Study Of Conceptual Change Research Articles

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.

Study of Conceptual Change in Chemistry for Class XI Science High School Students

Varied initial concepts can be an obstacle or support in understanding a new concept. The study of changes in students' chemical concepts was carried out on thermochemical material. This study aimed to examine changes in students' thermochemical concepts in each subject of high, medium, and low ability. Qualitative descriptive research with mixed methods was conducted on SMAN 1 Bumi Raya Morowali, Central Sulawesi students. The study began by giving an initial test to all students of class XI IPA 1 and 2, as many as 60 students, to obtain initial concept data and the basis for grouping subjects on each ability criterion (high, medium, and low). Every two people from each ability group in semi-structured interviews. Thermochemical material is re-taught using a metacognitive skill learning model and given a final test and interview to get concept data after learning to assess conceptual changes. Five concepts become variables in this study: the heat of reaction, enthalpy of reaction in a calorimeter, Hess's law, energy diagrams, and bond energies. The results showed that concept changes occurred in all high, medium, and low ability subjects. Changes in students' conceptions occurred in the concepts of the heat of reaction, reaction enthalpy, calorimeter, Hess's law, energy diagrams, and bond energy. The most significant conceptual change occurred in the subject of medium ability and low ability, namely the concept of bond energy.

The Identification and Use of a Common Language During a Curriculum Redesign: a Case Study of Conceptual Change

The Identification and Use of a Common Language During a Curriculum Redesign: a Case Study of Conceptual Change

Situational interest helps correct misconceptions: An investigation of conceptual change in university students

Many learners possess misconceptions regarding instructional content; toward this aim, educational practitioners employ teaching practices that support learners’ efforts to restructure their existing knowledge structures—a process known as conceptual change. The Cognitive Reconstruction of Knowledge Model emphasizes the importance of conceptual dissatisfaction, topic interest, and learners’ need for cognition in the process of conceptual change. However, most conceptual change studies have failed to differentiate the contribution of dispositional and situational interest to the revision of conceptual understanding. The current study was designed to test key predictions of the Cognitive Reconstruction of Knowledge Model while also exploring the influence of dispositional and situational interest on the conceptual change process. Participants (N = 360) recruited from two universities in the United States completed measures assessing pre- and post-test knowledge, individual and situational interest, need for cognition, dissatisfaction, and cognitive engagement. Further, participants read a refutational text designed to address commonly endorsed misconceptions regarding HIV/AIDS. Results of a path analysis indicated situational interest exerted a significant indirect effect on conceptual change scores through cognitive engagement. Contrary to the predictions of the Cognitive Reconstruction of Knowledge Model, our findings indicated that the need for cognition, individual interest, and cognitive conflict were not significant predictors of conceptual change. We believe the findings of our investigation highlight the importance of fostering situational interest when attempting to promote knowledge reconstruction among learners.

Understanding Conceptual Change and Science Learning through Educational Neuroscience

ABSTRACTAlthough the field of educational neuroscience has grown in recent years, little research has been conducted on conceptual change and science learning through an educational neuroscience framework. Educational neuroscience is frequently used to study processes of language and mathematics cognition, but is not extensively applied to conceptual change and science learning. This review integrates insights from extant conceptual change educational neuroscience studies to inform the fields of educational psychology and science education. These new insights shed light on the persistence of misconceptions and the roles of error detection, inhibition, executive function, and memory in conceptual change. Future directions for the study of conceptual change and educational neuroscience are discussed.

Two-Tier Human and Environment Concepts Diagnosis Test Development

This study was carried out with the aim of developing a two-tier diagnostic test human and environmental concept test for use in the 5th grade human and environment unit. The development of two-tier diagnostic human and environmental testing was carried out in three stages. In the first stage, the content of the subject was determined. In the second stage, students' misconceptions were determined. In order to identify misconceptions about human and environment, two different classes of 64 people were asked 5 open-ended questions about the environment. In addition, the reasons of misconceptions were investigated with the help of semi-structured interviews. In the last stage, the diagnostic test was developed by taking into consideration the misconceptions. The developed test was examined together with 4 faculty members who are experts in field education about the validity of the scope and determination of misconceptions. The final shape of the test is given according to the feedback of the experts. The two-tier diagnostic test prepared in this way can be used by researchers to identify misconceptions or can be used as data collection tools in conceptual change studies.

BARRIERS TO STUDENTS’ CREATIVE EVALUATION OF UNEXPECTED EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS

Science lecturers usually do not pay special attention to giving students the chance to evaluate persistent unexpected experimental findings that they cannot explain with their existing theories, propose alternative hypotheses and develop new theories in inquiry tasks at schools, despite the importance of these processes in scientific discoveries. Students’ reactions to this type of findings have been a subject for conceptual change studies that new theories were presented to explain the findings. This research, in contrast, examined students’ ways of interpreting their unexpected experimental findings about the molar mass of the sulfur element while hiding a new theory, and their barriers to discovering the scientific explanation of these findings, which is new to them, in the framework of the creativity paradigm. The research was conducted with 155 first-year undergraduate students who were enrolled in a chemistry laboratory course. A majority of the participants said that the unexpected findings might have resulted from experimental errors or methodical problems. Few students stated that these findings might be valid and have a new explanation. The barriers to students' discovery of new scientific explanation for findings were classified as: lack of pre-knowledge, obstacles of existing structures, failure of creative cognitive processes and social-personal blocks. Keywords: creativity barriers, laboratory work, students’ explanations, unexpected findings.

Conceptual Metaphor and the Study of Conceptual Change: Research synthesis and future directions

Many of the goals of research on conceptual metaphor in science education overlap with the goals of research on conceptual change. The relevance of a conceptual metaphor perspective to the study of conceptual change has already been discussed. However, a substantial body of literature on conceptual metaphor in science education has now emerged. This work has not yet been synthesized or related explicitly to the goals of conceptual change research. This paper first presents a broad sketch of the study of conceptual change, characterizing the goals of this body of work, its contributions to date, and identifying open questions. Next, the literature on conceptual metaphor in science education is reviewed against this background. The review clarifies the natural theoretical connections between the conceptual metaphor perspective and the phenomenon of conceptual change. It then examines the contributions made by the literature on conceptual metaphor in science education to the goals of research on conceptual change—namely, characterizing student conceptions, identifying obstacles to learning, understanding the process of conceptual change, and designing productive pedagogical strategies that could achieve conceptual change. The paper concludes with a discussion of further avenues for research into conceptual change, suggested by adopting a conceptual metaphor perspective.

Constructed-Response as an Alternative to Interviews in Conceptual Change Studies: Students’ Explanations of Force

Although interview formats support rich data collection in conceptual change studies, interview formats limit sample sizes. This study explores the possibility of using constructed-response formats as an alternative or supplement for collecting similarly rich data across larger pools of subjects in conceptual change studies. While research in physics education has successfully employed a variety of constructed-response formats to explore important questions, less research has explored the comparability and interchangeability of the data collected through constructed-response and interview formats. The current study compares analyses of data collected using both constructed-response and interview formats across a common pool of subjects. At its core, the current study explores the degree to which the data sets collected through the constructed-response and interview formats support similar inferences when coded with the rubrics from a recent series of studies on knowledge structure coherence. The results suggest that larger samples of students can be analyzed using the constructed-response format for this type of study. Future research is recommended to explore minor but significant differences that were detected in terms of tertiary variables that contribute to the focal outcome variables.

The Effect of Meaning Making Instruction about Kepler's Laws at High School students’ Conceptual Understanding

It is determined that ideas that were encountered in students are not generally compatible with scientific knowledge and these ideas were named as alternative conceptions. A large number of conceptual change studies were done intended for the change of alternative concepts that were encountered in students towards scientific knowledge. But no study was encountered intended for revealing students’ alternative ideas related to Kepler's laws and for the conceptual change of these ideas in literature. The purpose of this study is to search the effects of education intended for creating 11th grade students’ ideas related to Kepler's laws. This study was conducted with twenty-five 11th grade students. With the aim of provide students creating meaning of the concept forty-five minutes teaching were made. As a means of collecting data on the Kepler's laws a test consisting of two open-ended questions were used. This concept test was administered before instruction, after instruction and 15 weeks later after instruction. In the analysis of data analysis six categories were used. It is observed that students generally have no scientific ideas related to these concepts and have alternative ideas that are not related to scientific ideas. More than half of the students gave the scientific response after taking instruction. Rate of encountering alternative answers decreased after the instruction. At the delayed post-test responses in the category of scientific response rate increased. However, at students a higher proportion of alternative conceptions encountered according to before instruction.

Deafness, thought bubbles, and theory-of-mind development.

The processes and mechanisms of theory-of-mind development were examined via a training study of false-belief conceptions in deaf children of hearing parents (N = 43). In comparison to 2 different control conditions, training based on thought-bubble instruction about beliefs was linked with improved false-belief understanding as well as progress on a broader theory-of-mind scale. By combining intervention, microgenetic, and developmental scaling methods, the findings provide informative data about the nature and mechanisms of theory-of-mind change in deaf children, as well as an initial demonstration of a useful intervention for enhancing social cognition in deaf children of hearing parents. The methods and results also point to possible avenues for the study of conceptual change more generally.

The role of discursive resources in science talk

Tao, Oliver, and Venville’s paper addresses a debate between two hypotheses of children’s development of conceptual understandings of the Earth. The authors aim to investigate whether culture influences students’ conceptions of the Earth. However, one questionable assumption shared among conception and conceptual change studies is that researchers can identify children’s mental models, through their discourse, to explain their conceptions of scientific phenomena. In this commentary, I challenge this assumption by looking closely at various interview data and examining different dimensions of interview discourse about the Earth. Based on my findings, I suggest that instead of seeing science talk as representations of mental models, we look at children’s science talk as discursive practices mediated by the immediate social situation and the broader social milieu.

Is DNA Alive? A Study of Conceptual Change Through Targeted Instruction

We are involved in a project to incorporate innovative assessments within a reform-based large-lecture biochemistry course for nonmajors. We not only assessed mis- conceptions but purposefully changed instruction throughout the semester to confront student ideas. Our research questions targeted student conceptions of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) along with understanding in what ways classroom discussions/activities influence student conceptions. Data sources included pre-/post-assessments, semi-structured inter- views, and student work on exams/assessments. We found that students held misconceptions about the chemical nature of DNA, with 63 % of students claiming that DNA is alive prior to instruction. The chemical nature of DNA is an important fundamental concept in science fields. We confronted this misconception throughout the semester collecting data from several instructional interventions. Case studies of individual students revealed how various instructional strategies/assessments allowed students to construct and demonstrate the sci- entifically accepted understanding of the chemical nature of DNA. However, the post- assessment exposed that 40 % of students still held misconceptions about DNA, indicating the persistent nature of this misconception. Implications for teaching and learning are discussed.

Concept mapping with beginning Geography teachers: A study of conceptual change.

This paper reports on an investigation of six preservice teachers who studied a ten-week unit of secondary Geography in their 4 th (and final) year of education studies. The focus of the study was to look at participants’ conceptions of effective Geography teaching, over a period of time, that is, a study of conceptual change. Participants constructed concept maps at the beginning and at the conclusion of their Geography methods course. The purpose of this article is to present concept mapping as a research tool for inquiring into the conceptual understandings of early career Geography teachers.

Examining epistemic frames in conceptual change research: implications for learning and instruction

Recently, research on the role of epistemic beliefs in conceptual change has increased dramatically. The focus of that research has largely been on students’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing; that is, how one understands what it means to know. In this article, we consider the characteristics of knowledge and knowing (i.e., epistemic frames) manifest in conceptual change investigations conducted by contemporary researchers. To accomplish this purpose, we took several steps. First, we reviewed philosophical writings pertaining to epistemology and epistemological beliefs, selected prominent stances toward epistemology (i.e., epistemic frames), and delineated the defining features of each (e.g., stances regarding knowledge or justification of knowledge). Then, to illustrate how these philosophical frames might translate into psychological research, we constructed prototypic conceptual change studies for each frame. Finally, we searched the conceptual change literature for studies manifesting evidence of the various epistemic frames. We conclude with potential applications of the epistemic frames in future conceptual change research and educational practice.

Experimental Philosophy of Science

AbstractExperimental philosophy of science gathers empirical data on how key scientific concepts are understood by particular scientific communities. In this paper we briefly describe two recent studies in experimental philosophy of biology, one investigating the concept of the gene, the other the concept of innateness. The use of experimental methods reveals facts about these concepts that would not be accessible using the traditional method of intuitions about possible cases. It also contributes to the study of conceptual change in science, which we understand as the result of a form of conceptual ecology, in which concepts become adapted to specific epistemic niches.

Children's knowledge of astronomy and its change in the course of learning

Abstract This study examined the nature of 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old children's ( n = 113) knowledge of astronomy and the process of knowledge change during learning. Children's pre-existing knowledge was assessed by questions and drawing tasks. About half of the children were taught elementary concepts of astronomy in small groups and afterwards all participants’ knowledge was assessed again. Most children could be categorized as having fragmented astronomy knowledge and the proportion of non-scientific models first proposed by Vosniadou & Brewer [Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the Earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive Psychology , 24 , 535–585] was no greater than could be expected by chance. Children seemed to acquire factual information rather easily and therefore early instruction should introduce the core facts related to the topics. Some children over-generalized new knowledge very easily, indicating that the materials used in teaching may promote the development of non-scientific notions and that those notions must be addressed promptly to avoid the development of coherent non-scientific models.

A longitudinal study of conceptual change: Preservice elementary teachers' conceptions of moon phases

AbstractThis research consists of a longitudinal study of 12 female elementary preservice teachers' conceptual understanding over the course of several months. The context in which the participants received instruction was in an inquiry‐based physics course, and the targeted science content was the cause of moon phases. Qualitative research methods, including observations and interviews, were used to investigate and describe participants' conceptual understanding over time. Participants were interviewed on their understanding of the cause of moon phases before instruction, 3 weeks after instruction, and again in delayed post‐interviews several months after instruction. Patterns and themes in the participants' conceptual understanding were identified through constant‐comparative data analysis. Consistent with results reported earlier, participants who had instruction that included recording and analyzing moon observations over time and psychomotor modeling of changes in moon phases were very likely to hold a scientific conceptual understanding shortly after instruction. The present study indicates a majority of participants continued to hold a scientific understanding six months or more after instruction. However, some participants reverted to alternative conceptions they had shown during the pre‐interview. These results are interpreted utilizing contemporary conceptual change theory. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 303–326, 2007

The Development of Student Conceptions of the Earth-Sun Relationship in an Inquiry-Based Curriculum

The study of conceptual change has long been of interest to cognitive science researchers and has tangible applications in education and curriculum design. Many theorists agree that learners must be confronted with their misconceptions before conceptual change can occur. This case study is an in-depth investigation of three fifth-grade students throughout their participation in a curriculum on Earth surface temperature. Data were collected via individual interviews and classroom observations and interactions, and were analyzed by comparing the students' thinking at various points before, during and after the unit. Throughout the study, the students exhibited misconceptions identified in current literature as well as novel misconceptions. The study also demonstrates that, although the curriculum was found to be partially effective, the students retained some misconceptions with which they began the study. In these cases, it seems that conceptual understanding is more fragmentary than theory-like, and that the depth of one's prior knowledge affects how readily new knowledge is constructed. The paper includes a discussion of student conceptions and potential implications for the design of the curriculum unit.

Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning: Understanding the Wrong Answers—Teaching toward Conceptual Change

Underpinning science education reform movements in the last 20 years—at all levels and within all disciplines—is an explicit shift in the goals of science teaching from students simply creating a knowledge base of scientific facts to students developing deeper understandings of major concepts within a scientific discipline. For example, what use is a detailed working knowledge of the chemical reactions of the Krebs cycle without a deeper understanding of the relationship between these chemical reactions of cellular respiration and an organism’s need to harvest energy from food? This emphasis on conceptual understanding in science education reform has guided the development of standards and permeates all major science education reform policy docu