Alternative Conceptions Research Articles

Influência da folga orçamentária e de elementos do processo orçamentário nas percepções de justiça,

ABSTRACT This study examined the relationships between elements of the budgetary process (budgetary participation, the use of budgetary goals for performance assessments, and the use of budgetary goals for variable remuneration purposes), budgetary slack, and perceptions of justice, on the assumption that budgetary slack is an antecedent of perceptions of justice and acts as an intervening variable between elements of the budgetary process and perceptions of justice. Studies addressing the relationship between justice and slack have not considered the positive aspects derived from budgetary slack such as necessary and emergency resources. Moreover, most of these studies have focused on procedural justice and on an element of the budgetary process (budgetary participation), to predict feelings of justice and the creation of slack. The results of the study suggest alternative conceptions for analyzing the relationship between perceptions of justice and budgetary slack, going beyond the economic lens for the latter. By resorting to social exchange theory (SET), a perspective is provided on how elements of the budgetary process affect managers’ perceptions of justice and how budgetary slack, as an economic and social exchange resource, shapes those effects. Although researchers have already pointed to budgetary slack as being beneficial for the organization, no studies were found that have analyzed it as a predictor of perceptions of justice. A survey was conducted with a sample of 114 company managers and the hypotheses were tested with the application of structural equation modeling. The results reveal that budgetary slack is an inherent element of the budgetary process, conceived as an economic and socioemotional resource, according to the principles of SET, and used by organizations with a view to greater perceptions of justice. Budgetary slack is essential for predicting managers’ feelings of distributive and procedural justice regarding the budgetary process.

Using Alternative Ideas for Determining the Learning Curve on the Concept of Force

This study is empirical research about alternative ideas on the concept of force for five different age groups, primary school students (11), middle school students (15), high school students (17), students of the Department of Primary Education (21), and active teachers in primary education (27-50). We used the same questionnaire for all groups, which shows a relationship with the answers depending on their age. The analysis of the percentage of the correct answers concerning the age of subjects gives a sigmoid curve, which is the learning curve on the concept of force. For all the questions, there was a statistically significant correlation with age. That provides us with interesting information about the teaching of the force. In particular, our results suggest that the alternative conceptions of students and teachers, reflecting misconceptions and preconceptions, reduce with age or equivalently with the education level. Our study can be used in science teaching classrooms, on the design of curricula, and teachers’ professional development.

Examination of children’s visuospatial thinking skills in domain-general learning and interpretation of scientific diagrams

Visuospatial thinking in science education is an important form of thinking that involves the purposeful use of the human eyes to develop an internal representation. This study examined the visuospatial thinking skills of primary school students with two aims (1) identifying students’ cognitive levels of these skills in domain-general learning, and (2) discovering how primary school students respond to visuospatial tasks that require interpretation of a diagrammatic representation. The study also investigated whether there are differences in how male and female students answer visuospatial thinking tasks. The participants included 93 fourth-grade students (8–9 years old), including 51 male and 42 female students, from a public primary school in Japan. The participants completed two types of paper-pencil tests. The first test required participants to complete the Wide-range Assessment of Vision-related Essential Skills (WAVES), a domain-general test that measures visual perception and eye-hand coordination skills. In the second test, students answered questions about the relationship between the movement of the sun and the behaviors of solar cells located in different places by interpreting a diagrammatic representation. Female students outperformed male students in one of the four WAVES index scores; otherwise, no other statistically significant differences were found. A small number of students had low visuospatial perception scores. When students were asked to explain their reasoning regarding how the solar cells worked based on their interpterion of the diagram, only a few answered correctly using perspective-taking and/or visualizing. Other students struggled to provide their reasoning, even if they had factual knowledge. Some students held an alternative conception of sunlight intensity and the sun’s path in the sky. They worked through the problem from their alternative conceptions without reference to visuospatial information or taking different perspectives from the diagram. No statistically significant differences were found in the relationship between achievement in the domain-general test and the number of correct answers in the domain-specific test. The study’s findings imply that students should be encouraged to practice visuospatial thinking to overcome previously held alternative conceptions. Furthermore, science education should emphasize the concept of space and teach conventional knowledge on different representation types. Further research on students’ learning progress in visuospatial thinking that includes alternative conceptions such as the students’ domain-specific knowledge is recommended.

Emergency: A Vernacular Contextual Approach

Abstract Security scholars have traditionally viewed emergency as a state of exception that triggers a struggle for survival, justifying the breaking of rules and excesses of state power. While there have been attempts to decouple security from its survivalist logic, emergency has remained an analytical blind spot in security studies. The dominance of an elite-centric, exceptionalist paradigm in the study of emergency has foreclosed the possibility of alternative conceptions of emergency and neglected the voices of structurally disempowered agents. This paper advances a vernacular contextual research agenda that is sensitive to the empirical diversity of emergency meanings and practices while foregrounding emergency claims made by non-elite actors. Challenging the idea of emergency as a form of “anti-politics,” the paper contends that emergency should be understood as an intrinsic part of politics. It then recovers an alternative, “emancipatory” conception of emergency as an extraordinary moment of spontaneous beginnings that can activate the collective agency of marginalized actors. The final section establishes conceptual foundations for actor-centered, grounded empirical research into emergency politics and suggests avenues for future research. Contextualizing emergency and attuning to the voices and experiences of everyday actors are crucial to remove the key variable that ties security to the logic of survival and exception.

Should socialists be republicans?

ABSTRACT This paper presents a critique of left republican writings from a non-republican socialist standpoint. It examines three claims that have been advanced by left republican authors: that workers are dominated 1) by their lack of access to the means of production; 2) by the market; and 3) by their employer. With regard to 1) and 2), it argues that alternative conceptions of freedom can identify the unfreedom in question, and that there are good reasons for pressing these complaints on the basis of these alternative conceptions. With regard to 3), it argues that, while alternative conceptions of freedom may be able to identify the unfreedom in question, republican freedom provides a more suitable basis for pressing this claim. It concludes that while left republicans have shown that socialists have reason to care about republican freedom, they have not shown that socialists should adopt republican freedom at the expense of other conceptions of freedom.

UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ CONCEPTIONS OF CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIUM IN AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS: DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A TWO-TIER DIAGNOSTIC INSTRUMENT

Student understanding of chemical equilibrium in aqueous solutions (CEAS) plays a vital role in their upper secondary school chemistry learning and everyday life. Diagnosis of students’ alternative conceptions (ACs) of the CEAS will provide teachers with valuable information to make instructional decisions on student learning. This study aims to develop and validate an instrument to diagnose students’ ACs about the CEAS, including ionization equilibrium, water self-ionization equilibrium, the equilibrium of salt hydrolysis, and precipitation and dissolution equilibrium. Using Treagust (1998)’s development framework, we have developed 25 two-tier multiple-choice items for the CEAS diagnostic test. After completing the corresponding courses, 750 Grade 11 students from five public schools responded to the CEAS diagnostic test. Rasch modeling approach was employed to provide psychometric properties of the CEAS diagnostic test consisting of one-dimensionality, reliability, and validity. This study identified 15 ACs toward the CEAS. This study found that most students performed better on concept tiers rather than reasoning tiers. In addition, students have difficulties in connecting acidity, solubility, ionization, and chemical reaction and in using mathematical thinking to do transformation between concentration, equilibrium constant, and pH value. Keywords: chemical equilibrium in aqueous solutions, alternative conceptions, two-tier multiple-choice items, Rasch modeling

A Review of Research on the Teaching and Learning of Chemical Bonding

We review the literature, from 2006 to 2020, focused on the teaching and learning of chemical bonding. The studies included in our review (48 studies set in 19 different countries overall) involved secondary and postsecondary students as well as K-12 teachers and university faculty. We synthesize these studies’ findings to provide implications for future research and instruction. To this end, our analysis summarizes the range of methodological choices employed and reports on students’ understanding of chemical bonding. On the basis of our analysis, we find that studies tended to overemphasize the cataloging of alternative conceptions in the context of first-year general chemistry, which suggests the need for more work that emphasizes students’ reasoning regarding advanced models of bonding in higher levels of the undergraduate chemistry curriculum.

Educators’ reflections on the teaching and learning of the periodic table of elements at the upper secondary level: a case study

Abstract It is an undeniable fact that the periodic table is an essential tool for both chemists and chemistry students, as it represents all presently known 118 elements, their properties and the trends in their properties. It is reported to be “… a rather holistic and all-inclusive aspect of chemistry…” (Scerri E. Explaining the Periodic Table, and the role of chemical triads. Found Chem 2010;12:69–83) and an understanding of the periodic table lays the foundation for effective learning of chemistry. However, it is also reported that students find the topic challenging and educators find the topic difficult to teach. Thus, an attempt is made in this study to allow educators to reflect on the challenges encountered in teaching and learning of the periodic table and related concepts at the secondary level. This study reports chemistry educators’ reflection on the teaching and learning of the periodic table at the secondary school level in Mauritius. Data was collected through a questionnaire, which included both open- and close ended questions pertaining to the teaching and learning of chemistry. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data through the lens of the constructivist learning framework. The results indicate that the major barriers for adopting constructivist practices when teaching the periodic table are inadequate educators’ knowledge of students’ alternate conceptions and knowledge of how students learn the periodic table as a classification system. The findings from this study inform how to improve the teaching and learning of the periodic table from a constructivist viewpoint. Thus, through this study, it is expected that enhancing educators’ pedagogical content knowledge of the periodic table could potentially help overcome students’ challenges of learning periodic table.

Panorama and Perspectives of the Teaching of Radiation and Radioactivity at the High School Level

This paper presents a perspective of how the radiation and radioactivity themes have been discussed at the high school level in several locations around the world. In this context, scientific journals, academic journals, theses, dissertations, and media materials were analyzed. Recent research has shown that the concern with the discussion about radiation and radioactivity in basic education is a current and global issue. The discussion on the radiation and radioactivity themes in different contexts in this paper was presented in four parts: (i) the representations used to deal with the themes; (ii) how the high school curriculum deals with the topic; (iii) the common alternative conceptions; and (iv) intervention proposals to address the issues. Based on a literature review, in order to collaborate in the teaching of radiation and radioactivity topics, the main objective of this work is to understand the current scenario on these topics, identify some challenges to understand them and present possible interventions to overcome them.

Examining Students’ Spatial Ability and Its Impact on the Learning of Stereochemistry

The subject of stereochemistry in considered a difficult concept in organic chemistry because of its dependence on spatial ability. The challenges that students face in learning about stereochemistry can lead to poor performance and alternative conceptions, which in turn might hinder their progresses in various science and engineering academic careers. Development of successful conceptual understanding to solve stereochemistry related problems requires that students have a thorough understanding of the various types of spatial abilities in stereochemistry such as mental rotation and visualization of three-dimensional chemical molecules. This research project of the City College of New York (a minority serving, public, urban, and commuter institution) investigates some of the challenges that students face and approaches that students rely on to solve stereochemistry related problems and the role of spatial ability in the learning process. Likert-type surveys, spatial ability tests, and various open-ended questions were used to assess the understandings of 86 participants. The data indicated that one of barriers to learning about stereochemistry is the students’ inabilities to mentally rotate and visualize three-dimensional molecular structures by looking at their chemical formulae, assigning priority functional groups, determining configurations, and remembering the various rules that are necessary for solving stereochemistry related questions. Spatial ability was found to be one of the factors for success in stereochemistry, and majority of the students believe that with practice and the use of three-dimensional molecular modeling kits, they can improve their spatial abilities in stereochemistry.

Students’ conceptions of work and the understanding of the economic value of labor: a developmental study of unemployment and job precarity in times of an economic crisis

In the aftermath of the financial and economic recession of 2008, 130 Spanish students of five age groups (8 to 17 years) and two socioeconomic backgrounds were individually interviewed about unemployment and lower wages. The participants were presented with two hypothetical situations, and their responses were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The results indicated that children bring their conceptions of work when attempting to explain those phenomena. Specifically, it was found that the explanations were closely associated with the comprehension of the notion of surplus value (i.e., the idea that workers create more value than the cost of their salaries), and that the development of this notion proceeds in three levels. Younger children were simply unaware of the capacity of workers to create value (Level 1), which gave rise to some alternative conceptions (e.g., the idea that money for salaries comes from external sources). The children within the age range of 12–13 began to understand that workers create some value (Level 2). At this level, however, the notion of surplus value was not fully understood, and the idea that money for salaries comes from external sources persisted in a variety of ways. From the ages of 13–14, the children begin to understand that a wage is the price of labor and that the employer earns a profit because workers create more value than the cost of their wages (Level 3). The article presents a discussion of the possible reasons behind the slow progress observed and highlights some suggestions for educational practice.

The Global Quest for Green Growth: An Economic Policy Perspective

Economic growth has historically been the main driver of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To achieve steep emission reductions, the world would have to either decouple global GHG emissions from gross domestic product (GDP) at an unprecedented pace or face deep cuts to GDP. The so-called ‘green growth’ literature is optimistic that suitable policies and technology can enable such fast decoupling, while ‘degrowth’ proponents dismiss this and argue that the global economy must be scaled down, and that systemic change and redistribution is necessary to accomplish this. We use the so-called Kaya identity to offer a simple quantitative assessment of the gap between the historic performance in reducing the emission intensity of GDP and what is required for green growth, i.e., the basis of ongoing disagreement. We then review the literature on both degrowth and green growth and discuss their most important arguments and proposals. Degrowth authors are right to point out the considerable gap between current climate mitigation efforts and what is needed, as well as the various technological uncertainties and risks such as rebound effects. However, the often radical degrowth proposals also suffer from many uncertainties and risks. Most importantly, it is very unlikely that alternative welfare conceptions can convince a critical mass of countries to go along with a degrowth agenda. Governments should therefore instead focus on mobilizing the necessary investments, pricing carbon emissions, and encouraging innovation and behavioral change.

Putting Potential at the Core of Teaching Electric Circuits

Electricity has shaped modern civilization in a way few other discoveries have. Nonetheless, few students successfully develop a basic understanding of voltage, current, and resistance or their mutual relationship in simple DC circuits. Despite teachers’ best efforts in the classroom, so-called “alternative conceptions” often prevail after traditional instruction. In particular, voltage has proven to be a difficult concept to teach—many students erroneously think of voltage as a property of electric current. Furthermore, a battery is often considered to be a source of constant current rather than constant voltage. In order to help students develop a better understanding of simple DC circuits, we developed a new curriculum with an accompanying computer simulation that illustrates potential differences in circuits in order to make voltage rather than current the students’ primary concept when analyzing circuits. To this end, the curriculum takes typical alternative conceptions into account and builds on students’ everyday experiences with air pressure in order to provide them with an immediately tangible counterpart in electric potential. In analogy to air pressure differences that cause an air flow, voltage is introduced as an “electric pressure difference” that causes an electric current. Using the accompanying computer simulation, potential differences are visualized in simple DC circuits using color coding and a height representation. The new curriculum including teaching resources as well as the newly developed computer simulation are both freely available online to teachers and students alike.

INTRICACIES IN IDENTIFICATION OF BIOLOGICAL MISCONCEPTIONS

Science is a systematic study of natural phenomenon. The natural phenomenon is perceived and understood by an individual based on his/her experience and cultural context. The term misconception is complex in nature and has been conceptualize as alternative conceptions, preconceptions, alternative ideas, conceptual stumbling blocks, erroneous concepts, alternative framework in various contexts by researchers at different level of schooling and geographical locations. Identification of misconception is a challenging task due to various factors such as cultural context, individual differences, teaching-learning processes, students personal experience etc. In the present context of multi and trans-disciplinary subjects, the identification of misconceptions has become essential and gain importance as they are contributing new knowledge and applications in Science and Technology. Hence, in the present paper researchers had made an attempt to analyze the intricacies in identification of misconceptions in biology. The paper heavily relies on secondary source of data. In the present paper researcher has thoroughly reviewed and studied the identifications of misconceptions in the subject biology mixed approaches along with tools, techniques and strategies.

Educational Tools and Interventional Analysis of Meaningful Learning: Case Studies Applied to Teaching Acoustic Physics in the Discipline of Environmental Comfort

It is of fundamental importance the mastery of Physics contents for the understanding of Acoustic Comfort. In this sense, it is up to the teacher to become aware of students’ prior knowledge, to give a new meaning to the cognitive structures that make it possible to transform their difficulties into learning potential. In this work, educational teaching/learning interventions were developed and focused on the Theory of Meaningful Learning. These case studies were carried out with several students in different classes in the same program. In addition to the pre- and post-intervention questionnaire, Computational Educational Tools were used in order to assess the previous concepts and the effectiveness and efficiency of the provided pedagogical intervention. Satisfactory results were obtained with a reduction of about 250% in terms of alternative conceptions to the scientific knowledge previously detected in the participating volunteer students. The analysis was based on the approach of Ausubel and collaborators’ Meaningful Learning theories, contextualized to the content of Acoustic Physics and applied in the classes of the Environmental Comfort course in the Civil Engineering and Civil Construction Technology programs from 2012 to 2018.

Revealing Fifth-Grade Students’ Understanding of the Universe

Previous research has shown that students at almost all levels have misconceptions about both the shapes and sizes of celestial bodies in space. This study is essential to conduct on the students who take space topic in their schools for the first time This study aims at revealing fifth-grade students’ alternative conceptions about the size of the sun, earth, and moon and their relative positions to each other. This study employs action research by using a forced questionnaire and interview were used as the research instruments and involved 78 fifth-grade students as participants. To collect data, all students initially responded to a forced question questionnaire. Then, based on their responses, four students were chosen to be interviewed to clarify their alternative conceptions. The data analysis was carried out using interview and questionnaire data to reveal understanding and alternative conceptions of students’ responses. The results found that students had alternative conceptions of the earth’s shape in their minds. Moreover, alternative conceptions are commonly found in the sun, earth and moon positions.

Exploring Errors and Misconceptions in Differentiation: A Case Study of Advanced Level Students in Zimbabwe

Students’ errors help teachers to tease out misconceptions and decide on what intervention strategies to adopt and use to challenge these alternative conceptions. The purpose of the study was to explore A-Level students’ errors and misconceptions when solving problems in differentiation. A largely qualitative case study strategy was adopted. The case was made up of Two A-Level teachers and 25 students. After covering the topic differentiation, a test was administered. Qualitative data was collected using the test scripts and syllabus documents, questionnaire and focus group discussions. Content analysis was used to reveal errors and misconceptions when solving problems in differentiation. The common errors and misconceptions displayed by A-Level students were largely procedural when they failed to use the quotient rule, chain rule and power rule in finding derivatives. Our study found out that errors and misconceptions when using the power rule were adding a one to the power part instead of subtracting, bringing down the power and mistakenly adding a one to the power, failure to integrate functions, failure to separate variables correctly, failure to find the required derivative and using wrong laws to solve problems in differentiation. These errors and misconceptions were, possibly originating from students’ lack of prior knowledge of differentiation, laws of logarithms, proportionality and integration and rate of change. We recommend further research using larger population and samples.

Scientific concept development in early childhood through the lens of “over-development”

Conceptual development in the scientific domain begins early. This typically brings with it an “overthinking” in form of mis- and alternative conceptions. This study aims to examine more closely the emergence of scientific misconceptions by drawing on three other areas of early rule-based learning where overapplication of rules can be observed in early child development, namely overextension, over regularisation, and over imitation. Key similarities across the different domains of development showcase similar U-shaped trajectories but are seen as sophistication in children’s thought processes, evident through the extrapolation of rules. Age-related differences in when these trajectories emerge are considered, exploring how these developments do not necessarily occur in parallel but as a potential result of each other. Implications for educational practice are considered, given the observed interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic forms of overdevelopment. These focus particularly on the role of talk in formal and informal settings.
 
 Keywords: Overconceptualisation; overextension; over regularisation; over imitation.

Inclusive Outreach Activity Targeting Negative Alternate Conceptions of Chemistry

Chemistry outreach has an important role in building trust between scientists, scientific research, and the public. Ensuring that chemistry outreach is relevant and inclusive to diverse participants is necessary to achieve genuine inclusion of individuals from minoritized groups. We describe the design, delivery, and evaluation of an outreach workshop developed to challenge negative alternative conceptions of chemistry, counter chemophobia, and develop critical thinking skills. This was developed with the principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion at its core, designed for and delivered to participants from marginalized groups that are underrepresented in the chemical sciences. The approach was informed by critical theory, constructivism, and cognitive load theory. Autobiographical critical reflections, thematic analysis of workshop transcripts, pre- and postquestionnaires, and participant feedback (N = 7, response rate = 100%) were used to evaluate the activity and identify recommendations for practitioners. The activity received positive feedback from participants, who were able to demonstrate identification and critical analysis of chemophobic attitudes.

An Investigation of Preservice Teachers’ Apprenticeship of Observation Through a Lens of Autobiographical Memory

Preservice teachers’ schooling during their “apprenticeship of observation” has long been a focus of attention in teacher education as it is seen as influential in the development of teacher beliefs and in limiting preservice teachers’ openness to alternative conceptions of teaching. Looking through the lens of autobiographical memory, the research engaged 42 preservice teachers in semi-structured interviews exploring their talk about secondary schooling experiences. This research found that the participating preservice teachers agentically constructed nuanced schooling memories. Rather than their experiences of schooling practices imposing conceptions of teaching on them, participants were selective in encoding and recalling practices congruent with their goal of becoming a teacher. While acknowledging the important contribution of the apprenticeship of observation construct, these research findings suggest that when viewed through the lens of autobiographical memory, the construct is more nuanced than commonly presented, and, thus necessitates further consideration by teacher educators.