Alternative Conceptions Research Articles

PENGEMBANGAN STRATEGI PAROCS UNTUK MENGUBAH KONSEPSI ALTERNATIF SISWA PADA KONSEP KELEMBAMAN

The aim of this study was to develop a Prediction, Alternative conceptions, Refutation, Observation, Comparison and Scientific explanation (PAROCS) strategy to change students’ alternative concepts on inertia concept. The research method used is the 4D model (Define, Design, Develop and Disseminate). Participants were 30 students (15 boys and 15 girls, their average age were 15-16) in class X of a public high school in Sukabumi, West Java. The instrument used is a four-tier diagnostic test. Data were analyzed based on a 4D model and conceptual category. At the disseminate stage, it shows an increase in scientific concepts and a decrease in alternative concepts after the application of the PAROCS strategy. From this, it can conclude that PAROCS strategy can be developed to change students’ alternative concepts into scientific concepts. Further studies could not only use the PAROCS strategy, but also develop this strategy for different physics concepts.

Planning and the High-Rise Neighbourhood: Debates on Vertical Cities

This editorial introduces the thematic issue on “Vertical Cities: The Development of High-Rise Neighbourhoods.” It outlines the lack of understanding about high-rise development in cities around the world and argues for a continued need to further interrogate concepts of verticality beyond single towers and towards a finer grain examination of high-rise neighbourhoods. The editorial introduces four interconnected themes that begin to address this phenomenon—socio-demographic challenges, planning discourses, high-rise legacies, and alternative conceptions of verticality—and highlights how the various articles in this thematic issue explore these critical areas of enquiry. It concludes with a call for future research to delve deeper into the planning challenges presented by high-rise neighbourhoods in the 21st-century city and, critically, the contribution that high-rise urban form makes to urban sustainability.

Addressing student conceptions in evolution classes: professional vision practices of preservice and in-service biology teachers

BackgroundIn evolution education, consensus is widespread that diagnosing and addressing well-known student alternative conceptions is particularly important. As classrooms are complex environments with many activities happening simultaneously, noticing and interpreting situations relevant to student thinking is important for addressing student conceptions. This ability can be conceptualised as professional vision. Science educators must understand teachers’ status quo regarding their professional vision to identify aspects of teacher education and professional development.ResultsThe central concern of this qualitative-reconstructive case study is to describe and better understand how preservice and in-service biology teachers are enacting their professional vision regarding student alternative conceptions and addressing them in evolution class. For data collection, a video clip without any further specific instructions was used as a stimulus for 31 group discussions and 9 individual interviews with 115 preservice and in-service biology teachers. The data were analysed using the documentary method. Of the 40 cases available, 15 were fully interpreted and used for typification. Regarding theoretical saturation, our analyses of the opening passage and other transcript material relevant to the research question for the remaining 25 cases did not lead to any new insights into previously reconstructed orientations or could no longer contribute to the analytical differentiation. The comparative analyses show that in all cases, two key issues could be reconstructed: (1) the relation of teaching and learning scientific norms and (2) the relation of student conceptions and scientific norms. These two issues are consistently processed in an evaluation mode. Across all cases, the participants assess the teacher’s actions and the student learning process. The reconstructed types differ in the importance attributed to student conceptions. Student conceptions are constructed, for instance, as indicators of subject-specific knowledge gaps that need to be filled, as a teaching problem, as something that must be removed or changed, or as coexisting experiential knowledge.ConclusionsWe conclude that the discussion of and reflection upon professional vision practices is an important task for teacher education. The study of cases using lesson videos and a professional development programme called video clubs seems promising because these approaches offer possibilities for addressing many of the teacher education challenges to which our results point.

Multiplicity, relationality, and petal avatars: Thatgamecompany’s Flower as an identity model

ABSTRACT This article explores non-human looking avatars as models for alternative conceptions of identity. Thatgamecompany’s Flower is used here as the specific example of a more general model for Game and Cultural Studies scholars to think about the representation and reproduction of relationality and identity through avatars that are not designed to resemble human or animal-like beings. The avatar is discussed here in relation to its visual and aural configuration, the actions it affords, and the way controls are designed around it. Flower breaks with many of the standards and expectations that can be found in most games and, in doing so, it puts forward a notion of identity as an entanglement of humans, non-human beings, and objects. Game and Cultural Studies scholars interested in finding a broader, more diverse way of discussing identity representations will find here a useful resource.

The Development of Computer Supported Conceptual Change Text on Buoyant Force

The development of computer supported Conceptual Change Text (CCText) is based on a number of misconceptions of buoyant force encountered by students. Computer supported CCT is a technique which is used to correct students’ prior knowledge and prepare students for the new and scientific knowledge. Computer supported CCText is started with extracting the initial idea regarding the concept that students had, continued by cognitive conflict stage which functions to challenge the misconception that students had, and then followed by the scientific explanation of the mistakes which have been formulated previously and therefore the students were given the questions to confirm the changed concept that students had at last. This research involved fourty participants. The participants consist of senior high school students which divided into two classes; experimental class and control class. The experimental class used computer supported CCText and conceptual change learning model to overcome misconceptions they encountered, whereas the control class only used conceptual change learning model. The result of this research indicates that the experimental class which used computer supported CCText is more significant to reduce alternative conceptions that students had than the control class.

Procedural Animism


 
 
 The current proliferation of algorithmic agents (bots, virtual assistants, therapeutic chatbots) that boast real or exaggerated use of AI produces a wide range of interactions between them and humans. The ambiguity of various real and perceived agencies that arises in these encounters is usually dismissed in favour of designating them as technologically or socially determined. However, I argue that the ambiguity brought forth by different opacities, complexities and autonomies at work renders the imaginaries of these algorithms a powerful political and cultural tool. Following approaches from critical theory, posthumanities, decolonial AI and feminist STS that have already approached the boundary between human and non-human productively, it becomes possible to consider technological agents as algorithmic Others, whose outlines, in turn, reveal not only human fears and hopes for technology, but also what it means to be “human” and how normative “humanness” is constructed. Drawing on the work of Antoinette Rouvroy on algorithmic governmentality and Elizabeth A. Povinelli’s ideas of geontology and geontopower, this paper offers a conceptual model of procedural animism in order to rethink the questions of governance and relationality unfolding between humans and non-humans, between the do- mains of “Life” and “Non-Life”. In doing so, it illuminates a series of processes and procedures of (de)humanisation, image politics and figuration in the context of everyday communication and politically engaged art. Ultimately, what is at stake is a potential to consider alternative conceptions of algorithmic Others, ones that might be differently oriented within our environmental, political and cultural futures.
 
 

Development and Validation of a Four-Tier Test for the Assessment of Secondary School Students' Conceptual Understanding of Amino Acids, Proteins, and Enzymes.

Previous studies noted the scantiness of diagnostic instruments for the assessment of students’ understanding of fundamental biochemistry concepts. Consequently, within this study, a four-tier test for the examination of secondary school students’ conceptual understanding of amino acids, proteins, and enzymes has been developed. Items in the test consist of the answer tier, the reason tier, and a confidence rating for each of these tiers. Following the three-phase development process, the final version of the test, comprising eight items, was administered to 123 students in the main study. The internal consistency of both cognitive scores and confidence ratings proved to be adequate (Cronbach’s alpha values were 0.76 and 0.87, respectively) and the test–retest reliability was also satisfactory (Pearson’s r value was 0.74 for the cognitive scores and 0.88 for the confidence ratings). If the correct responses to both the answer and the reason tier of items are considered, the mean score on the test was 3 out of 8 (38%). The students were more confident when producing the correct compared to the wrong answers but, overall, their confidence was not high (3.65 out of 6). Furthermore, the confidence in the incorrect answers that were provided (3.52 out of 6) indicates the presence of alternative conceptions. Such results show that the content regarding amino acids, proteins, and enzymes is conceptually challenging for the students. Therefore, the test can help secondary school teachers to uncover the students’ conceptual difficulties related to this content and develop effective strategies for their remediation and prevention.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11165-022-10075-5.

Mediumship disorder: alternative conceptions of body and disease in Umbanda religion

Mediumship disorder: alternative conceptions of body and disease in Umbanda religion

Examining learning difficulties and alternative conceptions students face in learning about hybridization in organic chemistry

Chemistry education research has demonstrated that chemistry concepts are abstract, complex, and challenging for students to learn and understand. Chemistry is the branch of science that deals with the nature and behavior of atoms, and bond formation and hybridization both play a crucial role in the discipline. The concept of hybridization deals with the description of the formation of hybrid orbitals, the prediction of bond angles and molecular geometry, and the reactivity of some organic compounds. Development of conceptual understanding of hybridization is important for effective learning about bond formation, molecular structure, bond angle, acidity, and reactivity. This research study aimed to examine alternative conceptions that students hold; the challenges that students face in learning about hybridization; and the strategies that they use to solve hybridization problems. The investigation took place at the City College of New York, an urban, minority-serving institute. Our method of data collection comprised a survey made up of Likert-type, open-ended questions as well as a hybridization-related set of problems. The number of research participants was n = 103. Our research findings suggest that developing conceptual understanding of organic chemistry concepts such hybridization and resonance structures, then relating it to the structure of molecules, is crucial to its function. The presentation of concepts such as hybridization in an oversimplified manner and students’ reliance on memorization in learning can hinder students’ development of conceptual understanding and meaningful learning. Students misestimate their competencies and abilities which can negatively impact poor performers and prevent them from addressing deficiencies in learning about hybridization. We suggest that instructors present the topic of hybridization at the three levels of representations, provide students with opportunities for active learning and knowledge construction, and nurture students’ visualization of atomic and hybrid orbitals. Keywords: science education, alternative conceptions, hybridization, atomic orbitals

Dialogue and neoliberalism: alternative conceptions for the second language classroom

The paper first reviews how conventionalized uses of dialogue in the language classroom have facilitated a neoliberalist agenda, mainly by positioning learners in a reproductive, consumer role, and teachers as deskilled operatives of scripted interactions. It then discusses three other conceptualizations of the role of dialogue which may offer an alternative. The first derives from assumptions about how language is best acquired, by emphasizing exposure to, and engagement in, natural language use. The limitations of this in relation to the role that conscious attention to language may offer and in relation to how it similarly positions learners as consumers and teachers as managers, are then discussed. A second conceptualization of the use of dialogue derives from education theory and emphasizes dialogic approaches involving exploratory talk as a means of helping learners construct their own understandings of language knowledge and the learning process. The paper argues, however, that neither of these conceptualizations of the use of dialogue offer effective alternatives to the pressure to replicate neoliberalism. The paper then sets out some key requirements for an alternative and argues that a third view, emphasizing participatory dialogue, may provide this. A model is outlined, emphasizing negotiated classroom work, with examples for implementation.

Australia's Great-Power Threat Perceptions and Leadership Responses

executive summary: This essay argues that Australia's choices in the U.S.-China rivalry have been significantly shaped by the different role conceptions of the country's prime ministers, producing outcomes at odds with structural expectations for middle-power behavior. main argument Australia's relations with China and the U.S. are in a state of flux. Relations with Beijing have turned antagonistic, though trade continues apace. Meanwhile, relations with Washington seem infused by intimacy, yet also feature regular bouts of divergence. Three explanations are commonly offered to explain Australia's evolving relations with both great powers: the changing balance of power, alliance pressure, and national interests. However, none of these sufficiently explain variations in why and how Australia has behaved in recent years. Instead, the different role conceptions of Australia's three prime ministers between 2013 and 2022—Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Scott Morrison—better explain Australia's choices. Specifically, a typology of role conceptions based on these leaders' domains of interest and desire for change shows how they responded differently to similar external pressures and thus demonstrates the decisive impact of leaders in how middle powers respond to great powers. It is still too early to identify Anthony Albanese's leadership role conception, given his recent election in May 2022, but a domestic role conception is likely. policy implications • Australia's recent choices and actions toward China and the U.S. have been far more contingent and leader-driven than is often reflected in the debate over middle-power responses to great-power competition. • A deeper appreciation of domestic political dynamics and the personal motivations of national leaders can help explain responses that do not conform to straightforward balancing choices. • There is considerable scope for middle-power agency even as domestic and international constraints narrow the availability of alternative leadership role conceptions.

Revealing Lycee Students' Conceptual Understanding: “Digestive System”

Kavram yanılgılarını belirleme çalışmaları ve bu yanılgıları gidermek için yapılan kavramsal değişim çalışmaları fen eğitimi literatüründe sıklıkla karşılaşılmaktadır. Bunun en önemli nedenlerinden birinin fen bilimlerindeki birçok konu ya da kavramın soyut olmasıdır. Ayrıca, bu kavramların soyut olması öğrencilerin anlamasını ve öğretmenler de kavramları anlatılmasını güçleştirmektedir. İfade edilen soyut kavramlardan biri de biyoloji disiplininde karşımıza çıkan “Sindirim Sistemi” konusu ve bu konu kapsamındaki kavramlardır. Sindirim sistemi, diğer sistemlerin öğretimi ve öğrenilmesinde öncü konulardan biridir. Buradan hareketle, bu araştırma lise 11. sınıf düzeyinde öğrenim gören öğrencilerin “sindirim sistemi” konusuyla alakalı anlama güçlüklerini ve kavram yanılgılarını iki aşamalı kavram testi yardımıyla ortaya çıkarmak amacıyla yapılmıştır. Bu amaca ulaşmak için çalışmada betimsel tarama modelinden yararlanılmıştır. Veri toplama aracı olarak mevcut literatürde var olan ve kullanılan 10 adet iki aşamalı kavram testi kullanılmıştır. Kavram testi toplam 60 lise öğrencisine uygulanarak veriler elde edilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler ilgili literatürdeki kategoriler bağlamında analiz edilmiştir. Analizler sonunda, lise öğrencilerin “sindirim sistemi” ile ilgili başarılarının istenilen düzeyde olmadığı ve öğrencilerin birçok anlama güçlüklerine ve kavram yanılgılarına sahip olduğu belirlenmiştir. Bu çalışmadan elde edilen sonuçlar, öğrencilerin anlama güçlükleri ve kavram yanılgılarını sunması açısından önemli olduğuna inanılmaktadır.

CORRELATION BETWEEN OSCILLATORY MOTION AND GRAVITY REGARDED AS EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

The author of the paper has been teaching physics at Academy of technical and educational vocationalstudies for the past seven years, of which two academic years took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Internetresources have been applied beforehand throughout the entire period, but with fully online teaching, it gainedparticular importance. Educational approaches developed for online classes required students’ activities that wouldfurther motivate them to study. In the academic year 2021/22, educational contents were enhanced with additionallinking of certain educational contents, which resulted from the obvious need to make the material as interesting aspossible, and to awaken curiosity about the contents. In this paper it is shown how a specific digital simulation canbe used for a teaching topic for which it was not originally intended, and it was also shown that in this way a usefulcorrelation of different teaching contents can be realized. The significance of the above-mentioned correlation isreflected in the fact that it requires a teaching approach that leads to more effective learning process in class as wellas to greater motivation and greater activation of students in the class. A simulation related to the oscillation of amathematical pendulum is described in this paper, i. e. its ability to choose different strengths of gravitational fieldsin which the pendulum oscillates, i. e. different gravitational accelerations. It was researched how students thinkwhen for the given phenomena a zero gravity is approximated. It was researched whether the students realized achange in their activities both in class and in their motivation for work. It is interesting that only after theimplementation of weightlessness as an educational content in the existing educational content on oscillatorymotion, the teacher saw certain alternative conceptions that some students built when they were studying aboutoscillations.

Data and the Good?

Surveillance studies scholars and privacy scholars have each developed sophisticated, important critiques of the existing data-driven order. But too few scholars in either tradition have put forward alternative substantive conceptions of a good digital society. This, I argue, is a crucial omission. Unless we construct new “sociotechnical imaginaries,” new understandings of the goals and aspirations digital technologies should aim to achieve, the most surveillance studies and privacy scholars can hope to accomplish is a less unjust version of the technology industry’s own vision for the future.

From Progression to Explosion

Inspired by contemporary criticism(s) levelled against evolutionist conceptions of history present within much classical social theory, this article seeks to discuss alternative conceptions of historical time, modernity, and coloniality within the works of Marxist-inspired thinkers who have sought to tackle the problematic aspects of evolutionism and ‘historical progress’ head on – namely, Antonio Gramsci, Walter Benjamin, and Frantz Fanon. After discussing orthodox Marxism’s ambivalent relation to notions of historical necessity and human agency, the article turns to discussing Gramsci’s anti-economistic conception of hegemony and Benjamin’s and Fanon’s respective conceptions of the ‘dialectics of rupture’ in order to present alternative conceptions of historical time which partly or fully depart from orthodox Marxism’s tendencies towards evolutionism, albeit whilst retaining a focus on dialectics, power struggle, and revolutionary transformation.

Flying Carousel Swing Physics

The conical pendulum is a classic introductory physics problem for teaching circular motion—a topic about which students frequently carry alternative conceptions. As teachers provide lessons to untangle these conceptions, it is good to allow students to practice their new knowledge in varied settings. This is one possible experiment that builds off the conical pendulum. The experiment can be modified to fit the level of complexity the instructor wishes to pursue. Although the context of this article is about the physics of the amusement park flying carousel swing, the analysis techniques discussed can be used in a variety of situations.

Transforming Physics Content into Content Physics for Instruction through the Model of Educational Reconstruction (MER)

This study discusses how to transform physics content into instructional content using the Model of Educational Reconstruction (MER). The MER is a popular method of lesson design because it gives equal attention to the content of physics to be learned other than students’ cognitive, affective, and learning processes. This model is from the German-Didaktik tradition, which is influenced by constructivism and is nearly unknown in Malaysia. According to this perspective, knowledge is derived through human reconstruction, and every young learner has intuitive knowledge prior to entering a formal classroom. As a result, in order to meet students’ needs in a balanced manner, teachers must elementarize physics content and integrate it with students’ alternative conceptions. This study focused on energy concepts to determine how effective MER is. With the complexity and difficulty of the dual meaning of energy, physics teachers must devise efficient teaching techniques to bridge the gap between energy in everyday language and scientific concepts. Thus, the researchers evaluated 15 significant papers to determine scientists’ understanding of energy; interviewed 12 secondary school physics students to get their alternative conceptions; and re-analyzed 23 earlier studies on the same topic. This paper is exclusively on natural concepts and energy fundamentals, and it found physicists and students had a significant understanding gap. As a result, the contradiction in understanding of the energy concepts must be applied to the development of an energy lesson plan by narrowing the gap between physicists’ and students’ understanding.

Freedom, work and organizations in the 21st century: Freedom for whom and for whose purpose?

This article critically interrogates the meaning of freedom and its current and potential relationship with social relations in and around work as introduction to this special issue. This interrogation is vital given neoliberalism’s evaluative promise for more individual and corporate freedom, while concurrently limiting the conditions for the experience/expression of freedom of workers. Consequently, there are concerns about working for “private governments”, workers being subject to electronic surveillance, and workers increasingly caught up in structural disadvantages (i.e. precarious work) that contribute to growing unfreedom. Rather than reproducing abstract principles around freedom, this article and special issue advance a contextually sensitive emergence of freedom. We explicate this emergence as (i) alternative experiences of freedom, (ii) alternative conceptions of freedom, and (iii) alternative modes of organizing. To inspire future research, we extend these themes to suggest that treating freedom (i) as pluralist/relational and (ii) as having the capacity for world-making has meaningful implications for how work is organized and for whose benefit. We advocate an explicit turn to non-neoliberal values (e.g. collectivism, solidarity, human dignity, respect, and recognition) to enable more relational versions of freedom that can serve as a basis for freedom as world-making at work and in society.

Simulation studies of the existing cogeneration system and alternative conceptions to improve the energy efficiency for an ethylene petrochemical plant

Energy efficiency is relevant for the competitiveness and growth of global industries. In this way, simulation studies aiming to increase energy efficiency can be useful for both retrofitting and greenfield projects. Few ethylene process licensors hold the technologies; however, they present different proposals for projects with varying energy efficiency and integration degrees. In the present work, simulation studies of the cogeneration system of a petrochemical plant located in Brazil were performed in order to identify alternative configurations to increase the electricity production without affecting the heat supply to meet the process thermal demand. The cogeneration system of the analyzed plant includes an electric energy conversion system composed of turbo-generators, back-pressure and extraction/condensing steam turbines driving electricity generators, compressors and pumps, and heat exchangers. The simulation studies were performed using the HYSYS software to simulate design conditions and validate the model with the actual plant's experimental measurements. New cogeneration configurations were proposed in subsequent simulations, aiming at increasing electricity generation. In addition, exergetic efficiency and environmental analysis of the simulated configurations and an economic estimate for the most efficient proposal were performed. The results showed that the best alternative improved the electricity generation, increased the energy utilization factor by up to 16.2%, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 22.8%, increased global exergetic efficiency by 28.9% and decreased the steam production and cold utility consumption of the cogeneration system compared to the design conditions.

Chemistry students’ conceptual understanding of organic qualitative analysis

Organic qualitative analysis is one of the challenging chemical concepts in students learning of chemistry. The West African Examinations Council chemistry chief examiners for years, have lamented on students’ poor performance in organic qualitative analysis at the senior high school level. This study, therefore, investigated chemistry students’ conceptual understanding of organic qualitative analysis. Convergent mixed methods procedure was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from 263 chemistry students. The 263 students were selected through multistage sampling technique to respond to organic qualitative analysis diagnostic test for students. Quantitative data was analyzed using percentages, means, and standard deviations to determine students’ level of conceptual understanding on organic qualitative analysis. The results from the study showed that, students demonstrated no scientific understanding on organic qualitative analysis. The qualitative data was open-coded and constantly compared to establish students' conceptual difficulties on organic qualitative analysis. Students demonstrated conceptual difficulties were in the form of alternative conceptions and factual difficulties. It was, therefore, recommended that chemistry teachers should select and use appropriate conceptual change instruction approaches in their teaching to help students conceptualize organic qualitative analysis contents in organic chemistry.