The nature of students’ informal science conceptions

Tytler, Russell

doi:10.1080/0950069980200802

Cited by 69 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Children would hold both ideas at the same time, as multiple perspectives (Tytler, 1994(Tytler, , 1998a, and on occasions explicitly voiced this as a characteristic of their thinking. Previous claims in the literature (e.g., Bar & Galili, 1994) that these different displacement conceptions represent different developmental stages, do not seem to be supported by these findings.…”

Section: Location and Languagementioning

confidence: 98%

Deconstructing learning in science—Young children's responses to a classroom sequence on evaporation

Tytler

Peterson

2000

Research in Science Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Five year old children's ideas were tracked by a range of means during and subsequent to a classroom sequence on evaporation. They held a range of conceptions which changed in complex ways across context and time. These could only be made sense of by moving outside traditional conceptual change interpretations to include broader notions of appropriation of language as a cultural tool, of personal and social narrative responses to features of the phenomena and the classroom setting, and the nature of science explanations. The findings are used to explore the relationship between social and individual perspectives on learning, and to question some assumptions underlying conceptual change research.Five year old children's ideas were tracked by a range of means during and subsequent to a classroom sequence on evaporation. They held a range of conceptions which changed in complex ways across context and time. These could only be made sense of by moving outside traditional conceptual change interpretations to include broader notions of appropriation of language as a cultural tool, of personal and social narrative responses to features of the phenomena and the classroom setting, and the nature of science explanations. The findings are used to explore the relationship between social and individual perspectives on learning, and to question some assumptions underlying conceptual change research. Objectives of the StudyThe study concerned the dimensions of five year old children's conceptual responses to a teaching sequence on evaporation. It explored:1. the range of ideas children have concerning evaporation phenomena, and the consistency with which they apply these ideas to different phenomena, across a six month time span; 2. the ways in which children construct meaning from different aspects of the pedagogic setting; and 3. the factors that position children within classroom discourses, and impact on their science learning.

show abstract

Section: Location and Languagementioning

confidence: 98%

Deconstructing learning in science—Young children's responses to a classroom sequence on evaporation

Tytler

Peterson

2000

Research in Science Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Driver & Easley, 1978;Driver, Guesne & Tiberghien, 1985;Vosniadou, 1992;de Posoda 1997;Tytler 1998;Taber, 1995aTaber, , 2000. The tenacious nature of such 'alternative frameworks' was emphasised by those researchers who first brought 'children's science' to wide notice (e.g.…”

Section: The Stability Of Student Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Resources for Learning Science: Issues of transience and grain‐size in cognition and cognitive structure

Taber

2008

International Journal of Science Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Thus, Tytler (1998) found that students were extremely fluid in their reasoning and inconsistent in their application of conceptions in different contexts. Welzel and Roth (1998) demonstrated that students' reasoning changed significantly even during a single interview, for example, in relation to contextual factors such as the complexity of the questions asked.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a case study of one student, Taber (1995) demonstrated that the student's alternative framework about charges acted as a block to learning about chemical bonding. Some studies suggest that such "blocks" or "obstacles" to learning need to be weakened or even abandoned before a new conception can develop (De Posada, 1997;Hewson & Thorley, 1989), and that such conceptual change requires rational considerations on the part of the learner (Carey, 1999;Strike 1 Different authors have used different labels for such nonscientific ideas, implicating different assumptions about their nature and properties (Smith et al, 1993;Tytler, 1998). Here, we will use the term "misconception" in a general sense, without any particular connotations, and interchangeably with "nonscientific idea," in agreement with several other authors (Nicoll, 2001;Smith et al, 1993;Özmen, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Describing and analyzing learning in action: An empirical study of the importance of misconceptions in learning science

Hamza

Wickman

2007

Science Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although misconceptions in science have been established in interview studies, their role during the learning process is poorly examined. In this paper, we use results from a classroom study to analyze to what extent nonscientific ideas in electrochemistry that students report in interviews enter into their learning in a more authentic setting. We audio-recorded talk between eight pairs of Swedish upper secondary students during a practical on electrochemical cells. Learning was operationalized on a discursive level as a description of what students do and say when taking part in an activity. This enabled an analysis of how encounters with misconceptions influenced the development of students' reasoning, compared to other encounters during the learning experience. Misconceptions did not constrain the development of students' reasoning. Rather, their reasoning developed in response to the contingencies of the specific situation. When misconceptions were encountered, they appeared as alternatives and questions not actively defended. Sometimes, encounters with these misconceptions were generative of the students' reasoning. The results indicate that demonstrating misconceptions in interviews is not enough to assume that they interfere with learning in other contexts. Educational implications and future This study is part of the project "How Can Teachers Aid Students Towards Scientific Reasoning" funded by the Swedish Research Council.Correspondence to: Karim M. Hamza;

show abstract

The nature of students’ informal science conceptions

Cited by 69 publications

References 29 publications

Deconstructing learning in science—Young children's responses to a classroom sequence on evaporation

Deconstructing learning in science—Young children's responses to a classroom sequence on evaporation

Conceptual Resources for Learning Science: Issues of transience and grain‐size in cognition and cognitive structure

Describing and analyzing learning in action: An empirical study of the importance of misconceptions in learning science

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About