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Learning Material for concept and conceptual change

Introduction The concept of concepts is difficult to define, but no one doubts that concepts are fundamental to mental life and human communication. Cognitive scientists generally agree that a concept is a mental representation that picks out a set of entities, or a category. That is, concepts refer, and what they refer to are categories. It is also commonly assumed that category membership is not arbitrary but rather a principled matter. What goes into a category belongs there by virtue of some law-like regularities. But beyond these sparse facts, the concept CONCEPT is up for grabs. As an example, suppose you have the concept TRIANGLE represented as a closed geometric form having three sides. In this case, the concept is a definition. But it is unclear what else might be in your triangle concept. Does it include the fact that geometry books discuss them (though some dont) or that they have 180 degrees (though in hyperbolic geometry none do)? It is also unclear how many concepts have definitions or what substitutes for definitions in ones those dont.

In metaphysics, and especially ontology, a concept is a fundamental category of existence. In contemporary philosophy, there are at least three prevailing ways to understand what a concept is: Concepts as mental representations, where concepts are entities that exist in the brain. Concepts as abilities, where concepts are abilities peculiar to cognitive agents. Concepts as abstract objects, where objects are the constituents of propositions that mediate between thought, language, and referents.

Eggen and Kauchak (2004) defined concepts as ideas, objects, or events that help us understand the world around us.

Functions of concepts For purposes of this review, we will collapse the many ways people can use concepts into two broad functions: categorization and communication. The conceptual function that most research has targeted is categorization, the process by which mental representations (concepts) determine whether or not some entity is a member of a category. Categorization enables a wide variety of subordinate functions because classifying something as a category member allows people to bring their knowledge of the category to bear on the new instance. Once people categorize some novel entity, for example, they can use relevant knowledge for understanding and prediction. Recognizing a cylindrical object as a flashlight allows you to understand its parts, trace its functions, and predict its behavior. For example, you can confidently infer that the flashlight will

have one or more batteries, will have some sort of switch, and will normally produce a beam of light when the switch is pressed. Not only do people categorize in order to understand new entities, they also use the new entities to modify and update their concepts. In other words, categorization supports learning. Concepts are also centrally involved in communication. Many of our concepts correspond to lexical entries, such as the English word flashlight. In order for people to avoid misunderstanding each other, they must have comparable concepts in mind. If As concept of cell phone corresponds with Bs concept of flashlight, it wont go well if A asks B to make a call. An important part of the function of concepts in communication is their ability to combine in order to create an unlimited number of new concepts. These functions and associated subfunctions are important to bear in mind because studying any one in isolation can lead to misleading conclusions about conceptual structure.

Childrens Learning of Concepts and Names Perhaps the most dramatic example of concept learning is the performance of young children, who can learn up to 15,000 new words for things by age six (Carey, 1978). Of course, learning a new word and learning a new concept are not the same, but they are closely related (Clark, 1983). For example, a childs knowing the word dog and having the concept of dog are two different achievements. Knowing a concept might precede learning its name or alternately, hearing a name for an object might lead to further investigation of the concept (e.g., Waxman, Shipley, & Shepperson, 1991). Early concept learning by children appears to be guided by rather general principles or knowledge structures. Given the large number of concepts learned by children and the systematic biases that are apparent in this learning, it is plausible that the children are being influenced by general knowledge rather than by specific knowledge about other categories. Markman (1989, 1990) suggested, and reviewed evidence for, certain constraints that would guide category learning by children. First, according to the whole object assumption, a novel category label is more likely to refer to a whole object than to its parts. Upon hearing a category label such as dog for the first time, a child would assume that this label refers to a dog rather than to some part of a dog such as its wagging tail. Second, according to the taxonomic assumption, learners will tend to use new words as taxonomic category labels rather than as ways to group things by other relations. For example, after a child has learned about his or her first dog, the child would extend this label to other animals that appear to be in the same taxonomic categoryother dogs--rather than extending the label to objects that are otherwise associated with the dog. That is, the child would not call the dogs leash a dog, or call the dogs owner a dog. Third, the mutual exclusivity assumption would provide further guidance in early category learning. In following this assumption, a child would favor associating particular objects with just one category label. Thus, when learning a new category label, the child would look for some object for which he or she does not already know a label. For example, say that a child already knows the word dog, and sees a dog being pulled on a leash.

Upon hearing the word leash for the first time, the child might hypothesize that this term refers to the leash rather than to the dog, because the dog already has a known category label. These three constraints might seem obvious to an adult who has already learned a language. Yet imagine a child trying to learning thousands of category labels without these assumptions (Quine, 1960). In a relatively simple situation of a girl walking in a park with a dog on a leash, the category label dog might refer to the girl, the park, the dog, the leash, some part of the girl, the park, the dog, or the leash, or some relation between any of these things. It appears that some application of general knowledge to this potentially confusing situation would be extremely helpful and indeed necessary.

ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

Roth (as cited in Fraser, 1995) describes three important approaches to science education: 1) The inquiry approach - in 1960s and 1970s new science programmes were developed to focus upon the nature and processes of science. The students were to act like scientists and scientific method was a pivot. Science content was used for learning science process skills; 2) The societal approach - in the late 1970s and 1980s science programmes were used to inculcate the skills of decision making and problem solving in relation to the societal problems in order to make the students good citizens; 3) The conceptual change approach - from the mid-1980s science programmes stressed conceptual change in learning process. A learner has a world view based on personal observations. The starting point is the childrens prior conceptions. Instructional activities should be based on the reasoning explicit. Wandersee, Mintzes and Novak (1994) mention that the research on students alternative conceptions in various content domains rapidly expanded during the 1980s. As surveyed by Duit (2007) there are over 8000 studies in science education literature that reported the existence of misconceptions or alternative conceptions.

Numerous studies in recent years have shown proof that many students do not understand concepts in science in the same way as experts and scientists. Students incorrect understanding of scientific concepts and natural phenomena affects their performances. Smith, DiSessa, and Roschelle (1993) observed that novice interpretations of scientific concepts and expert perceptions of scientific knowledge are very different. Tomita (2008) argued: When students enter science classrooms, they often hold deeply rooted prior knowledge or conceptions about the natural world. These conceptions will influence how they come to understand their formal science experiences in school. Some of this prior knowledge provides a good foundation for further formal schooling, while other conceptions may be incompatible with currently accepted scientific knowledge. The importance of prior knowledge and the struggle to replace that knowledge with or help that knowledge evolve into scientifically-sound knowledge has spurred a large tradition of research in developmental and instructional psychology and science education (p. 9). Three examples of science concepts and their associated misconceptions

Scientific Concepts Whether something sinks or floats depends on a combination of its density, buoyancy, and effect on surface tension.

Associated Misconceptions Things float if they are light and sink if they are heavy.

Clouds contain very small particles of Clouds contain water that leaks out as rain water or ice that are held up in the air by the lifting action of air currents, wind and convection. These particles can become bigger through condensation and when they become too heavy to be held up in the air they fall to the earth as rain, hail or snow. An animal is a multicellular organism that is capable of independent movement. An animal is a land mammal other than a human being. Insects, birds and fish are not animals.

Importance of weeding out misconceptions For the authenticity of the knowledge, correct concepts need to be developed and the misconceptions are to be weeded out. Ausubel (as cited in Joyce, 1996) mentions that a person's existing cognitive structure is the foremost factor governing whether new material will be meaningful and how well it can be acquired and retained. Before we present new material effectively, we must increase the stability and clarity of our students' structures. To acquire knowledge of misconceptions of students about certain topics to be taught is important. Generally, misconceptions are the cause of low achievement. If the number of misconceptions increases, the students face difficulty in understanding the concept being taught. Low understanding results in hampering the concept understanding. In some cases alternative concepts hamper to generalize. As a consequence, meaning of the concept is restricted. In other cases, students are unable to discriminate among closely related concepts causing them to mislabel or misclassify. The history of science has shown that conceptual change is a lengthy process accompanied by a struggle with different types of misconceptions and that it includes alternating stages of advance and retreat. It is not reasonable to expect our students to internalize the model in a meaningful manner after it is presented by several statements of knowledge over the course of one or two class sessions. Misconceptions may have a positive role. Historical research has shown that even great scientists who broke new ground in any given area still held misconceptions in other areas or aspects. These misconceptions may be viewed as essential steps in the evolution of innovative ideas. Prior misconceptions are the raw materials for critical research which then leads us to higher levels of understanding. It is also necessary to apply this view to the classroom. Despite the fact that teachers want to help their students reach the desired conceptions, it is necessary to be tolerant and relate positively to their misconceptions. These misconceptions may be analogous to childhood illnesses or problems of adolescence. True, they are not welcomed and we may wish that they would not exist, but we know that ultimately they have a positive function in human development. The development of the history of science can be perceived as an incomplete dialectic process (thesisantithesissynthesis; today's conception is tomorrow's misconception). We should understand the function of misconceptions in student intellectual development in a similar manner. For this reason, educators should not try to ignore or to declare war on misconceptions, but should rather focus the class on them. Only in this way can they initiate the desired process of conceptual change. "For example, Pascal's and Boyle's comparison of air to wool or to a spring in order to explain its compressibility or Torricelli's comparison of the atmosphere to an ocean in order to explain differences of pressure at different altitudes.

Definitions of Misconceptions Driver, Guesne and Tiberghien (1985) mention that children try to interpret prevailing phenomenon with previously acquired ideas. An extensive literature has been built up in recent years, which indicates that children develop ideas about natural phenomenon before they are taught science in school. Fraser (1995) mentions that every child has ideas to explain the surrounding world. In many cases these explanations are not the same as given by today's scientists. Such type of explanation is termed as misconceptions or alternative conceptions. Misconceptions can be described as ideas that provide an incorrect understanding of such ideas, objects or events that are constructed based on a persons experience including such things as preconceived notions, nonscientific beliefs, nave theories, mixed conceptions or conceptual misunderstandings. Misconceptions are the interpretations and understandings that dont support the scientific reasons or provide footing for the logic. Despite the fact that the term of student misconceptions is widely used in scientific literature, not all researchers agree to define students prior knowledge as misconceptions. The term misconception has many synonyms. Tomita (2008) summarized synonyms existing in the literature for this term. Primarily referred to as misconceptions, these conceptions also are called naive conceptions, nonscientific beliefs, preinstructional beliefs, intuitive knowledge, phenomenological primitives or p-prims, facets, or alternative frameworks. Regardless of terminology, the point is to recognize that a students' prior knowledge is embedded in a system of logic and justification, although one that may be incompatible with accepted scientific understanding (Tomita, 2008, p. 10). Smith, diSessa, and Roschelle (1993) argued that clarification of the terms misconceptions, alternative beliefs, and preconceptions is necessary: The prefix to the most common term - misconception - emphasizes the mistaken quality of students ideas. Terms that include the qualifier alternative - indicate a more relativist epistemological perspective. Students prior ideas are not always criticized as mistaken notions that need repair or replacement but are understood as understandings that are simply different from the views of experts Students alternative conceptions are incommensurable with expert concepts in a manner parallel to scientific theories from different historical periods Preconceptions and nave beliefs emphasize the existence of student ideas prior to instruction without any clear indication of their validity or usefulness in learning expert concepts.

However, researchers who have used them have tended to emphasize their negative aspects. This epistemological dimension emphasizes differences in content. The content of student conceptions (whether mistaken, preexisting, or alternative) is judged in contrast to the content of expert concepts (p. 159). The word misconceptions as used throughout this document may be taken to mean alternative frameworks or alternative conceptions.) A misconception can be defined as a view that does not fully coincide with the scientific view.

Categories of misconceptions National Academy Press (1997) quotes five categories of misconceptions: 1) preconceived notions - many people preconceive that underground water flows in the form of streams as they have preconceived this idea from their everyday experiences. Such type of misconceptions is called preconceived notions; 2) non-scientific beliefs - some students learn through religious/mythical belief about the origin of life. The disparity between the religious belief and the scientific belief create misconception; 3) conceptual misunderstanding - students when taught in a way, which does not conflict with their misconceptions, creates faulty models; 4) vernacular misconception, when words mean scientifically different and in everyday life as well e.g. work; 5) factual misconceptions - falsities learnt at early ages are not challenged in adulthood. For example, an idea that lightning never strikes the same area twice if not challenged may be present in your belief system.

UNDERSTANDING AND CONCEPTUAL CHANGE IN SCIENCE To date, science educators have published over 3500 studies on students' understandings of scientific concepts. In contrast to the assumptions of many science teachers, it is now clear that learners develop a set of well-defined ideas about natural objects and events even before they arrive at the classroom door. These ideas span the range of the formal scientific disciplines and seem to be found in equal frequencies among males and females, learners of all ages and ability levels, as well as cultural backgrounds and ethnic origins. Often these notions conflict with accepted scientific explanations and, most significantly, because they serve a useful function in everyday life, they tend to resist the efforts of even our finest teachers and most thoughtful textbook authors and curriculum developers. Unfortunately students' ideas often interact with knowledge presented in formal science lessons resulting in a diverse set of unintended learning outcomes.

Assumptions about Misconceptions Learners are not "empty vessels" or "blank slates"; they bring with them to their formal study of science concepts; a finite but diverse set of ideas about natural objects and events; often these ideas are incompatible with those offered by science teachers and textbooks.
1.

Many alternative conceptions are robust with respect to age, ability, gender, and cultural boundaries; they are characteristic of all formal science disciplines including biology, chemistry, physics, and the earth and space sciences; they typically serve a useful function in the everyday lives of individuals.
2.

The ideas that learners bring with them to formal science instruction are often tenacious and resistant to change by conventional teaching strategies.
3.

As learners construct meanings, the knowledge they bring interacts with knowledge presented in formal instruction; the result is a diverse set of unintended learning outcomes; because of limitations in formal assessment strategies, these unintended outcomes may remain hidden from teachers and students themselves.
4.

The explanations that learners cling to often resemble those of previ ous generations of scientists and natural philosophers.
5.

Alternative conceptions are products of a diverse set of personal experiences, including direct observation of natural objects and events, peer culture, everyday language, and the mass media as well as formal instructional intervention.
6. 7.

Classroom teachers often subscribe to the same alternative conceptions as their

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students. Successful science learners possess a strongly hierarchical, cohesive framework of related concepts and they represent those concepts at a deeper, more principled level.
8.

Understanding and conceptual change are epistemological outcomes of the conscious attempt by learners to make meanings; successful science learners make meanings by restructuring their existing knowledge frameworks through an orderly set of cognitive events (i.e., sub-sumption, super ordination, integration, and differentiation).
9. 10. The differential ability to solve problems in novel, real-world settings is attributable primarily to the advantages conferred on individuals possessing a highly integrated, welldifferentiated framework of domain-specific knowledge which is activated through concentrated attention to and sustained reflection on related objects and events.

who excel in the natural sciences habitually employ a set of metacognitive strategies enabling them to plan, monitor, regulate, and control their own learning. strategies that focus on understanding and conceptual change may be effective classroom tools.
12. Instructional

11. Learners

Research-based claims relating to authentic alternative conceptions Claim 1: Learners come to formal science instruction with a diverse set of alternative conceptions concerning natural objects and events. Alternative conceptions span the elds from physics and earth & space science to biology, chemistry, and environmental science. Each associated subeld within the disciplines seems to have its alternative conceptions. Claim 2: The alternative conceptions that learners bring to formal science instruction cut across age, ability, gender, and cultural boundaries. No matter how gifted a group of students concerned, each group will have students with alternative conceptions regardless of background. Claim 3: Alternative conceptions are tenacious and resistant to extinction by conventional teaching strategies. Students alternative conceptions are very difcult to change; only very specic teaching approaches have shown promise of getting students to accept new explanations. Claim 4: Alternative conceptions often parallel explanations of natural phenomena offered by previous generations of scientists and philosophers. Students often hold to the same views as those held by very early scientists that are frequently referred to as Aristotelian in nature. Claim 5: Alternative conceptions have their origins in a diverse set of personal experiences including direct observation and perception, peer culture, and language, as well as in teachers explanations and instructional materials. The many sources of alternative conceptions are at best speculative, but research and inference suggest that a students worldview is strongly inuenced by his or her social environment.

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Claim 6: Teachers often subscribe to the same alternative conceptions as their students. It is not at all uncommon for science teacher educators to see alternative conceptions in their teacher candidates; likewise, even experienced science teachers and scientists with advanced degrees will sometimes cling to alternative conceptions that are held by their students. Claim 7: Learners prior knowledge interacts with knowledge presented in formal instruction, resulting in a diverse variety of unintended learning outcomes. Not only can alternative conceptions be a hindrance to new learning; they can also interact with new learning resulting in mixed outcomes. It is not unusual to see different students draw different conclusions from the same experiences and observations. Claim 8: Instructional approaches that facilitate conceptual change can be effective classroom tools. Several conceptual change approaches have been developed to identify, confront, and resolve problems associated with alternative conceptions.

Some features of misconceptions are that they:

nd are usually adequate for everyday life;

ht in schools;

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Sources of students misconceptions Students develop certain misconceptions since science is being taught as a historical account. Demonstrations, observation and experimentation find a little space in the teaching of science. The content teaching is not supported with the practical experimentation. Driver (1985) mentions that the possible sources of students misconceptions are: school teaching, outside school teaching, everyday experiences, social environment, and intuition. Nonetheless, there is general evidence that pre-instructional knowledge structures have their origins in the following sources: (1) experiences and perceptions that extend as far back as early infancy, (2) a wide variety of cultural values and ideas, and (3) language factors. Experiences and perceptions: Hawkins and Pea (1987) argue that children construct knowledge structures for scientific understanding on a domain by domain basis prior to formal instruction. It is therefore important to view children as active constructors of knowledge through their interactions with the physical world and their social and cultural environments. Even when they are only toddlers, children are actively engaged in asking for explanations and giving reasons about the way things are. A functional reason for developing these explanations is to gain more predictive control over the world. This allows the child to avoid undesirable events and to perpetuate desirable ones. The child learns what to expect by his own actions, by the actions of others, and by events in the physical world. In this way, children construct non-scientific understandings of natural phenomena as they are encountered, and they create frames for interpreting natural and social events. Further insights are provided by McClelland (1984): Phenomena are not the content of science but the vehicle for learning it, that is, for learning theories. Children in all societies meet a wide range of phenomena but a glance at history and anthropology is enough to remind us that interpretations in terms or reproducible, explicable, causally related events are not automatic features of human thought. Pre-instructional understandings are therefore quite adequate to interpret and guide daily life (Driver, 1994), but may significantly hinder learning in the context of the science classroom. Culture: Conceptions can also have their origin within the overall culture that students are participants in. Solomon (1987) states that the social scene makes an essential difference as to how a particular task is perceived in the learning environment. He therefore asks, Do entirely personal ideas ever exist? When a child holds some private evaluation about a scientific happening, is it ever unaffected by culture? Solomon argues that even if a student has a truly eccentric idea, this idea will probably will not survive for very long. Too different of a viewpoint from the accepted notion will generally be excluded from social intercourse, and many children may not have the ability to withstand this kind of pressure. The human desire to be accepted will cause many individual ideas to fade away. The chief effect of social interaction, therefore, is to

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smooth out differences within the culture and to produce consensus. This is not to say that change cannot take place; even majority views change with time. However, it is to say that the influence of the overall culture on students understandings is incredibly powerful and cannot be ignored by instructors. An example of how cultural influences can effect understanding is found in a study that examined folk biological taxonomies among the Itzaj (a people native to the Americas) and among North American college students (Lopez 1997). Of special interest was the way that the Itzaj subjects categorized bats. While the American group tended to group bats with insectivores and rodents (thus preserving scientific formalisms to a significant degree), the Itzaj left them unaffiliated with any general category, or they classified them as birds. When asked, the Itzaj acknowledged that bats do indeed seem to more closely resemble shrews and small rodents. They did not classify them as mammals, however, because they knew that bats are birds! Cultural influences caused the Itzaj subjects to deem the relationship of bats to mammals as superficial. The influence of scientific understanding on the culture of the United States, however, helped the North American college students to avoid this stumbling block. Language: Word meaning and usage can also be a significant source for alternative conceptions. An example of how this can happen is presented by Strike and Posner (1992). They describe a hypothetical learner named Fred who is asked to choose between two views of motion. Fred is asked to think about what will happen if a force is applied to a particular object. He is presented with two views: (1) Force is transferred to the object and erodes, causing the object to gradually slow and eventually come to a rest. (2) Application of force to the object imparts some motion to the object that continues indefinitely until it is acted upon by another force. Fred is a baseball fan and he notes that there are numerous cases where forces are applied to baseballs. The subsequent motion of the balls leads him to accept the first view. This seems logical to Fred because he can detect no other forces being applied to the baseballs. Thus begins the language game. Strike and Posner explain it in the following way: Fred may have learned to talk about force in a way that requires force to have an agent. Hitting balls with bats thus counts as applying force. Also, force-talk may be associated with fatigue. Ones ability to apply force is limited by stamina. Or sometimes in ordinary speech force is associated with coercion. Normally, when people are coerced, they cease doing what they are coerced to do as soon as the coercion is withdrawn. Fred thus has ways of talking about force that lead to and reinforce a way of seeing. Fred thus decides that forces are transferred to objects and erode during motion. This story may only be hypothetical, but it is a very realistic illustration. Indeed, studies involving both grade school and college level students have demonstrated that students often do

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not have the same definitions for scientific terms as those that are held by their instructors. For example, a general characterization of nave knowledge of motion has been described as follows (Champagne 1983): (1) Concepts are poorly differentiated. For example, students use the terms speed, velocity and acceleration interchangeably. As a result, the typical student does not perceive any differences between two propositions such as these: (a) The speed of an object is proportional to the [net] force on the object; (b) The acceleration of an object is proportional to the [net] force on the object. (2) Meanings physicists attribute to terms are different from the everyday meanings attributed to the terms by the students. For example, students generally define acceleration as speeding up, while physicists define acceleration as any change in velocity. According to some psychologist, there are some other possible sources for the development of misconceptions. First, not all experiences lead to correct conclusions or result in students seeing all possible outcomes. Second, when parents or other family members are confronted with questions from their children, rather that admitting to not knowing the answer, it is common for them to give an incorrect one. Other sources of misconceptions include resource materials, the media and teachers. The main issue is that all of the above sources are considered to be trustworthy, leading to ready acceptance by students of what they are being taught

why some science concepts are difficult to change? In fact, there is overall consensus among researchers that alternative conceptions about science are highly resistant to change (MacBeth 2000). Simply telling somebody something does not easily change his or her deep ideas (Redish 1994). One researcher went so far as to say that we cannot affect scientific understanding without grasping the depth and tenacity of the students preexisting knowledge. Chi (2005) mentions why some science concepts are difficult to change? He explains that students own ontological categories and the actual categories do not correspond. Member of one ontological category is misrepresented as a member of another ontological category.

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Misconceptions in Science Brown and Hammer (2008) described a typical example of students misconceptions about scientific concepts (in physics). A student may be able to apply F = ma accurately to find a if given F and m, but if asked to explain what the equation means might say something like: It means that the force of an object depends on how heavy it is and how fast its moving . This involves alternative ways of thinking about all three variables force as a property of an object, mass as weight, and acceleration as speed (p. 128). Brown and Hammer (2008) argued that even after physics instruction, college graduates continue to have serious misconceptions about various concepts like force, energy, and temperature. Even the best and brightest students are not learning what educators may think they are learning from their science education. There is a wide range of literature about misconceptions in science, which often discusses the understandings of physical phenomena by students. Incorrect (unscientific) perceptions are called misconceptions. There are a few stages that the majority of literature follows: - Describe a phenomenon (like force, temperature, light). - Ask students what they think about this phenomenon, what will happen and why. - Analyze the answers (correct and incorrect perceptions of the phenomenon). - Make an attempt to understand how the incorrect meaning of the phenomenon occurs. Refer to cognitive psychology and conceptual change theories. - Discuss robustness of student misconceptions. - Discuss how to improve the curriculum and teaching methods. Streveler et al. (2008) argued that one of the main issues in psychology literature about conceptual knowledge is whether the students' knowledge is organized in a coherent structure or whether it is fragmented (p.280). Therefore, the literature often considers student misconceptions from two perspectives, alternative ideas that are organized as theory or ideas that are elements or fragments. Brown and Hammer (2008) argued that these two perspectives on misconceptions shifted educators understanding of student errors: Whereas previously students were seen as just making mistakes, now they were seen as scientists applying alternative theories to interpretations of phenomena. This helped to make sense of why students seemed resistant to new ideas and it drew attention to the need to understand their existing theories (p. 130).

Methods to help the students to overcome misconceptions The teacher can try the following methods to help the students to overcome misconceptions. 1. Anticipate the most common misconceptions related to the instructional material.

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2. Encourage students to test their conceptual frameworks after discussing with the other students. 3. The teacher should think about the demonstrations for addressing the common misconceptions. 4. Assess whether the students have been able to grasp the concept according to the scientist belief or not?

Biemans mentions that prior knowledge activation and conceptual change can be fostered by a 5step strategy: 1) searching for ones own preconceptions; 2) comparing and contrasting these preconceptions with new information; 3) formulating new conceptions based on previous steps; 4) applying new conceptions; and 5) evaluating the new conceptions based on previous study. The precursor mentioned in these strategies are used to bring about conceptual change are the knowledge of misconceptions. Pedagogies for Addressing Alternative Conceptions A wide range of pedagogies has been developed to address alternative conceptions such as learning cycles (Karplus, 1981), Conceptual change theory of Posner et al. (1982), bridging analogies (Clement, 1988; Perschard & Bitbol, 2008), microcomputer- based laboratory experiences (Thornton & Sokolof, 1990; Thornton, 1987), disequilibration techniques (Minstrell, 1989; Dykstra, Boyle, & Monarch, 1992), an inquiry approach coupled with concept substitution strategies (Harrison et al., 1999), metaconceptual teaching on inducing a particularly problematic aspect of the conceptual changes (Wiser & Amin, 2001), and a teaching model (Thomaz et al., 1995). These approaches tend to have in common the requirement that students encounter phenomena that run counter to their existing beliefs. Doing so, they are put in a state of intellectual disequilibrium or cognitive conflict. Becoming aware of the conflict between what they believe to be correct based on prior experiences and know to be correct based on more recent experience helps them to confront and resolve their conflicting perspectives in favor of a proper understanding. Such pedagogical approaches that emphasize conflict and resolution appear to derive from a Piagetian perspective on learning (Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1998). In such a viewpoint, the learners role in reorganizing their knowledge is central to overcoming the alternative conception.

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These and other approaches dealing with alternative concepts typically include three fundamental steps those identified by the University of Washington Physics Education Group: elicit/ confront/resolve (McDermott, 1991). In this model a teacher first elicits a response (prediction about what will happen or an indication of agreement or disagreement with a given statement) from students, forcing them to commit to an answer in relation to a specific situation. Next, the students confront a situation that challenges their beliefs and answers, typically in an experiment that the students perform. During this second phase, if the students were incorrect in their prediction, they experience cognitive dissonance when confronting the conflict between prediction and experience. Students quickly come to realize the need for a new understanding about the concept under consideration, and are motivated to resolve the conflict with teacher assistance in phase three. Another such strategy is that developed for the C3P Project. According to Olenick (2008) overcoming alternative conceptions requires the following distinct steps: (1) Teachers must recognize that alternative conceptions exist. (2) Teachers probe for students alternative conceptions through demonstrations and questions. (3) Teachers ask students to clarify their understanding and beliefs. (4) Teachers provide contradictions to students alternative conceptions through questions, implications, and demonstrations. (5) Teachers encourage discussion, urging students to apply physical concepts in their reasoning. (6) Teachers foster the replacement of the misconception with new concepts through (i) questions, (ii) thought experiments, (iii) hypothetical situations with and without the underlying physical law, and (iv) experiments or demonstrations designed to test hypotheses. (7) Teachers reevaluate students understanding by posing conceptual questions.

The Focus of Conceptual Change Research In a previous section, I demonstrated why one who simply learns that it is raining outside (or that hot air rises, or that anything else happens for that matter!) has not necessarily undergone what researchers within the conceptual change domain consider to actually be conceptual change. It has been shown that ideas held by learners are rooted within a lifetime of experiences, perceptions, cultural influences, and language use, and cannot be easily overthrown. As such, it seems inadequate to attempt to change, idea by idea, the vast inventory of alternative conceptions. It is important to understand that conceptual change research is performed by people who are heavily involved in the science education system, and who are searching for solutions for its crucial problems and inadequacies (Anderson 1987). As such, the futile endeavor of altering the plethora of individual ideas is rejected. Instead, conceptual change researchers focus their attention on those concepts that are at the core of a system of concepts.

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It is more analogous to what Piaget calls an accommodation, or to what Kuhn calls a paradigm shift (Strike 1992). The next two paragraphs present a brief overview of both of these ideas. Accommodation: Piagets notion of an accommodation involves the replacement or reorganization of central concepts (Posner 1998). The easiest way to explain what is meant by this is to give a couple of examples. I will begin with a simple one (Millhoff 2002): Sometimes old ways or existing schemes of dealing with the world simply dont work. Piaget used the term accommodation to describe this changing of an existing scheme to fit new objects. An example of accommodation would be the action of a young person who has always ridden a bicycle with pedal brakes but then gets on one with hand brakes. Accommodation of the existing braking scheme must occur for the bicyclist to be able to stop. A more complex example from Piagets own writings involves a four month and twentytwo day old infant named Laurent (Piaget 1952): Laurent knows how to strike objects intentionally with his hand [He] holds a stick; he does not know what to do with it and slowly passes it from hand to hand. The stick then happens to strike a toy hanging from the bassinet hood. Laurent, immediately interested by this unexpected result, keeps the stick raised in the same position, then brings it noticeably nearer to the toy. He strikes it a second time. Then he draws the stick back but moving it as little as possible as though trying to conserve the favorable position, then he brings it nearer to the toy, and so on, more and more rapidly [The] child, intentionally and systematically, applies himself to rediscovering the conditions which lead him to this unexpected result. Paradigm shift: Kuhns notion of the paradigm involves concepts that are organizing in nature, and that adequately address contemporary research problems. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1970), Kuhn describes the history of science as a series of paradigm shifts. If the dominant paradigm of the time cannot adequately address contemporary problems, a new paradigm may arise and compete for acceptance. Normal Science therefore involves research that is firmly based on one or more scientific achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges, for a time, as supplying the foundations for its future research and practices. However, even if the new paradigm proves better at problem solving, it is often met with resistance. Many scientists will adhere to the old paradigm until their deaths even if it means ignoring a tremendous amount of evidence. Copernicanism, for example, was not widely received by the scientific community until nearly a generation after Copernicus death. 5. Examples of Conceptual Change Research When a learner makes a conceptual leap that is analogous to an accommodation or paradigm shift, then one can say that conceptual change has finally taken place within that learner. It is around this notion that theories of conceptual change are designed.

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Metacognition and Conceptual Change RICHARD F. GUNSTONE Monash University IAN I. MITCHELL Monash University and Eumemmering Secondary College

Our meanings for conceptual change and metacognition Some general research influences underpinning the growth of concern with conceptual change have been described in Chapter 3 of this volume (Section 3: "Understanding and Conceptual Change in Science: The Current Research Agenda"). These influences have been of fundamental importance to the evolution of our own ideas. Our work in this area over the past 15 years has been largely in physics (e.g., Gunstone & White, 1981) and chemistry (e.g., Mitchell & Gunstone, 1984). Much of this work has been located in, and therefore intertwined with, the dailiness of our normal teaching in high school science (e.g., Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Mitchell, 1993; White & Mitchell, 1994) and teacher education (e.g., Champagne, Gunstone, & Klopfer, 1985; Gunstone, 1994; Gunstone & Northfield, 1994). Our concerns throughout this work have been to develop our understanding of conceptual change and metacognition in the context of normal school and university classrooms. Conceptual Change One significant aspect of our current conception of conceptual change is that the content to be learned is a major variable in terms of the process of conceptual change (Mitchell & Baird, 1986; White, 1994). We return to this point in the concluding section of the chapter and, for the moment, consider conceptual change in more general terms. When considered in terms of an individual learner, the essence of a constructivist view of conceptual change is that it is the learner who must recognize his/her conceptions, evaluate these conceptions, decide whether to reconstruct the conceptions, and, if they decide to reconstruct, to review and restructure other relevant aspects of their understanding in ways that lead to consistency. While ultimately these processes of recognize, evaluate, de cide whether to reconstruct, review other aspects of understanding are individual, each is profoundly influenced (positively or negatively) by the ways in which the teacher, and other class members, structure classroom practice. These processes of recognize, evaluate, reconstruct, and review do not often lead to dramatic conceptual change. Conceptual change is rarely a sharp replacement of conception X by conception Y. Rather, conceptual change is more often "an accretion of information that the learner uses to sort out contexts in which it is profitable to use one form

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of explanation or another" (Fensham, Gunstone, & White, 1994, p. 6). Mitchell (1993) studied the learning of all students in four Grade 10 sci ence classes during a 6-week unit on mechanics, a unit very similar to the sequence we describe below. He began this research looking for, and expecting to find, numerous examples of "ahha" experiences/incidents that is, experiences/incidents that were crucial to the conceptual change of individual students. Although almost all students could on completion of the unit identify lessons and specific experiences that they had not found personally useful, there was only a very small number of "ahha" experiences. Most students found that most lessons made some useful contribution to their learning. Their conceptual change was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This can be explained by the view of Hewson and Hewson (1992) that conceptual change involves a change in the status of competing ideas. The new ideas (Newtonian in this mechanics case) appeared to need a number of successful classroom episodes in order to gain the status of unquestioned superiority. It is often appropriate to consider the process as "conceptual addition" rather than "conceptual change." The example of drinking through a straw illustrates the point about shifts as well as additions in meaning. When learners come to understand the notion of pressure difference, they do not drop the word "suck," though their conceptions of sucking change. Knowledge about pressure has been added, but old knowledge is revised rather than abandoned. A conceptual addition has occurred. Central to this formula tion of what is often described as "conceptual change" is that the individual also has informed approaches to deciding which of a number of meanings is appropriate in a particular context. (Fensham, Gunstone, & White, 1995, p 7; emphasis added) A further significant aspect of conceptual change, a term we continue to use in this chapter because it is so widespread as a general description for the development of understanding, is also related to contexts. Often learners will accept the scientific concept in one context, but then revert to using their prior conception in another context that we as science teachers would see as essentially the same as the first context. That is, conceptual change can often be seen to first take place in a particular context. Then the student may vacillate between scientific and prior conceptions from one context to another; the conceptual change is then context dependant and unstable. Long-term and stable conceptual change is achieved when the learner recognizes relevant commonalities across contexts and the generality of the scientific conception across these contexts (Tao, 1996; Tao & Gunstone, 1997). Metacognition Our conception of metacognition has been formed through research in classrooms (ours and others). It is a multifaceted conception, described in a number of sources (e.g., Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Gunstone & Northfield, 1994; Mitchell, 1993;

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White & Mitchell, 1994). We now give a brief summary (based on Gunstone, 1994, pp. 134136) of the various and complementary aspects of our meaning for metacognition. 1. "Metacognition refers to the knowledge, awareness and control of one's own learning" (Baird, 1990, p. 184). Metacognitive knowledge refers to knowledge of the nature and processes of learning, of personal learning characteristics, and of effective learning strategies and where to use these. Metacognitive awareness includes perceptions of the purpose of the current activity and of personal progress through the activity. Metacognitive control refers to the nature of learner decisions and actions during the activity. Inadequate knowledge restricts the extent to which awareness and control are possible. Metacognitive knowledge, awareness, and control are all learning outcomes (as well as fundamental influences on the nature of more usual learn ing outcomes). Hence metacognitive knowledge, awareness, and control can be developed with appropriate learning experiences. (This is well illustrated by extensive work in the Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (the PEEL project); see Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992). Often the learning which gives rise to a learner's metacognitive ideas and beliefs has been unconscious learning, and the learner finds it difficult to articulate his/her metacognitive views. All learners have metacognitive views of some form. That is, all learners have some form of metacognitive knowledge. This can be of a form that is in conflict with the goals of conceptual change teaching (e.g., "it is the teacher's job to tell me so I understand"; "we have discussions in science when the teacher can't be bothered teaching"). There are many examples of such conflict (see, for example, Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992). There can be tensions between metacognitive knowledge, awareness, and control. Most obvious are contexts where the assessment of learning is via rote recall here learners with enhanced metacognitive knowledge and awareness will see that they should not invest time and effort in developing their understanding and controlling their learning if they wish high grades. Teaching concerned with conceptual change and enhanced metacognition must have assessment approaches consistent with these learning goals. One helpful description of an appropriately metacognitive learner is a learner who undertakes the tasks of linking and monitoring their own learning. There are a number of commonly occurring poor learning tendencies exhibited by many learners (Baird, 1986). Examples are superficial or impul sive attention, premature closure (where "closure" is used here and at other points in this chapter to mean bringing together in a conclusion; "premature closure" is then
7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2.

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concluding or deciding that the task is complete before this is appropriate), lack of reflective thinking, and staying stuck (i.e., one problem or error stops all progress). These represent inadequate metacognition and are major barriers to learning. On the other hand, there are good learning behaviors which illustrate more appropriate metacognition in classrooms (Baird & N orthfield, 1992, p. 63); these good learning behaviors can be fostered by appropriate teaching. These behaviors are many. Examples include telling teacher what they don't understand, planning a general strategy before starting a task, seeking links with other activities or topics, and justifying opinions. The Intertwined Nature of Conceptual Change and Metacognition The links between conceptual change and metacognition seem to us an obvious consequence of our description of conceptual change. The processes of recognizing existing conceptions, evaluating these, deciding whether to reconstruct, and reviewing are all metacognitive processes; they require appropriate metacognitive knowledge, awareness, and control. We now give an outline of a teaching sequence that is derived from these conceptual change/metacognition perspectives, beginning with some as pects of the broad intent of the sequence. After the outline we discuss some more general aspects of classrooms that are relevant to the sequence. AN EXAMPLE OF TEACHING FROM THESE PERSPECTIVES The sequence we describe below is about introductory mechanics. The se quence has been shaped by research on students' alternative conceptions in mechanics and by the views of conceptual change and metacognition outlined above. We have taught the sequence on a number of occasions, and reflections on these experiences have contributed to the form given here. Our own uses of the approaches in this content area have largely been with Grade 10 high school students in the state of Victoria (where science in Grades 7 -10 of the 6-year high school is a General Science taken by all students) and with science graduates who are Biology majors undertaking a 1-year postgraduate course to qualify as high school science teachers (and who may therefore be required to teach introductory mechanics in the General Science program). We describe the sequence in terms of a Grade 10 class. We do not give fine detail in our description class, school, and curriculum contexts vary; so then will the fine detail of the sequence. The sequence begins with the probing of students' existing ideas, then seeks to promote the reconstruction of ideas about particular content, then explicitly considers the
8.

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exploration of the consistency ideas across a variety of contexts, and finally concludes with some ideas for the assessment of learning from the sequence. It uses a range of experiences to foster students' intellectual engagement with the ideas to be learned. We assume throughout that much of the language that students use will be tentative, exploratory, and hypothetical as they grapple with the ideas of mechanics this assumption is a consequence of our recognition that students need time to consider and discuss these ideas if they are to develop understanding. We also as sume that there will commonly need to be risk taking on the part of both learners and teachers. Throughout the sequence there should be an emphasis on the creation of links between lessons and with experiences students bring to the classroom and on the central issue of the consistency of students' views across situations. It is intended that students will learn from the questions and ideas and exploratory language of other students and that the rate of progress through the sequence (and some of the detail of the sequence per se) will be influenced by students and their ideas. The sequence includes three teaching approaches that may be unfamiliar: predictobserve-explain (POE); concept maps; relational diagrams (or Venn diagrams). We give a very brief description of the nature and intent of each of these here. Space prevents our giving a comprehensive account of the range of ways each of these approaches can be used, and of the linkages between these approaches and student learning. Such an account is in White and Gunstone (1992). Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) Students are shown a real situation, asked to give their prediction about the consequences of a particular change to the situation and the reasons they have for their prediction, then when the change is made they give their observation, and finally predictions and observations are reconciled if necessary. POEs can be used to explore students' ideas at the beginning of a topic, or to develop ideas during a topic, or to enhance understanding at the end of a topic by having them attempt to apply their learning to a real situation. In all of these uses, the reasons students have for a prediction are crucial; predictions, reasons and observations are usually best written, not verbal. An example of a POE for the content area of heat capacity of materials: The situation is a beaker of water and a beaker of cooking oil (equal volumes of liquids) placed on a hotplate and with thermometers (0-200C.). Students are asked to predict how the temperatures of the two liquids will compare when the hot plate has been turned on long enough for the water to be boiling (it is helpful to give alternatives for students to choose "Is the temperature of the cooking oil less than, the same as, greater than the boiling water?"), and to write their reasons. The observation is the readings of the thermometers. Reconciliation commonly involves addressing their prediction that the cooking oil temperature is less than the boiling water because the oil is not burning.

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Concept Maps Students have a set of words representing concepts, and perhaps other rel evant things, and put these on a sheet of paper. They draw lines between those words that they see to be linked, and write the nature of the links on the lines. (This last point is crucial; it is the nature of the links students perceive that is the essence of the concept map.) Usual ly the teacher provides the students with the terms to be mapped, although there are a number of reasons for students themselves to sometimes generate some or all of the terms. Concept maps are highly effective for exploring the links students perceive between ideas, and for fostering further linking. (See Chapter 3 of this volume for description and examples of concept maps.) Relational (or Venn) Diagrams Students are given a small number of terms and asked to draw a circle or rectangle for each term, arranged so that the shapes represent the relationships between the terms. An example is "trees, grasses, flowering plants." The appropriate response has the shape for grasses totally within flowering plants, and that for trees partially within and partially without flowering plants. There are two important issues to recognize in using each of these three approaches, particularly concept maps and relational diagrams. I . Students need to be taught how to approach each of these if the students have not experienced them before. It is rather like having a class who have never seen multiple choice questionsbefore you give multiple choice to such a class you would need to help them understand the structure and intent of the questions, and how to respond. Failure to do this would mean that students would be unable to respond in the ways you intend. This is less of an issue for POEsthese are sufficiently similar to conventional science demonstrations that students will not have great difficulty in seeing what they are required to do, but it is a very important aspect of introducing concept maps or relational diagrams to a class who have not previously experienced these. 2. It really is important to try any particular examples of the three ap proaches yourself before you use these with a class. With concept maps and relational diagrams in particular, this "trialling" is a necessary step in considering what terms should be given to the students. For example, we have been using concept maps in our science teaching for over a decade. Yet we still find that our first list of terms to give to students as a concept mapping task is frequently changed when we try the task ourselves. That is, often when we do the concept map ourselves we see that one (or more) terms should be replaced by others for the task to achieve what we intend.

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A CONCLUDING COMMENT ON INTRODUCING THESE APPROACHES The approaches we suggest assume major changes for students and teachers, by comparison with a traditional, didactic classroom. We offer now some thoughts, derived from research and practice, on the nature of student change required. This is a crucial issue for action, for both those wishing to introduce these approaches to their classrooms and for those who wish to research the consequences of these approaches. Note that the points we now briefly make are elaborated, with data, in many aspects of the PEEL project (Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Mitchell, 1993). Moving from didactic classrooms to the classrooms involved in our mechanics sequence involves changes in students' metacognitive knowledge, awareness, and control. Put another way, changes are involved in students' ideas about learning (e.g., discussion can be "real work," considering mistakes can contribute to learning), attitudes toward learning (e.g., there is benefit to my learning in investing the effort needed to engage with tasks and in taking risks by publicly expressing a point of view), and learning behaviors (e.g., asking questions about issues that are puzzling). One substantial difficulty in fostering these changes is that it is often quite impossible to meaningfully describe to students what the benefits of the changes will be before starting to teach in this manner. It is necessary to slowly build towards the changes through successive classroom experiences and to reward (via the nature of assessment) the consequences of students engaging intellectually in the ways we describe. Regular, short debriefing of successful experiences in terms of the nature of the learning behaviors (e.g., pointing out the value to the development of ideas by the class of a "wrong" answer that raised an important issue) is one important component of strategies for achieving this student change. Another was referred to in 6.2.2 of our mechanics sequence. It is common for teachers who are first hearing about or reading about these ideas to be sceptical. We frequently experience such reactions in our professional development work with other teachers, with comments about classroom management and content coverage often being made. The issue of content coverage has already been discussed; classroom management is not an ongoing issue when students are genuinely engaged. Our approaches have been used by many teachers, and the PEEL project (already frequently referred to in this chapter; Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992) provides many classroom examples of these approaches. We reinforce this assertion of the feasibility of our approaches by concluding with an extract from a class disscussion in one of our classes. The class is a Grade 10 in an average government high school. Two views of whether or not a table pushes up on a book placed on it have already been advanced: the table does not push up, initially advanced by Katie ("The table does not push up on the book, it just stops it falling; a table can't push"); the table does push up with a force equal and opposite to gravity, initially advanced by Ward. Other students have advanced arguments to support one of these views. The teacher has set up a meter ruler

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supported at either end and with weights placed at the middle of the ruler as an ex ample of a much more flexible "table." (This is in 5.1 of the above sequence.) The extract begins with Ward commenting on the meter ruler demonstration. Comments in italics were inserted by the teacher to provide explanation of his thinking and decisions. Ward:The ruler is pushing up, it's like a spring, because when you put it the weight( on it, it's like you've loaded a spring. If you took it off it's going to spring back up. (This comment could lead to the class working out how a table can push up. I wa nt it noted, but I don't want to reveal my views yet.) Teacher:So you reckon because it's bent it's pushing back up? II am extracting neutrally what I see as the key new point Ward is making.] Ward: Yes.

Brad:If it was pushing up, wouldn't it be straight? 'Brad is reacting to Ward's views. His argument is a common one. Brad cannot (yet) picture the ruler pushing up and not moving up. This issue is central and I want it thought through. I respond to Brad similarly to how I responded to Ward. Teacher:If it's pushing up wouldn't it be straight ... so you're saying it's not pushing up at the moment because it's bent? Brad and Kay:Yeah. Ward:'interrupts' It must be pushing down with the same power as it's pushing up. Teacher:So you're saying gravity is pulling down and the ruler's pushing up Danielle:'interrupts] If it was pushing down the same as it was pushing up the ruler would be straight. I Danielle now introduces a new possibility. I want everyone to be clear on what it is so I draw a diagram of her view beside the summary of the views of Ward and Katie that I drew earlier. Danielle's view, that there must be some upwards force, may be very useful in moving toward Newton's Third Law.] Teacher:All right. So Danielle's argument is ... they can't be equal and opposite because the ruler would not be bent. Danielle:It could be a force going up and bigger force going down. Teacher:OK. So you're prepared to accept some upward force, but it must

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be less than gravity down, so your drawing of this one, Danielle, would be 'Teacher draws diagram'. You're prepared to accept that (points to an upward force) but because the ruler's bent, this one (the downwards force) must be bigger. Ward:If there was more force pointing down, then why isn't it going down? Kay and Danielle: 'interrupting) But it has it has gone down. This is the start of a sequence of student-to-student debate where I don't even need to maintain a chairperson role. The students are very involved and interested. I Ward:But it's notit's not moving down, what I mean is it's not moving now. So if there's still more force pushing down, then it's not still going down. Danielle:But it can't be equal. Brad:But it's like adding more weight on the floor. It can't go down any further. Ward: Why not?

lames:Because he hasn't got any more weights. I Not a very useful comment.) Ward:If there's still more force pushing down, why can't it bend? Brad:Because this is the baseyou knowI mean if you stick the books on the table they're not going to push the table under the ground. I Brad believes that the rigid floor does not need to exert an upwards force to prevent weights placed on it from moving downwards.) Ward:The table would just push back up again. Kay:Anyway if you put those weights on this table 'points to a classroom table) they're not going to go down. Danielle:No, but if you put heavier things on it, it might. I Kay may be getting convinced by Ward. She raises the important point that we have achieved little by showing a ruler table bends under a weight unless we can also show that "real" tables bend. I intend to show this later by standing students on tables. I don't want to discourage Kay, but I do want to stop the discussion becoming too complex by dealing with two sorts of tables at onceDanielle has made a good point. I decide to intervene, to promise Kay we will address her query but to try and resolve one issue at a time.) Teacher:OK so we will have to go back and check on this 'classroom) table later, won't we. You're saying on this 'ruler] table, I've rigged the situation

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a bit, Kay, because I got a bendy ruler. OK. We'll come back to that ... probably today ... but let's just stay with this situation ... 'the ruler table) may not be identical to that, but it's a situation in its own right. Kay: Yeah.

II think that Kay trusts me to remember to return to her point.) 5. Metacognition and Conceptual Change 163