Supporting Students in Using Energy Ideas to Interpret Phenomena: The Role of an Energy Representation

Abstract

In the sciences, energy is an important idea to get insight into phenomena, as energy can help to reveal hidden systems and processes. However, students commonly struggle to use energy ideas to interpret and explain phenomena. To support students in using energy ideas to interpret and explain phenomena, a range of different graphical representations are commonly used. However, there is little empirical research regarding whether and how these representations actually support students' ability to use energy ideas. Building on common ways of representing energy transfer, we address this issue by exploring whether, and if so how, a specific representation called the energy transfer model (ETM) supports middle school students' interpretation of phenomena using the idea of energy transfer. We conducted an interview study with N = 30 8th grade students in a quasi-experimental setting and used qualitative content analysis to investigate student answers. We found evidence that students who construct an ETM when making sense of phenomena consider the role of energy transfers between systems more comprehensively, i.e., they reason about hidden processes and systems to a larger extent than students who do not construct an ETM.

How students of primary school understand large scale energy systems: The case of thermal power plant

“…The energy chain model plays a key role in our teaching sequence, since it facilitates coherence between the phenomenological level and the "theory" level (Tiberghien, 1994;Tiberghien, 1996;Meli & Koliopoulos, 2019) of knowledge, which, in our case, combines technological, scientific and environmental knowledge dimensions. Both contemporary and older scholarship puts the energy chains or other thermodynamic models with a respective graphical representational power forward as proper explanatory energy models, especially for younger students (Tiberghien & Megalakaki, 1995;Papadouris & Constantinou, 2016;Scherr, Harrer, Close, Daane, DeWater, Robertson et al, 2016;Boyer & Givry, 2018;Kubsch, Nordine, Fortus, Krajcik & Neumann, 2019;Delegkos & Koliopoulos, 2020). These models are compatible with linear causal reasoning, common for all learners, regardless of their age (Tiberghien, 2004).…”

Design and Implementation of an Einsteinian Energy Learning Module

“…More research is needed on teaching energy in school. Researchers are still testing theories and methods to understand better what and how to teach specific energy topics (Bächtold & Munier, 2019 ; Constantinou & Papadouris, 2012 ; DeWaters et al, 2013 ; Kubsch et al, 2020 ). There is a lack of consensus in the literature when considering what exact topics should be introduced at the secondary level.…”

Epistemic Emotions and Observations Are Intertwined in Scientific Sensemaking: A Study among Upper Secondary Physics Students

“…Previous studies have indicated that a context and cognitive tools provided, such as graphical representations, can influence students' sensemaking processes (e.g. Ding et al, 2021;Kubsch et al, 2020). In this study, a predicting-observing-explaining (POE) strategy (White & Gunstone, 1992) was employed to guide students to make sense of a scientific phenomenon.…”

“…Recently, making sense of phenomena has been of growing interest in the field of science education (e.g. Ding et al, 2021 ; Krajcik, 2015 ; Kubsch et al, 2020 ; National Research Council, 2012 ). The ability to make sense of phenomena is essential for developing scientific understanding and advancing critical thinking.…”