Survey of research related to the development of the concept of ‘matter’

A Longitudinal Study Showing how Students use a Molecule Concept when Explaining Everyday Situations

“…There are also studies focused on the development of students' understanding of these concepts (e.g. Johnson, 1998c;Krnel et al, 1998;Liu & Lesniak, 2005). All these studies to a greater or lesser extent investigate the width, depth, or "correctness" of the students' understanding of abstract scientific concepts concerning matter and its transformations more so than investigate students' ability to use these concepts in an everyday context and/or if this use benefits the students' understanding of the phenomena concerned.…”

“…Andersson, 1990;Driver, Guense & Tiberghien, 1985;Krnel, Watson & Glazar, 1998). Whether such processes could be more easily and better understood by an early introduction of the particulate nature of matter has been discussed and examined through the years with some arguing pro (e.g.…”

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

“…From Piagetian point of view, the conservation of matter is supposed to be developed to a significant degree by 12 year-old pupils, but there were few 'sufficient' responses to Q1, although this was expected to a certain degree taking into account the results of similar studies (e.g. Hatzinikita & Koulaidis, 1997;Krnel, Watson, & Glazar, 1998 Frequencies concerning Q2 are rather expected. As already reported, research (e.g.…”

“…As for the pupils' answers to Q5, pupils appeared to be unfamiliar with evaporation of other substances except water. Water fairly has the title of the 'prototype' of all liquids (Krnel et al, 1998). Among the 'insufficient' responses it is worth noting 'only water evaporates (not alcohol)', 'alcohol is heavier than water it does not evaporate', 'alcohol does not evaporate because it is flammable' or 'alcohol does not evaporate because it has more power to resist heat'.…”

“…Beyond these misconceptions, there is another problem with using water as 'the' example of the liquid state. This leads to the establishment of water as the 'prototype' substance for all liquid states (Krnel et al, 1998), which can explain pupils' thoughts that only water can evaporate, or pupils' ignorance about the nature of alcohol (e.g. 'alcohol contains chemicals').…”