In Defense of Chi's Ontological Incompatibility Hypothesis

Abstract

This article responds to an article by A. Gupta, D. Hammer, and E. F. Redish (2010) that asserts that M. T. H. Chi's (1992, 2005) hypothesis of an “ontological commitment” in conceptual development is fundamentally flawed. In this article, I argue that Chi's theoretical perspective is still very much intact and that the critique offered by Gupta et al. is itself based on a flawed interpretation of Chi's theory. The purpose of this article is to address that misconception of Chi's work and to clarify her overall theoretical perspective. I begin by reviewing Chi's theory of ontological commitments, making an important comment about her position on the nature of expert conceptualizations. I review the methodological approaches used by J. D. Slotta and M. T. H. Chi (2006) to measure ontological commitments and comment on the instructional implications of Chi's theory. I then address the misconception held by Gupta et al. about Chi's work and call for more empirical research to tease apart the differences between Chi's view of “parallel ontologies” and Gupta et al.'s view of “flexible ontologies.”