst English and Chinese undergraduate students

“…The explanations offered above are very similar to those reported (Chiu & Lin, 2005: Taiwan 9-10; Tsai et al, 2007: Taiwan 12-17) amongst secondary school students who believe in an attenuation model.…”

“…This so called "sequence model", is closely aligned to the attenuation model (Chiu & Lin, 2005;Shipstone, 1984;Tsai et al, 2007), and has also been reported by Paatz et al (2004: Germany 16) who found that even more academically able participants are likely to develop and/or have retained this misconception post instruction.…”

“…The third, widely held misconception, is an attenuation model (Shipstone, 1984: UK 11-17) in which it is believed that electric current will be 'consumed' or 'used up' by the bulb in the circuit after flowing through it, therefore the first bulb to encounter the electric current, as it moves from one terminal of the battery around the circuit towards the other terminal, will be brighter than any subsequent bulbs as there will be sequentially less electric current left for subsequent bulbs to 'use up' in a series circuit. Research into the attenuation model (Chiu & Lin, 2005: Taiwan 9-10; Tsai et al, 2007: Taiwan 12-17) found that this was the model most frequently held by secondary school students and that, unlike the unipolar and 'clashing currents' model, was very resilient to change even after instruction.…”

A Comparison of Experienced and Preservice Elementary School Teachers’ Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge about Electric Circuits

“…Predominant types of students' conceptions of simple and series electric circuits include unipolar, clashing-currents, crossing-currents, attenuation, sharing, and scientific models (Chiu & Lin, 2005). Students who lack understanding of a complete path for current flow hold a unipolar model that assumes the electric currents flow from one terminal of the battery into the bulb.…”

Children's analogical reasoning in a third-grade science discussion

“…The use of analogies for instruction, whether initiated by the text, by the teacher, or by the students themselves, has been shown to improve conceptual learning in a variety of science contexts (Dagher, 1995a;Duit, 1991), including psychology (Mayo, 2001), mathematics (Didierjean & Cauzinille-Marmeche, 1998), biology (Baker & Lawson, 2001;Glynn & Takahashi, 1998;Kaufman, Patel, & Magder, 1996;Mason, 1994;Newby, Ertmer, & Stepich, 1995;Pittman, 1999;Swain, 2000), and physics (Chiu & Lin, 2005;Clement, 1988Clement, , 1989Clement, , 1993Clement, , 1998Heywood & Parker, 1997;Mason & Sorzio, 1996;Stavy, 1991;Wong, 1993aWong, , 1993b. In addition, instructional activities involving student-generated analogies may reveal student understanding better than traditional assessment (Pittman, 1999).…”