Meta-representation: an introduction

Abstract

This paper presents an introduction to Project MaRC. The goal of Project MaRC is to study, in very broad terms, what students know about scientific representations and what is possible for them to learn. We use the term meta-representational competence (MRC) to describe the full range of capabilities that students (and others) have concerning the construction and use of external representations. As part of our project, we are engaging in an analysis of the nature of MRC, and we have begun to explore instructional implications. This introductory paper provides an overview of that work, including its goals and results, and it also provides an introduction to the four following papers in the issue.