Partial possible models: An approach to interpret students' physical representation

Abstract

This paper shows the construction of conceptual models on pressure and flotation, using high school students' previous ideas on these concepts. The previous ideas were analyzed from answers coming from a questionnaire. We named those models as Partial Possible Models; their construction is based on students' ideas which determine the Constrictor Concepts (concepts that guide the construction of students' inferences) and their Correspondence Rules (relations between concepts) in an inferential semiformalism. These models allow the analysis of students' ideas about physical phenomena and recognize the inferential structure used by them. Partial Possible Models offer a very useful semiformalism to understand the different students' interpretations on phenomena related with pressure and flotation concepts. The use of these models allowed to determine two students' Possible Partial Models: one for liquids and another for gases. To prove the model's possibilities on representation and prediction of possible students' inferences in front of specific phenomenological situations, students' interviews on related physical phenomena were analyzed. The students' answers corresponded to the same inferences constructed with the models. Some considerations around the possible use of models in education are addressed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons,Inc. Sci Ed 82:15–29, 1998.