A1 (Arnold) Lerning The Scientific Story 1996 PDF

Learning the Scientific “Story”:
A Case Study in the

Teaching and Learning of
Elementary Thermodynamics
MICHAEL ARNOLD and ROBIN MILLAR

Department of Educational Studies, University of York, Heslington, York
YO1 5DD, UK
This article argues that learning, in many areas of science, involves the learner in
coming to see phenomena from the perspective of a mental model, or “story,” of the
science domain involved. Using elementary thermodynamics as an example, the
structure of an introductory teaching unit is described and justified. A key element of
this approach is the introduction, using a concrete analogy, of a model of thermal
processes which incorporates the central concepts of heat, temperature, and thermal
equilibrium. Evidence of students’ understandings of key ideas as they work through
this unit, in postinstruction interviews and in a delayed posttest, are presented as evi-
dence of the outcomes of this approach. The approach enabled a significant propor-
tion of the student group involved to demonstrate understanding of the key ideas,
and facilitated monitoring by the teacher of progress in students’ understanding dur-
ing and after the teaching. 0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
INTRODUCTION
In this article, we describe and discuss an approach to the teaching of elementary
thermodynamics to 12- 13-year-old students which focuses on promoting and con-
solidating conceptual change in the classroom toward the accepted science view. This
uses a concrete analogy to provide initial access to a model of simple thermal
processes which is then consolidated through a series of classroom and laboratory ac-
tivities designed to facilitate group and class discussion using the terms of the model.
Learning elementary thermodynamics (in common with many other areas of basic
science) involves accepting a model of, or “story” about, the behavior of one aspect
of the natural world. The story introduces a number of specific terns and provides an
account of their behavior and interrelations (it establishes an ontology of the area).
Learning about an area of science is the process of coming to view the world through
the terms of the accepted “story.” Although the use by a student of key terms from
Science Education 80(3): 249-281 (1996)

0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0036-8326/96/030249-33
250 ARNOLD AND MILLAR
the “story” is not, in itself, convincing evidence that he or she has understood the un-
derlying model, the ability to use the language of the “story” to provide extended oral
or written accounts of phenomena or events which are new to them (perhaps by par-
ticipating in discussion with an “expert,” such as the teacher) is perhaps the clearest
indicator we have of “understanding.” Indeed, it has been argued (Rorty, 1989) that
the ability to participate successfully in discourse is what we mean by “understand-
ing.”
By the term “story” we do not wish to imply the use of a narrative as a context for
the development of scientific ideas, as in the work of Bransford and his colleagues on
anchored instruction (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt University,
1992). Our use of the term is intended to convey the complex and interrelated set of
ideas which constitutes the accepted scientific explanatory framework for a particular
domain of science education. The “story” that all matter is composed of invisible par-
ticles which behave in certain ways, or that diseases are transmitted by microscopic
organisms, are examples. This usage of the term “story” corresponds closely to that
of Sutton (1992).
Often the scientific “story” about an aspect of science differs quite radically from
children’s prior conceptions. Children do not simply “induce” the scientific account
from their everyday experience of phenomena and events. There is also much evi-
dence that conceptual change toward the accepted science view is not produced sim-
ply by creating cognitive conflict between the learner’s current views and specific
experiences or observations (Nussbaum & Novick, 1982). Students may ignore such
conflict, or resolve it in ways different from those intended by the teacher (Osborne
& Freyberg, 1985, pp 86-88). More productive approaches may be to build upon the
intuitions the learner already has (Clement et al., 1989), or to provide an alternative
theoretical account (the scientific “story”) and help children come to see its advan-
tages over their prior ideas (Rowel1 & Dawson, 1984; White & Honvitz, 1988). Our
approach to elementary thermodynamics teaching is closest to this latter strategy. The
first step is to provide children with a model of thermal processes, and then to give
them opportunities to use this, in practical activities, group discussion, and writing,
so that they gain familiarity with the model and come to see how it can be used to ac-
count for phenomena.
This view of teaching and learning does not apply only to elementary thermody-
namics. We see this account as a case study exploring, in the context of one specific
science domain, an approach which has more general applicability in school science
education.
TEACHING ELEMENTARY THERMODYNAMICS

The difficulties that students experience in coming to terms with the scientific
ideas of heat and temperature are familiar to science teachers and well documented in
the literature (Erickson, 1979, 1985; Tiberghien, 1983, 1985). The terms “heat” and
“temperature” are commonly regarded by students as synonymous. Although many
children are able to use a thermometer to take temperature readings, they often esti-
mate the temperature of an object on the basis of its size, the material from which it
is made, or the use to which it is put (Tiberghien, 1985, p. 77). The transfer of energy
ELEMENTARY THERMODYNAMICS 251
is often attributed to an inherent motive force possessed by heat itself (e.g., “heat
rises”), or to the properties of an agent (such as air) which transfers heat from one lo-
cation to another (Erickson, 1985, p. 57). Students frequently fail to take all parts of
the interacting thermal system into account when reasoning about heat flow (p. 75);
in particular, they may not consider the surroundings important (p. 81).
Understanding of thermal equilibrium, the process by which two objects initially at
different temperatures come to a common final temperature, is, therefore, very rudi-
mentary. Children do not always consider that objects in the same thermal environ-
ment will have the same temperature. This confusion is reinforced by the contrast
between the cold sensation generated by touching a good conductor such as metal
(e.g., a pan), and the warm sensation of touching an insulator such as the pan’s
wooden or plastic handle (Tiberghien, 1985, p. 71). The intensive nature of tempera-
ture is not appreciated by many students (Erickson, 1980), who inappropriately use
addition to predict the final temperature when two samples of water at different tem-
peratures are mixed (Strauss & Stavy, 1983).
THE THERMODYNAMIC ‘‘STORY’’

Central to the teaching approach we adopted for elementary thermodynamics is the
realization that the ideas of heat, temperature, and thermal equilibrium can only be
clearly and consistently differentiated within a complete model, or “story” of thermal
phenomena. The two central ideas in the scientific “story” about thermal events are
heat and temperature. These, however, are interdependent; neither can be defined
without referring to the other. Temperature, in macroscopic thermodynamics, is the
property of a body which determines whether or not there will be a net flow of heat
into it or out of it from a neighboring body, and in which direction (if any) the heat
will flow (Isaacs et al., 1984, p. 688). Conversely, heat is energy in the process of be-
ing transferred from one body or system to another because of a difference in their
temperatures’(p. 3 17). The scientific “story” about thermal phenomena then says that,
if two objects at different temperatures are placed in thermal contact, heat will spon-
taneously flow from the one at higher temperature to the one at lower temperature.
For a given pair of objects, the bigger the temperature difference, the greater the rate
of heat transfer. If (net) heat flows into an object, its temperature rises; if (net) heat
flows out, its temperature falls. This means that, as heat is transferred from one object
to another, the temperature of the hotter object falls, and that of the cooler object
rises. After a time they both reach the same temperature. They are then said to be in
thermal equilibrium with each other. These are not, of course, the terms we would
use in talking about these ideas to learners in the early secondary school. Putting it
formally, however, indicates just how demanding is the entire structure of ideas, or
mental model, that the learner must acquire in order to come to see thermal phenom-
ena from a scientific perspective. Our argument is that the “story” must be accepted
as a piece; it only makes sense as a complete “story.” Simply presenting temperature
as a measure of the “degree of hotness” of an object, and heat as a form of energy
which is present in hot objects, as do many courses at this level, does not lead to un-
derstanding.
Almost all thermal events, of course, are more complicated than the simple
situation described above, and often involve heat exchanges with the surroundings.
In reasoning about these it is essential to recognize clearly the boundaries of the sys-
tem, and to take into account all the elements of the thermal interaction. So, for in-
stance, an object can be held at a steady temperature above that of the surroundings
(an example might be a pan of water on a low gas flame). This we interpret, in the
terms of the “story,” as the result of a balance between heat flow into the object (to
the pan and water from the flame) and out of the object (from the pan and water to
the surrounding air). This is a second, dynamic, type of thermal equilibrium, in which
heat gain is equal to heat loss, resulting in steady temperature. A further complication
is that heat exchanges may occur at different rates, due to differences in thermal con-
ductivity. So, for example, if hot coffee is poured into a cold cup, the temperatures of
the coffee and of the cup will become equal quite quickly, before both fall together to
reach, eventually, the temperature of the surroundings.
The style of explanation outlined above, where a theoretical model, or “story,”
identifies and names relevant entities and their interactions and behaviors, is charac-
teristic of science. Providing access to such models, and practice in this style of ex-
planation, is a central aim of science education. Without such access, students appear
to find making sense of scientific phenomena extremely difficult (Driver et al, 1994;
Edwards & Mercer, 1987). Their retention of factual material and ability to apply the
results of their learning are then compromised. The intended outcome of science edu-
cation, which we commonly refer to as “understanding,” is most convincingly
demonstrated by the ability of students to engage in reasonably extended discourse
about phenomena using the terms of the theoretical model.
In a recent study on the teaching of elementary thermodynamics, Linn and Songer
(1 99 1) adopt a very similar view of the teaching problem. They describe a series of
curricula, each a development of earlier versions, all based upon the teaching of a
“pragmatic model” of thermal phenomena centered around the idea of heatflow. The
work described in the present article was planned and underway before we knew of
Linn and Songer’s work. We are, however, encouraged by the similarity of the gen-
eral approach. We will return, in the next section, to consider some differences be-
tween our work and theirs.
First, however, a comment is perhaps necessary on our decision (and that of Linn
and Songer) to use a heat flow model of thermal phenomena. Some science educators
have argued that the term “heat” is itself a source of misunderstandings and should
be avoided (see, e.g., Summers, 1983; Mak & Young, 1987). They propose that the
term “heating” should be used to refer to the process by which energy is transferred
from one object to another because of a temperature difference between them. As a
result, the internal energy of one object becomes less and of the other, greater. It is
our experience, however, that children need extensive opportunities to talk about and
to reflect upon everyday and laboratory experiences of thermal phenomena if they are
to separate the two ideas of temperature (an intensive property) and internal energy
(an extensive quantity). In so doing, they will inevitably use the word “heat” in its
everyday sense, which encompasses both the notion of a stored quantity (internal en-
ergy) and of a quantity in transit (heat). We believe that a policy, on the teacher’s
part, of systematically rephrasing children’s utterances to replace “heat” with some
other, more acceptable term, will either pass largely unnoticed by the children or will
become an additional source of confusion. We would see the successful separation of

a composite notion of “heat/temperature” into two clearly differentiated concepts
(one intensive, the other extensive) as an important landmark in children’s under-
standing of thermal phenomena and as a significant cognitive achievement in its own
right.
CONTEXT AND RESEARCH METHODS

In planning and carrying out this study, we were constrained to work within the re-
sources of the inner city middle school where one of us (MA) teaches. The teaching
approach we describe was used with a year cohort of 94 students, aged 12- 13, over a
period of 6 weeks, in the time normally allocated to science. The performance of this
group of children on standard tests of verbal reasoning (Richmond tests)
(Heironymous et al., 1974) used by the school was below the national norm (scoring
on average, 85.7 on a reading comprehension test with a standardized average score
of 100 ? 10 points). A majority of the children (over 90%) come from ethnic minority
groups and many have difficulties of expression in basic English. Most students
speak one of six Asian languages at home. A recent inspection of the school con-
cluded that:
Standards of reading, writing, speaking, listening and numeracy are unsatisfactory

and adversely affect achievement across the cumculum.
The budget allocation to the school for staffing, books, materials and equipment is
below the average for metropolitan authorities.
The capitation allocation barely covers the essential items requested by subject coor-
dinators and heads of year.
Standards of reading are low. . . . many pupils have difficulty reading accurately
and fluently . . . their skills of interpreting and responding to books are not well
developed. . . . their speaking skills are generally underdeveloped and they have
too few opportunities to express points of view or take part in sustained discussion.
Thus, the context of the evaluation was in no sense privileged.

All teaching was carried out by one of the authors (MA). The most obvious differ-
ence between our work and that of Linn and Songer (1991) is in terms of scale and
resources. Where they investigated the effects on four cohorts of 100-200 students
of four successive versions of a 13-week curriculum, all of which made extensive use
of computers and other educational technology, we considered the effects of a single
teaching unit. In our setting, simple practical apparatuses, such as thermometers and
laboratory glassware, were available but there were no special computer facilities. A
positive consequence of this, of course, is that our approach may transfer more read-
ily to other teaching contexts.
While Linn and Songer (1991), like us, identify the teaching of a model of thermal
phenomena as central to their approach, they do not explain in detail how they first
introduced this model to their students. This we see as the crucial element of our
teaching approach. In order to introduce children to the scientific “story” about ther-
mal phenomena, we chose to use a concrete analogy, which we then linked very
explicitly to a quite complex thermal situation, at the beginning of our teaching pro-
gram. The analogy, which was demonstrated practically to the class, consisted of a
glass container with a water inflow at the top and outflow from the bottom, both of
which could be controlled by valves (Fig. 1). Students were asked to consider how
the water level in the container could be raised, lowered, or maintained at a constant
level, by adjusting the rates of water inflow and outflow. Emphasis was given to the
fact that the three factors of interrest in this analogical model were the rates of water
inflow and outflow, and the resultant water level in the container. Students' attention
was particularly drawn to the relationships between these quantities as determinants
of whether the container would fill, empty, or remain at a constant water level. In the
following lesson, groups of students carried out a practical investigation in which
they measured the temperature at intervals of 1 minute of water in a metal can,
heated by a small candle (Fig. 2). The volume of water and the distance from candle
to can were chosen to ensure that the water temperature rose initially from around
20°C to around 50" to 60°C and then remained constant. Students were then asked to
explain these observations of temperature. The third stage of teaching was to make
explicit the links between the analogy and the heating investigation. This involved
providing (orally) a careful scientific account of the heating investigation, and dis-
cussing at length the links between specific features of the water analogy (water in-
put, water output, and water level) and the thermal situation (heat input, heat output,
water input
control valve (input)
water level
water output
Figure 1. Water flow analogy for heat, temperature, and thermal equilibrium.
B digital
thermometer
tin 4-11 1
water
candle \I/
Figure 2. The water heating experiment.
and temperature, described initially as a measure of the “level of heat” in the system).
By learning the equilibrium model as applied to the water analogy before being intro-
duced to the more complex case of thermal equilibrium, students already have avail-
able a coherent model within which to interpret the (invisible) movement of “heat.”
The in-built cohesion of the already familiar model enables students to begin to cope
with the ideas of heat, temperature, and thermal equilibrium simultaneously, rather
than sequentially, as in more conventional approaches to elementary thermodynam-
ics. In this way, the integration of science knowledge into a coherent framework is
achieved from the outset rather than being a problem to be addressed later.
The accessibility of this analogy to children of the target age, and its utility in in-
troducing thermal ideas, were investigated as a preliminary stage in the development
of this teaching approach (see Arnold, 1993). This led us to expect that only a very
few students of this age would be able to identify spontaneously the links between
the analogy and the thermal situation, and that most would even find this difficult if
prompted through “Socratic questioning.” This developmental work, however, also
suggested that those who were (or became) able to map the analogy onto the thermal
situation were then able to use a coherent model of thermal processes in discussing
other thermal situations. Hence, we decided that the analogy-based approach was
useful, but that explicit teaching of the links between analogy and the “target system”
would be an essential part of the teaching.
The remainder of the teaching was designed to give students practice in using the
basic “story” of thermal phenomena, as a means of consolidating their understanding.
Thus the primary focus was on integration of science knowledge with everyday un-
derstandings to produce more consistent and coherent accounts of simple thermal
phenomena. Activities included mixing of equal and unequal volumes of water at dif-
ferent temperatures, placing hot and cold metal blocks in contact and measuring their
temperatures over time, and removing samples of water from a large container and
measuring the temperatures of the water removed and that remaining. All were
accompanied by extensive opportunities to use the language of the scientific “story,”

through discussion in small groups and in written tasks.
Data on students’ performance and understandings were obtained from their writ-
ten answers to questions in class and from interviews conducted with individual stu-
dents and pairs of students as the teaching proceeded. Some of these interviews were
informal and spontaneous, when classroom events suggested that useful data might
be collected. Others were more formal, following particular pieces of work, and at
the end of the teaching unit. All formal interviews were tape recorded, with the stu-
dents’ agreement, and transcribed later. In addition, a diary was kept of key events
during the teaching. A delayed posttest (after 16 weeks) consisting of written diag-
nostic questions was used to collect evidence of students’ learning and retention of
key ideas.
This approach to curriculum research addresses the frequent call (see, e.g., Linn,
1987) for closer links between educational research and practice. As a result, how-
ever, it is open to the standard criticism of classroom-based research, that extraneous
variables which cannot easily be controlled may have a significant influence on the
outcomes. It is also constrained by the opportunities available for this sort of curricu-
lum intervention. For these reasons, an illuminative evaluation design (Parlett &
Hamilton, 1976) was chosen, treating all the children as the “experimental” group
and using comparison with previous experience of more conventional approaches as
the “control.”
Our principal research questions in conducting this study were:
1. Does the “story” based approach, in which the key terms are introduced to-
gether at the outset and then consolidated through multiple examples, result in
improved learning (as compared with our experience of other approaches)?
2. Does this approach facilitate teachers’ monitoring and evaluation of student
progress during the teaching unit?
In the remainder of the article, we will present evidence of student learning, before
returning in the concluding section to consider what answers this might offer to these
two questions.
THE TEACHING INTERVENTION

The Water Flow Analogy
The analogy described in the previous section (Fig. 1) was demonstrated and dis-
cussed, emphasizing its utility as a general model of a system in dynamic equilib-
rium. It appeared to be very well understood by a large majority (75 of the 89
students present). A typical response to a written question on the means of controlling
the water level in the analogy apparatus was:
You can make the water level rise by putting more water in at the top than that com-
ing out at the bottom. You can make the water level fall by putting less water in at
the top than at the bottom. You can make the water level stay the same by putting the
amount of water in at the top same as the bottom.
The Heating Experiment-Initial Understandings

Students heated a tin of water with a candle (Fig. 2) and obtained tem-
perature-time data with which to construct a graph. This showed an initial rise of
water temperature, followed after a few minutes by a constant raised temperature.
Students’ initial understandings of the outcome were probed with a worksheet. About
two-thirds of the students noticed and recorded the leveling of the water temperature.
The commonest explanations of this were the inadequacy of the candle, or some spe-
cific feature of the experimental arrangement. Three students, however, either made
the connection between the analogy and the heating experiment spontaneously or al-
ready knew the explanation, as they stated that heat being lost from the can-and-
water was equal to the heat being supplied. The first response below comes from the
same student whose explanation of the water flow analogy was quoted above:
The heat that is going in is going back out.

I think the temperature of the water doesn’t keep on rising even though you are still
heating the water because the warm air or the steam keeps on coming out of the top
of the jar so the water will not rise any more because all the hot steam or heat that is
being gived of [sic] from the candle under the jar is coming out of the top therefore
the temperature in the jar or the water stays the same and it has reached its highest
temperature or the boiling point. So that means the amount of heat being given into
the jar by the candle is rising into the air from the top.
I think the temperature of the water does not rise any further even though we are still
heating the water because the steam keeps on coming out of the top of the jar the
temperature does not rise because the hot heat given of [sic] the candle under the jar
is coming out of the top theirfor [sic] the temperature will not rise and it has reached
its boiling point.
As no student in the earlier phases of our study (Arnold & Millar, 1994) made this
connection spontaneously, we are inclined to attribute this success to the teaching of
the water analogy. Though some features of these explanations differ from the scien-
tific interpretation, heat loss is explicitly mentioned and the equality of heat input and
output strongly implied. An interesting idea implied by these responses is that the
highest temperature reached in the experiment is the boiling point. The meaning of
this term for these children appears to differ from the scientist’s usage as the temper-
ature at which liquid rapidly turns to vapor. For these children, the boiling point ap-
pears to represent the highest temperature a liquid can reach when heated.
Making the Connections

A video recording of the water flow demonstration and the heating experiment was
used to initiate this lesson, in which a careful exposition of the scientific explanations
of the two phenomena (equal water flow in and out results in equilibrated water level
in the analogical system, and equal heat flow into and out of an object results in
equilibrated temperature in the thermal system) was made, pointing out the important
quantities involved and stressing the irrelevance of details of apparatus or method.
Students were persuaded to articulate the features of the model to each other verbally
without benefit of the written explanations, and several were willing and able to com-
pare the two systems for their classmates. When asked to complete a written work-
sheet on “making sense of our experiments,” which required students to present
extended explanatory answers in the student’s own words, many students success-
fully explained the features of the two systems in scientifically appropriate terms.
Examples of successful explanations are:
We kept the water at the same level by controlling the input and the output of water
and making it the same (the water coming in to the jar the same as the water coming
out of the jar).
The temperature stayed at the same level because the amount of heat input was the
same as the amount of heat output (heat going into the jar the same as the heat going
out of the jar).
We put the same amount of water in as the same we let out. The temperature kept at
the same level because the heat from the candle that went into the tin came back out
from the top of the tin in the same amount.
Failure to understand was largely confined to a small group of students who had a
record of finding science work difficult to accomplish. One boy, for example, per-
sisted with his original explanation of the heating investigation:
because the water was very cold and the candle wasunt that powerfull to heat it up
[sic]
Written Evidence: Is the Model Understood?

To evaluate the effectiveness of this first stage of the teaching, accumulated evi-
dence was sought in all of the students’ written work completed thus far (from the
water analogy, heating experiment and “making the connections” lesdons, plus
homework) that the idea of a system in dynamic equilibrium had been understood.
This written work required students to account for a variety of thermal phenomena
in extended answers following on from group or class discussion, either for home-
work or during a subsequent lesson. The work was examined for evidence indicat-
ing understanding of the key ideas of a balance between that which enters and
leaves an object or system. In total 70 students produced written answers which in-
dicated that they could apply the analogy to the interpretation of the heating experi-
ment. If the two systems are indeed logically equivalent, and explanations can be
made in like terms for the two situations, then it was to be expected that, providing
the mappings between the two systems had been made clear to the students, they
should then be able to interpret both in scientific terms. By embracing the analogy
so effectively, students had already demonstrated that the logical aspects of the
problem were within their grasp. The positive outcome of explicit teaching of the
mapping seems to indicate that students can recognize the two systems as capable
of explanation with the same kind of interpretive model.
A further encouraging feature of the written responses was the students’ concentra-
tion on the principles behind the experimental procedures, and the almost complete
absence of detailed descriptions of apparatus or irrelevant aspects of method.
Interim Interviews: Is the Model Understood?

To investigate whether the ideas put forward in writing were actually used by the
students in oral explanation, a small number of interviews (9) were carried out with
students who had provided correct and comprehensive responses to the written
work. Interviews were tape recorded and transcribed for analysis. Questions were
also asked about other thermal events, such as the outcome of switching on an elec-
tric fire in a cold bedroom and the maintenance by humans of a constant body tem-
perature.
All nine students could articulate the water analogy and use the model to explain
the water heating investigation in scientific terms. Six of the nine could extend the
model to interpret the result of turning on a small fire in a cold bedroom. One stu-
dent’s beliefs were difficult to interpret, and two others did not appear to be able to
explain this thought experiment in the appropriate manner.
As an example of a positive response, student AP stated:
AP: Cos you know the room’s like a box . . . and heat’s coming out . . . then
eventually the heat sort of escapes into the . . . gaps . . . and then it even-
tually stays the same.
I: And when it stays the same . . . what can you say about the amounts of
heat?
AP: The amount of heat coming in . . . right . . . is the same as going out.
Perhaps the best response to this item was NA’s:
NA: The temperature will reach a certain level . . . then it’ll stop . . . because
the amount of heat coming into the room will be escaping outside.
I: Very good. . . . can you think of some way . . . when that’s happened . . .
and you’ve got this steady temperature. . . . can you think of some way of
making the room warmer?
NA: Blocking the passage underneath the doors and closing all the windows.
I: Now what does that do? . . . what does that change?
NA: Theamountofheat . . . escaping.
The two incorrect responses suggested that the room would simply heat to the “tem-
perature . . . that the gas could get to” and that the “cold air in the room is at the
same temperature as the hot air.” This answer was provided by a boy who, through-
out this study, tended to use the constructs “heat” and “cold” in his explanations, and
also in his interview showed a consistent tendency to reason in terms of one variable
or construct at a time (an approach which Rozier and Viennot [ 19901 have noted and
termed “linear causal reasoning”).
NA, who had responded very well to all the previous examples, was asked:
I: Let’s try a really hard one then . . . you know that living things . . . hu-
mans . . . keep their body temperature at 37?
NA: Yeah.
I: They do it by burning food . . . getting energy from food.
NA: Yeah
I: What would happen if . . . just as you are . . . you went outside when it
was very cold . . . to your temperature?
NA: Well. . . . the temperature inside my body will escape.
I: Mmmmm.
NA: Erm. . . . then my body will need to have to ... burn more fuel to make
mewarm . . .
I: Good. . . . and it will burn more fuel . . . until . . . what happens?
NA: Until I reach my normal temperature.
It will be noticed that even this able student uses the term “temperature” instead of
the correct term “heat” in this reply. Though differentiating these two terms securely
in the previous work, here, when faced with a new and difficult situation, she implies
that temperature can be lost from her body by a process of cooling.
Nevertheless, the interviews suggest that the analogy had been learned by all nine
students, and the mapping of its features onto the heating investigation was success-
fully accomplished by six of the nine students.
Applying the Model in Other Contexts

Although 70 students appeared to be able to apply the learned model to the heating
experiment, the intention of the teaching sequence was to enable students to apply
the model to a variety of contexts. Several extension activities were thus presented at
this point.
To reinforce the idea that “heat spreads out” (i.e., moves spontaneously from high
to low temperatures), two experiments were performed in the next laboratory session,
one a demonstration involving placing together two equal masses of aluminum, one
hot and one cold, and recording their temperature changes, and the other (performed
by students in pairs) involving mixing water at different temperatures and measuring
the temperature of the resulting mixture.
At the end of the session the experimental results were discussed by groups of stu-
dents together; the teacher contributed to some discussions but did not supply expla-
nations. Students were invited to write explanations of the two experiments (for
homework or at the next scheduled science lesson) and these responses were then an-
alyzed. The tendency which many students often display to swell on procedural detail
or features of the apparatus (see, e.g., Arnold & Millar, 1994) appears again to be
minimal in many of these replies. For example:
Two metal blocks touching:

The hot block started at 163°C and the cold at 24°C. In about 2 mins time the hot
one decreased to 146°C and the cold at 44°C that happened because they were both
touching. The heated one was passing heat to the other this happened until the two
blocks were at the same temperature and then they started to decrease together. This
was because the surroundings were cooler than the blocks so they will cool down un-
til they are the same temperature as the surroundings.
Mixing water experiment.
At first the hot water was at 60°C and the cold water was at 25°C. When they were
put together they mixed and the average temperature was 40°C then it started to de-
crease when the water got colder, it started getting the same temperature as the room.
Although these excerpts do not explicitly mention heat transfer, heat spreading out
was mentioned extensively in explanations of the two experiments, spreading not
only between the obvious objects in each experiment, but also between the pair of
blocks and the surrounding air.
. . . the temperature of both blocks was 8 1 “C and after that it was the same because
the heat from the hot block started escaping into the cold block and so the tempera-
ture rised [sic] in the cold block but afterwards when there was the same amount of
heat in both blocks the temperature stayed the same and the temperature from both
blocks when falling was the same.
. . . when they were put together the hot began to lose heat and the cold one began
to gain heat. That carried on to happen until both of them were the same temperature
(81°C) then when that happened the(y) began to decrease in heat but both stayed the
same temperature and carried on until they reached the temperature of its surround-
ings.
These two extracts show the distinction between heat and temperature being used
correctly in explanations. Of 70 students believed to have internalized the taught
model, 48,in the context of the “blocks” task, stated that heat transfers from the hot
aluminum block to the cold one until the two blocks reach a common temperature.
Eight students also explicitly stated that the temperatures of the blocks equalized
with an equal amount of heat in each block. (Both blocks had the same mass.
Unequal mass blocks would have provided a more severe test for misconceptions,
but were not available. For this reason an experiment involving mixing unequal
amounts of water was included in the instruction sequence. This is briefly described
below.) Twenty-three students added that both blocks then cooled together to room
temperature. Fifty-four students explained the mixing water experiment in terms of
the model.
Many students, however, were still clearly unable to use the accepted scientific
framework and in particular to distinguish heat and temperature. Some indication of
the extent of confusion is apparent in these quotations:
because the heat is cooling and it is going in the air and the hot water and the cold
water are both cooling and the water are mixed.
The heat was at the bottom and the cold was at the top the heat went in to the cold
and then the heat dissappeard in the air and then the tempreture went the same. [sic]
because the hot mattle heat gose up to the cold mattle and the hot mattle getes lowe
and cold mattle gous haey temperaktre. [sic]
Answers like the last one raise the question: to what extent do the language difficul-
ties of students restrict their ability to reason about the experimental outcomes? It is
not possible to ascertain whether such students understand the scientific model but
find it impossible to articulate, or if the struggle to find the words is a consequence of
not having understood the model. The Assessment of Performance Unit (APU, 1988)
Science and Language teams reported that:
. . . one theme of the joint study of data has been to understand where and how sci-
entific capability interacts with language performance: Is there any evidence to sug-
gest that competence in one domain might be only indirectly linked to competence in
the other? So far our findings suggest that the links are direct. Pupils who were most
highly rated in both science and language were found not only to have a good under-
standing of the science involved, but also their language was well structured to com-
municate that understanding to listeners or readers. (p. 1)
This evidence suggests that the second language learners involved in the present
study may find their understanding hindered both by the difficulties inherent in the
precision and abstraction of scientific language (Edwards & Mercer, 1987) and, in
particular, by the added challenge of using such language to construct extended ex-
planations (Hewson & Hamlyn, 1984; Curtis & Millar, 1988).
A further experiment on mixing unequal quantities of hot and cold water (in a ratio
of 2 : 1) followed, as this discriminates between those students who have differenti-
ated (or begun to differentiate) the intensive quantity “temperature” from the exten-
sive quantity “heat” and realize that the quantities of water mixed affect the outcome.
Forty-seven students used the taught model, relating the resulting temperatures to the
relative amounts of hot and cold water which were mixed. For example:
In the first experiment we added more hot water than cold and the temperature mixed
was 60°C. This is higher than the cold water but lower than the hot temperature. In
the beaker the heat was shared equally but the result was more closer to the hot water
because it contained more hot water.
There are 213 of cold and 113 of hot water when the heat is shared the temperature of
the water is closer to the cold water because there is more cold water than hot.
At this point the distinction between heat and temperature was raised again in a class
discussion about a thought experiment involving removing water from a swimming
pool with a bucket. A tank and beaker were initially used to simulate the pool and
bucket, with a digital thermometer to measure temperatures, but the discussion was
moved into the realm of thought rather than reality after a few minutes. It was em-
phasized that water removed from the pool was at the same temperature as the pool;
removal of this water did not change the pool temperature, but “heat” was removed
in the bucket. Increasing the temperature of the water in the bucket could be easily
and quickly accomplished by a simple gas ring, whereas increasing the temperature
of the pool by the same amount would take much more energy and time. The reason
was related to the quantity of water involved. Temperature was independent of water
amount, but heat was mass dependent. In the course of this discussion, some ideas
about behavior at the atomic/molecular level were introduced, in particular the dis-
tinction between the total energy of molecules (heat) and average energy of mole-
cules (temperature). The decision to introduce these ideas was taken on the basis that
the students had already encountered the ideas of atom and molecule (very simply) in
previous teaching.
Written questions based on this work (but completed up to 1 week later) asked
about the temperatures of the pool and the water removed, whether heat was removed
from the pool in this process, and what would be required in energy input terms to
heat larger and smaller quantities of water through the same rise in temperature. A
large majority of the students produced correct answers and employed encouragingly
diverse language in which to frame their explanations. For example:
The temperature will stay the same because the average temp is 20" around it and re-
moving the water wont [sic] change the average.
If you take a bucket of water out of the pool the temperature would be 20C [sic] be-
cause the temperature cannot be divided and the only way you could make the tem-
perature rise or fall is to add cold or hot water.
The temperature of the bucket would be at 20°C because it is not affected by quan-
tity of the water.
The temperature would be 20°C because the temperature isn't the amount of water
taken out. It is the average energy of the molecules of water in the pool.
Seventy-three students answered that the pool temperature would be unchanged by

removing water and, of these, 69 stated that heat would be removed.
Extension of the Model

After the intervention of a 2-week holiday, teaching continued with a further ex-
periment, the interpretation of which required an understanding of the model of ther-
mal equilibrium, and some differentiation of the concepts of heat and temperature.
Equal quantities of hot water were placed in a vacuum flask and a beaker, and their
temperatures recorded every minute for 15 minutes. Both sets of data were plotted on
a temperature-time graph, and the students were then asked questions about. their
understanding of the different outcomes in the two cases. The questions were:
1. If the starting temperatures are the same, and the amounts of water are the same
in the beaker and the flask: What does this tell you about the amount of HEAT in
the beaker and the flask at the start of the experiment?
2. What happened to the TEMPERATURE in each container?
3. What happened to the HEAT in each container?
4. WHY does the water in each container behave differently?
Students who appeared, from their answers to the preceding four questions, to have a
good understanding of the scientific model were also asked a further question:
5. If we did the experiment again starting off with icy water at a temperature of 0”
Celsius in the beaker and the flask, what would you expect to happen to the tem-
peratures after, say, half an hour? Why?
The answers were analyzed in terms of the students’ differentiation of the concepts of
heat and temperature, their understanding that heat moves from regions of high to
low temperatures, and their grasp of the fact that the surroundings of an object may
be involved in heat transfer. Question 5 provided an alternative context in which to
apply these ideas to check if students could generalize from their experience.
Fifty students recognized that the two containers started out with equal amounts of
heat, with seven students deducing that the flask’s continued high temperature im-
plied it had a larger supply of heat. One boy replied:
There was more heat into the flask because it had some wool covering the top.
It is not clear whether this reply indicates a belief that “warm” materials contain heat
(Tiberghien, 1985), or whether the student did not take notice of the question’s refer-
ence to the start of the experiment and described the outcome. Unfortunately, 23 stu-
dents did not answer the question at all.
In response to questions 2 and 3,63 students observed that the flask remained at an
approximately constant temperature while the beaker temperature fell more quickly
and were able to state that the reason for this was that heat escaped from the beaker
to the surrounding air, but stayed in the flask. These students were therefore aware
that a change in temperature implies a gain or loss of heat. When asked, in ques-
tion 4,to explain the difference between the two cases, the fact that attention had
been drawn to the use of a cotton wool plug to replace the flask stopper (to enable a
thermometer to be left in the water in the flask and still be read) may have led 36 stu-
dents to account for the flask’s ability to retain heat solely in terms of the cotton
wool. Other explanations relied on the beaker being open and uncovered, suggesting
a “heat rises” interpretation, and “the air” featured prominently in several other re-
sponses.
The extra question about the experiment with iced water aimed to identify those
who could apply the same principles to an inverse situation. Without a good under-
standing, students might be expected to predict that the temperature in the beaker
would fall as before. Some students did indeed make this prediction.
In half an hour the water would to down to minus.
Twenty-nine students, however, correctly inferred that the temperatures would tend
to rise toward room temperature.
The ice in the beaker after half an hour will rise to about 16°C the temperature in
flask will stay the same or there about maybe rise to 1°C.
Again, this activity showed that many students used the terms “heat” and “temper-
ature” appropriately, appreciated that gaining or losing heat affects the temperature of
an object, and took the surroundings of the object into account in reasoning about its
temperature. By this we mean they could apply the model to infer that heat was lost
by the beaker but retained by the flask. Though some students may have been unsure
about the mechanism by which the flask retained heat (cotton, wool, or otherwise),
the principle was clear to them. The 63 students who could apply the model in this
context is very similar to the number believed to have learned the model initially
(70).
Table 1 summarizes the learning outcomes reported above. The variation in perfor-
mance from task to task is due, in part, to variable attendance, with between 10 and
20 students absent from any lesson. On the basis of their overall performance, 62
students were judged at this point to have understood the taught model of thermal
processes.
EVALUATION OF LEARNING OUTCOMES

Evaluation of students’ developing conceptions was an integral part of the teaching
sequence, and large quantities of written and observation data were obtained for each
student. The teacher (MA) had spent over 15 hours working with the students on this
material, actively trying to discover the conceptions they held, and, in effect, con-
ducting mini-interviews throughout the teaching sequence. One consequence of plan-
ning a teaching sequence in terms of the principles, concepts, or models which the
student is intended to learn, is that it focuses the teacher’s attention, in evaluating stu-
dent progress, on a small number of key features of learning (Arnold & Millar, 1987).
Understanding can be assessed by informal observation and discussion with students
as the work proceeds. The opportunity was taken during the teaching to compare the
estimate of individual students’ learning arrived at in this way, with a more formal
evaluation based on the marking of written assignments such as worksheets and
TABLE 1
Students’ Understanding of Situations Discussed in the Teaching Unit (n 94)
Number
Successful
Understandingof water analogy 75
Use of taught model to explain heating experiment 70
Use of taught model in various contexts:
Two metal blocks 48
Mixing water (equal quantities) 54
Mixing water (unequal quantities) 47
Swimming pool thought experiment 69
Cooling water in beaker and flask 63
freely written explanations. For reasons of space, the details of this comparison can-
not be set out in detail here (for a full account, see Arnold, 1993), but the outcomes
are summarized in Figure 3. The generally good agreement between formal and in-
formal evaluation of students’ understanding increases our confidence in the reliabil-
ity of evaluation by the teacher, when this is centered on the understanding of a small
number of key ideas and models.
Students’ written work was also analysed for evidence of specific conceptions
which differed from the accepted scientific ones and of any unresolved conflicts.
Examples of persistent difficulties included:
0 The use of a construct “cold” in parallel with “heat.”

0 The belief that heat is a property of certain materials.
0 Continued conflation of the concepts “heat” and “temperature.”
0 A tendency to reason, in multivariate situations, in terms of one variable at a
time (linear causal reasoning).
It can be seen, however, that students’ ability to use the taught thermal model appears
to be somewhat context dependent, in that success rates in extension activities re-
ported above vary (Table 1). In order to further evaluate students’ learning as a result
of the teaching program, two other forms of data collection were undertaken to sup-
plement the written and observation data described above:
0 A sample of ten students, chosen to represent a range of performance, were in-

terviewed about their understanding of the scientific model of thermal
processes immediately after completion of the teaching; students were asked
to explain the water analogy, the heating experiment, the water mixing, blocks,
Figure 3. Comparisonof observational and written assessments of students’understanding.

swimming pool, and flask and beaker experiments, then questioned about
other phenomena such as heating a room.
0 After an elapsed period of 16 weeks, a written posttest was administered to the
whole year group. This included questions on the taught systems and experi-
ments, home heating and sentences to be marked “true” or “false,” testing for
common misconceptions such as “Temperature is how much heat there is in
something.”
Immediate Postinstruction Interviews

These interviews consisted largely of a recapitulation of the sequence of work pre-
viously undertaken, with discussion and questioning about the major points which
the teaching had been intended to emphasize and with the addition of questions about
analogous situations, for example, the heating of a room by an electric fire. The over-
whelming impression gained from these interviews was that they corroborated the
evidence of the classroom observation, and of the oral and written evidence from
class discussion and students’ written work. Some forgetting of details was apparent,
but no student whose written work had suggested an understanding of the key ideas
subsequently appeared not to have understood these at interview. This increases con-
fidence that the understandings of the majority of students who were not interviewed
may be reasonably deduced from the other data collected, as reported above and
summarized in Table 1.
Delayed Posttest: Written Diagnostic Questions

As the aim of the teaching program was to produce a long-term change in chil-
dren’s understanding of thermal processes, a more significant evaluation of learning
was a written posttest administered to the group 16 weeks after the end of teaching.
This was administered in normal lesson time without prior warning. Seventy-six stu-
dents were present, with 18 absentees. No assistance was given in the interpretation
of the questions and students worked individually to complete the test. The work-
sheet tested the extent to which the analogy and the scientific explanation of the heat-
ing experiment had been remembered, and students’ ability to extend the scientific
model to examples of heat “spreading out” and to simple domestic heating situations.
Checks for particular misconceptions reported in the literature (thermometers mea-
sure heat, temperature depends on the material itselo, and for ideas promoted during
the teaching (heat spreading, heat and temperature differentiation) were also in-
cluded.
The water analogy was recalled by 70 students. A typical response was:
The amount of water going in is the same amount that is going out so the level stays
the same.
Only 30 students, however, recalled that the temperature of the water in the tin in the
heating experiment rose then leveled. Others had apparently forgotten what hap-
pened, or had reverted to earlier forms of explanation:
It started to rise then it fell back down to origonal temp [sic] of water.
When the candle is first used it has more heat and the it slowly go's out steadly. [sic]
Twenty-nine students gave the accepted scientific explanation for the leveling of
temperature (that heat loss equals heat input), compared with 70 at the time of
the teaching intervention. Twenty-three students simply recalled the temper-
ature rise and explained it by stating that the water was being heated. About a
third of the students apparently took the view that the temperature of the water
would continue rising. Some of those who recalled that the temperature leveled-
off offered alternative explanations such as the candle melting or not being strong
enough (as in the quotation above), while several students provided no answer
at all. In this case, the rather disappointing drop in the numbers offering a scien-
tific explanation appears linked to a lack of recall of the "facts of the matter"-
that the temperature rises at first and then levels-off. This suggests that the use
of the scientific model to predict unknown (because, in this case, forgotten) be-
havior poses a significantly greater challenge than using it to account for observed
behavior.
A question on mixing water at different temperatures (60°C and 20°C) produced a
more encouraging 46 students who overcame the reported tendency to add tempera-
tures and recognized that the final temperature would be the average of the starting
temperatures. Two good examples are:
The temperature will be 40°C because 60" + 20" + 2 = 40"

The temperature will be 40°C because the cooler water takes heat out and mixes into
even warm water.
Alternative suggestions included many of 8O"C, some of 2OoC, and some blank an-
swer spaces.
A cloze procedure paragraph, relating the heat spreading into two metal blocks in
contact, produced 61 students placing all of seven given words in the correct gaps.
Responses to such items are difficult to interpret, as students may be simply using
terms without understanding. Errors can be informative, however, as where students
exchanged two words, writing: "When the heat of the blocks became the same there
was an equal amount of temperature in each block." This suggests a continuing lack
of differentiation of heat and temperature.
Questions about the removal of water from a swimming pool indicated that, while
61 students recognized that the water withdrawn from the pool would have the same
temperature as the pool and 58 realized that the pool temperature would be un-
changed, only 23 answered that the amount of heat in the pool was reduced by re-
moving some water. Fifty-two students believed that the quantity of heat in the pool
was unchanged in this thought experiment. Again this answer suggests a continuing
(or re-emerging) conflation of heat and temperature.
A question asking why the temperature of a cold room rose initially when an
electric fire was switched on, but eventually became constant, showed that 36 stu-
dents could, in test conditions, apply the learned model to a new situation. For ex-
ample:
It never gets any hotter because the amount of heat going into the room from the fire
is coming out or escaping from the room.
Heat escapes from under the doors and windows and other places it can escape from
so the room stays same becaus [sic] the same amount of heat that is coming from the
heater is going back out so it stays the same.
The temperature rises because more heat is coming in the room than going out. The
temperature stops rising because same amount of heat is coming as it is going out.
The alternative explanations to this question are varied and illuminating. Nine stu-
dents assumed that the temperature of the room equilibrated when the amount of heat
from the fire matched, or equaled in some way, the capacity of the cold air, or the
amount of heat in the air had risen to equal that in the gas.
The room never gets any hotter because there is the same amount of heat in the air as
there is in the gas.
If the temp is 20°C it can not get more because that is the amount the room can trap.
The fire in the bed room does not get hot because it has just been on for a little time.
then after a little time the room will be hotter.
The temperature of the room does not change because the same amount of heat and
temperature is coming from the fire.
The room never gets any hotter because in the room there is cold air so the hot air
and the cold air mixes together and does not get hot when the fire is on.
The third quotation above appears to be a phenomenological response in which the

student “explains” by recounting his previous experience. Other students implied that
20°C was the natural temperature that a bedroom would get to, or that since the out-
put from the fire was constant then the temperature would be constant. A large major-
ity of the students persisting with the use of nonscientific explanations were in the
group which was judged not to have learned successfully from the teaching material
either on the basis of classroom observation or on written work scores (see Figure 3).
Rather than quote further excerpts from students’ written answers, it may be more
useful now to consider how the conceptions of particular students can be shown to
have been modified by the teaching sequence. Table 2 summarizes the posttest re-
sults.
THREE DIFFERENTIATED CONCEPTS?

The discussion in the previous section concerns the extent of learning and reten-
tion of key ideas by the group as a whole. This provides no information on the con-
sistency of individuals’ responses to different questions and contexts. To explore this,
we now need to consider the progress of some individual students through the teach-
ing unit.
In this section, the work of four students will be traced in detail. (Similar accounts
of other students can be found in Arnold [1993]). Student A appears to have learned
the material comprehensively, whereas student B, although demonstrating a good
TABLE 2
Summary of Posttest Results (n = 76)
Number
Successf uI
Recall behavior of water analogy 70
Recall outcomes of water heating experiment 30
Use of taught model to explain heating experiment 29
Use of taught model in various contexts:
Two metal blocks 61
Water mixing (equal and unequal quantities) 46
Swimming pool thought experiment:
Removed water has same temperature 61
Pool temperature is unchanged 58
Heat is removed from pool 23
Heating a cold room 36
grasp of the principles of thermal equilibrium, seems to have regressed somewhat as

regards distinguishing heat and temperature by the time of the posttest. Student C un-
derstood the analogy but could not apply it to thermal phenomena, and student D ap-
peared not to show any conceptual changes as a result of the teaching sequence.
Student A
Student A clearly understood the water flow analogy:
You can make the water level rise by putting more water in the top than that coming
out at the bottom. You can make the water level fall by puttin(& less water in the top
than that at the bottom. You can make the water level stay the same by putting the
amount of water in at the top same as the bottom.
Confirmation of his good grasp of the principles of the analogy was obtained in his
response to the water heating experiment. He was one of only three students who
were able to interpret this experiment using the water analogy spontaneously:
The heat that is going in is going back out.
After being taught the connections between the analogy and the heating experiment
he stated:
If there was more input heat the temperature will rise.

If more heat was escaping the temperature fall.
If the input heat = the output heat the temperature will stay same.
Here again, student A's facility with the mental model is such that he presents all
three possible outcomes to the experiment, one of which (the second) he has neither
seen occur during the teaching sequence nor talked to his teacher about previously.
This prediction represents his extension of the model to the explanation of why ob-
jects cool, and it demonstrates that he is able to extend the model on his own initia-
tive.
In the “heat transfer” experiments he again shows an ability to apply the model,
and select appropriate boundaries for the system under consideration:
The hot block temperature is much higher than the room temperature so it starts los-
ing heat the cold block starts getting the heat and the hot one loses heat until the(y)
both level out then they both starts losing heat together until the(y) reach room tem-
perature.
Student A was able to understand both water mixing tasks, and the swimming pool
questions were answered successfully:
The temperature in the bucket will be 20°C becouse temperature is not effected by
the quantity of water. [sic]
Yes we have taken heat out of the pool because in the bucket there are molicules and
molicules are heat. [sic]
This [heating up the pool] would take a lot of time becouse you need more heat for
the swimming pool becouse there is a lot of water. [sic]
In these extracts student A demonstrates the differentiation of heat and tempera-

ture, and knowledge of the fact that the amount of heat in a substance is related
to the quantity of that substance. He also shows understanding of the reason for
heating and cooling in this answer to the “ice in the vacuum flask and beaker”
question:
The ice would stay the same in the flask becouse nothing can get out or in an(d) it
would stay the same the ice in the beaker will melt becouse heat can get in. [sic]
Sixteen weeks later, student A had perfect scores on seven of eight questions on the
posttest, and demonstrated a grasp of the concepts of thermal equilibrium, heat, and
temperature which approximates very closely to that taught.
Student B
Student B is a quiet, industrious boy with a positive attitude to learning, but is re-
served in practical work and does not take the lead or offer verbal contributions in
lessons. His understanding of the water analogy was excellent, and his initial expec-
tation for the heating experiment fairly common:
I thought the temperature would rise to certain extent and then stay there for some
time and then increase to boil the water.
The water temperature does not rise because the candles heat was not powerful
enough to actually boil the water the candles heat was only 37°C so the water only
went up to 36°C.
The conflation of heat and temperature in this reply is obvious. Student B later
learned to map the analogy on to the heating experiment well, and used his new
knowledge about the tendency of heat to spread out in his explanation of the metal
blocks experiment:
The heated one was passing heat to the other this happened until the two blocks were
at the same temperature and then they both started to decrease together this was be-
cause the surroundings were cooler than the blocks so they will cool down until they
are the same temperature as their surroundings
In this quote, student B uses the idea that heat will be transferred between two ob-
jects in contact until their temperatures equilibrate, and extends this idea to include
the surroundings. He therefore skillfully extrapolates from the system consisting of
the two blocks, which is of initial interest, to include the surroundings, using the idea
of temperature difference causing heat transfer in both cases. His answer differenti-
ates between heat and temperature, as do his responses to the mixing water experi-
ments:
It was 40°C because the average temperature is about 40°C because the cold
water took some heat from the hot water and cooled it down. [equal mixing
expt.]
When you have two lots of cold and 1 lot of hot and you mix them together the tem-
perature will be near to the cold because theres less heat to be shared to the cold wa-
ter.
In the swimming pool thought experiment student B also demonstrates the distinction
between heat and temperature, though his assertion that “heat is molecules” indicates
some misunderstanding.
Yes I have taken heat out because heat is molecules and when you take water out
you take heat out but you dont change the temperature because the average tempera-
ture of the bucket is 20°C.
Further evidence of student B’s developing scientific conceptions is provided by the

flask and beaker experiment, in which students were reminded of the model of ther-
mal processes developed earlier, and made aware that the experiment was an investi-
gation into the relative abilities of two containers, one specially designed and
constructed to minimize heat travel, the other not:
In the flask the heat was trapped and couldn’t get out but in the beaker it escaped.
The icy water in the flask will stay the same because heat cant get in or out and the
water in the beaker will melt and the temperature will stop to room temperature be-
cause heat can get to it.
The idea that heat travel can be prevented by some materials better than others is im-
plied in these answers, and student B realizes that heat can, in different circum-
stances, flow either into or out of a container. He should have said the “ice” will melt,
and his use of the phrase “stop to room temperature” is interesting. This appears to
mean that the temperature will rise until it reaches room temperature and then “stop”
rising.
Student B was one of the students selected for interview and this confirmed the
conceptions ascribed to him from the evidence of his written record and researcher
observation.
In the delayed posttest student B produced almost perfect answers for most ques-
tions, except for some ambiguity in his explanation of the heating experiment:
Because after some time the temperature of heat going in will be same as going out.
This might be interpreted as a heat/temperature confusion, a view which is corrobo-

rated by his statements, in another answer, that: “Temperature is how much heat there
is in something” and “A thermometer measures how much heat there is in some-
thing.” His other responses suggest he has grasped the essentials of the teaching se-
quence, and he was one of the minority of students who supported the view that
removing water from a swimming pool does not change its temperature, but does
change the amount of heat in the pool. It seems that student B has partially relapsed
into an earlier understanding of the relationship between heat and temperature.
Continual reinforcement of the appropriate use of these concepts appears to be neces-
sary to maintain the distinction during this early stage of learning about thermal phe-
nomena. Otherwise his learning of the material is good.
Student C
A further group of students apparently understood the analogy, but did not learn
how to apply this model consistently to explain thermal phenomena. One such stu-
dent, student C, serves to illustrate possible reasons for this failure. Student C
made a tentative start in her learning, and though’referring to the input and output
of water in the analogy worksheet she did not explicitly state that the two flows
must be equal for the water level to remain constant. After she was taught the con-
nections she was able to articulate this fact, and in her explanation of the heating
experiment stated:
Heat going in = heating going out the temperature stays at the same level.
With the “heat spreading” work a hint of insecure knowledge can be discerned in her
“metal blocks” explanation:
The heat of the cold block goes down and the temparature of the cold block rises be-
cause hot objects only lose their heat when they are hotter than the surroundings.
[sic]
Assuming the first “cold” in this quote was a simple error (for “hot”), this still sug-
gests that heat and temperature are not differentiated securely, though the water mix-
ing experiments do not appear to confirm this:
When hot and cold water is mixed the temparautre doesnt rise it falls to the avarage
of the two becouse temparature is the avarage. [sic]
If you have a lot of hot and less cold than the final temparature will be hoter. [sic]
If you have a lot of cold and less hot than the final temparature will be cold. [sic]
The “swimming pool” lesson also produced evidence to suggest that student C had
overcome her initial problems with the scientific view:
No I haven’t changed the temperature of the pool becouse [sic] no matter how much
water you take out the water will be the same.
Yes I have taken some heat out.
As well as learning how to spell “temperature” student C appears to have differenti-

ated heat and temperature, but the construction “no matter how much” sounds very
much like a remembered quotation from the teacher, and in the following flask and
beaker experiments student C’s confusion resurfaces, perhaps because she is not sure
which is the flask and which is the beaker.
In the flask the temperature rised and in the beaker the temprature was lower. [sic]
In the thermos the heat kept warmer by the wool. And in the beaker the warmth was
going out.
The water in the (thermos flask-[crossed out]) beaker was fading away a lot.
The beaker will be cold and the flask will even colder becouse it has more ice in it. [sic]
Here, student C explains the temperature difference in terms of the quantity of ice in
each container, rather than the thermal properties of each container.
After 16 weeks, in the posttest, she could almost remember the significance of the
water analogy but did not state the two flows were equal:
It tells us that when the water comes in the jar it comes out again that’s why it is
staying the same level.
As for the heating experiment, student C appears to have either forgotten the result,
or, more likely, reconstructed her memory of it to fit her original conceptions. She
states:
The temparature of the water goes higher becouse of the heat. [sic]
This happens becase the water gets warmer under the tin. [sic]
Her “water mixing” answer could be charitably construed as correct:
40°C becase you can half the answer or devide to 80 to 40. [sic]
However, a significant transposition of terms in a cloze procedure question of the

posttest resulted in student C stating “When the heat of the blocks became the
same there was an equal amount of tempatatures [sic] in each block.” Further con-
fusion surfaced in the “swimming pool” question where she stated that the tem-
perature of water in the bucket was not 25OC, as it was in the pool. Nevertheless
she selected as correct the statements that the pool temperature does not change
on removing water, and that the amount of heat in the pool changes on removing
some water. When asked to apply the taught model to the new context of room
heating, student C wrote:
The room never gets hotter because there isn’t much air in the room and the room
probbally is big and there is the same temparature. [sic]
The fact that student C also was of the opinion that temperature is how much heat
there is in something, and that a thermometer measures how much heat there is, con-
firms that she has returned to conceptions of heat and temperature which are very
similar to those she held at the beginning of the teaching sequence, and has not been
able to make use of the significant features of the water analogy explanation. Thus
the teaching sequence was not sufficient, for this student, to produce a lasting differ-
entiation of the concepts of heat and temperature. This serves to emphasize the
strongly persistent character of the original conflated heathemperature idea, and sug-
gests that a more detailed and extended sequence of lessons, or a program in which
such ideas are revisited at regular intervals, may be needed to produce lasting con-
ceptual change for many students. Nevertheless, student C’s conceptions were ini-
tially modified, suggesting that a scientific view of the domain was within her grasp
with more, or better, teaching.
Student D
Such optimism does not appear so appropriate with the group of students from
whom student D’s work is quoted as an example. He does have general difficulty
with science work, and his mathematics and English also give cause for concern. It
may well be that his language difficulties impaired his ability to engage with the ab-
stract nature of this learning task. His written work is difficult to read and compre-
hend, but he is conscientious and represents a sizeable minority of school students. A
policy of “science for all” surely implies the need for research on how such students
cope with the demands of school science; adopting the view that science learning is
impossible until the child’s English is remediated may result in even less progress be-
ing made. The appropriate use of scientific mental models is a sophisticated exercise
in the precise use of language, and may itself be able to play a part in the develop-
ment of better language skills.
When first shown the water analogy, student D’s responses were at a perceptual
level. Completing a worksheet in which parts of the analogy apparatus were shielded
by card, and the student had to reason about what was occurring, behind the card,
student D simply stated what he saw and did not “explain”:
You can see that top of the water but you can’t see the bottom of the water.
The level of the water is the same you olny [sic] can see the middle bit.
One of his answers may provide some evidence that student D is manipulating the
model mentally:
you have to shut the bottom tube it will rise up you have to open at the bottom tube it
will come down. fill the jar and then shut the tube at the bottom. I(t) will stay the
same.
His explanation of the heating experiment again has a strong perceptual component:
The cannles flame stays the same. Also it is far from the beerer [beaker]. [sic]
Student D is perhaps here suggesting that a constant flame implies a constant tempera-
ture; nothing is changing and therefore no explanation is required. On the “making
sense of our experiments” worksheet student D evidently found it difficult to make
sense of the connections between the two examples. He stated that “nothing was com-
ing out of the jar” in the analogy, that we put “termperature” [sic] into the “water tin”
in the heating experiment and believed that “noting [sic] was coming out from the tin
of water.” Not surprisingly, the water mixing experiments were mystifying to him:
The hot water trempurder goes up and up and the cold water goes olney a bit. [sic]
We put thomonter in the beaker the tempature rise. It was 78 HOT COLD 20. [sic]
Student D, probably acutely aware of his difficulties, sought the assistance of another
student in writing up his “swimming pool” worksheet and, therefore, will not be
quoted here. With the beaker and flask experiment the teacher (MA) spent some time
with him trying to clarify the key ideas, after which he wrote, unaided:
The heat in the beaker is the same also in the flawk. [sic]
The turmeatre in the flawk is more than the teamtue in the beaker. [sic]
The flawk heat is traped and the heat in the beaker is in the air. [sic]
In the flawk the air is traped and the heat in the beaker is not traped. [sic]
Student D’s difficulties with language are apparent from these responses. As regards
understanding, he had recorded the outcome of the experiment appropriately, and had
realized that the reason for the differences was related to the movement or nonmove-
ment of heat. He also seems to believe that equal amounts of heat were in the beaker
and flask at the start of the experiment, and he knows that the heat which was ini-
tially in the beaker is in the air at the end of the experiment. However, the last sen-
tence quoted above implies that he regards “air” and “heat” as being interchangeable
constructs.
Not surprisingly, 16 weeks later student D’s understanding of heat and temperature
had declined. His memory of the analogy was again perceptual; “the water coming
down and throgh [sic] the bottom.” The heating experiment prompted the response
“the temperature of the water gets hotter and hotter . . . because the candle is lit.”
The water mixing experiment suggests that student D has problems with mathematics
as well as science:
We will get 70°C. I had 60°C and 20°C.
Here student D’s word “had” means “add.” When confronted with a question asking
why the temperature of a heated room eventually becomes steady, student D wrote:
becuase no one bese in the room. [sic]
(The idiosyncratic declension of the verb “to be” is very common in the area in
which this school is situated.) It is not clear whether student D’s reply implies that
people heat rooms with their body heat, or that things only change as a result of hu-
man agency. Student D appears unable consistently to separate the description of ex-
perimental results from their explanation. For such students, the idea of a scientific
explanation itself needs explanation.
Student Learning Outcomes

The four students described above represent the wide range of outcomes of the
teaching intervention. The first two, chosen as representatives of the students who
were believed to have understood the material, have internalized the mental model of
the water analogy and have successfully mapped it on to a variety of novel heating
phenomena. They have demonstrated the ability to choose the boundaries of the sys-
tem; to reason about it in scientifically appropriate terms; and to use the three con-
cepts of heat, temperature, and thermal equilibrium in their analyses (with some
regression in the case of student B). Student C readily understood the water analogy,
but did not acquire competence in applying the model of thermal phenomena.
Student D found the whole teaching approach extremely difficult to engage with,
though this appears to be related to his general problems with learning in a second
language, rather than being specific to the approach itself. Table 3 summarizes the
learning outcomes for these four students.
Positive outcomes of the teaching were not, however, purely cognitive; the effect
on students’ motivation and attitude also merits mention, though we did not make
TABLE 3
Comparison of Four Students’ Learning
Demonstrated Understanding of: Student A Student B Student C Student D
Water analogy Yes Yes Yes No
Water heating experiment Yes No No No
Connection between systems Yes Yes ?? No
Metal blocks experiment Yes Yes ?? No
Water mixing (equal quantities) Yes Yes Yes No
Water mixing (unequal quantities) Yes Yes ?? No
Cooling water in beaker and flask Yes Yes No ??
Ice-cold water in beaker and flask Yes Yes NIA NIA
Posttest questions Very good Good Poor Very poor
any attempt to measure or quantify this. As observed in previous research on a differ-

ent science topic (Arnold, 1986), a teaching approach which concentrates on the con-
struction of explanatory models appears to give many students a positive sense of
achievement and learning. The resulting increase in motivation, coupled with the
sense of working together on a shared problem, virtually eliminates disciplinary
problems and minimizes time-wasting distractions. Time spent “on task” increases
markedly. In the present study it generated a businesslike feeling of progress in
which children were observed rushing to lessons in order to get a “good” seat at the
front of the lab!
FACTORS INFLUENCING LEARNING

The present analysis has concentrated on describing, in some detail, the nature and
extent of changes in students’ understanding of elementary thermodynamics as a re-
sult of the teaching approach adopted. The reasons why the teaching sequence as-
sisted some students to reconstruct their knowledge in this domain, but failed to
modify other students’ conceptions, are likely to be complex but are also important to
consider.
The most obvious criterion affecting successful learning was the attendance of stu-
dents at the appropriate lessons. Only 50 of the 94 students involved in this study had
full attendance. Data on children’s attendance and their subsequent understanding of
the model is presented in Table 4.The association between attendance and under-
standing is statistically significant (x2= 3.84; p <0.05).
Because of the hierarchical structure of many science topics, absence from critical
lessons can have long-term and cumulative effects on subsequent progress. In the
case of a carefully sequenced teaching program, the consequences of absence may be
even more acute. This is clearly a key methodological issue for classroom research
on learning, and one whose distorting influence on the research process is difficult to
circumvent.
The posttest results also allow a central source of difficulty to be identified: the
persistence of a single, conflated conception of heat and temperature. This single fac-
tor largely accounts for the reduction from 70 students who could use the analogy to
explain the heating experiment immediately after the teaching sequence to 29 who
could do so at the time of the’posttest. The clearest evidence to support this conclu-
sion is the set of alternative explanations provided in the posttest, which are similar
TABLE 4
Influence of Student Absence on Achievementa
Did Not
Understood Understand
Model Model Total
~ ~~
Full attendance at lessons 38 12 50

Some absence 24 20 44
Total 62 32 94
aEntries show number of students in each category.
to the explanations provided by uninstructed students (see Arnold & Millar, 1994).
This tendency to regress has been well documented in the literature in many topic ar-
eas. Perhaps the best that can be achieved is to minimize the extent to which it oc-
curs. This might involve planned reinforcement, through a “spiral” curriculum
design, in which key conceptual ideas are revisited at regular intervals.
Another key factor influencing the outcome appears to be the general educational
attainment of students. Independent estimates of attainment in mathematics and
English were available for the students in this study, in the form of standardized
scores on the Richmond Tests of Basic Skills (Hieronymous et al., 1974). Though the
average score in the sample was below the national average of 100, some students
had scores on vocabulary, reading comprehension, mathematics concepts, and math-
ematics problem solving which were close to or above average (90- 113). Scrutiny of
students’ performance shows that those who failed to benefit from the teaching se-
quence came predominantly from the subgroup of students with Basic Skills scores
in the range 75-90. Hence, difficulties with spoken and written English and with ba-
sic numeracy may account in part for their performance. As we have suggested ear-
lier, the intimate relationship between “understanding” and the ability to use abstract
language clearly and consistently appears to be at the heart of the difficulty. The chal-
lenge for science educators is to find ways to use this core requirement of science
learning as a vehicle for language development, rather than to view such develop-
ment as a prior requisite for science learning.
To summarize the positive requirements for successful learning: attendance at the
crucial lessons, near average attainment in English and mathematics or better, and
regular reinforcement of key ideas (in this case, the differentiation of the concepts of
heat, temperature and thermal equilibrium) appear to be necessary, though not suffi-
cient, conditions.
CONCLUSIONS
To return to the two research questions with which we began, we consider, in the
light of our experience of teaching elementary thermodynamics to similar groups of
students in the past, that the “story”-based approach described above leads to im-
proved learning. The appreciable number of students who could still apply the taught
model without notice or any cues to assist recall 16 weeks after the teaching interven-
tion (see Table 2), bearing in mind the general educational attainment levels of stu-
dents at the school concerned, persuades us that the approach is worth developing
and adopting more widely. In the development phase of this study (Arnold & Millar,
1994), 220 students’ conceptions about heat and temperature were investigated. None
showed an understanding of thermal phenomena in terms of the scientific model
which matched the successful students in the present study, although 110 of them
were about to take national examinations at age 16 in science. As a further bench-
mark, we might note the Children’s Learning in Science Project’s finding (Brook et
al., 1984) that the proportion of 15-year olds able to apply scientific ideas about heat
transfer varied from 6% to 15%depending on the context, with many students using
the constructs of “heat” and “cold” in their explanations.
Direct comparisons with other research studies of teaching approaches and learning
outcomes, in elementary thermodynamics or in other science domains, are not possible
because of the considerable differences in the age and nature of the student samples
used in different studies, in the levels of resource available, or in the context of the
teaching. Our view that the approach described is a significant improvement which
merits further exploration and development is strongly influenced by the low levels of
general educational achievement and language skill among the student group involved,
and by our experience of previous approaches with their predecessors.
We also consider that the approach described above, centered around a small num-
ber of key ideas, is particularly helpful in facilitating teacher monitoring of student
progress. As we have indicated, analysis of written work, observation, verbal ques-
tioning, and conversations during practical work, provide evidence of students’ think-
ing which correlates well with evidence collected by other more formal methods
(Figure 3). From the interaction between teacher and learner over many hours of
working together in the construction of new knowledge, each student’s developing
understanding of the scientific model of thermal phenomena can be evaluated with
some accuracy. By taking students’ existing views into account, and through the use
of analogy, discussion, experimentation, and debate in a social setting, the approach
facilitates the use by many students of a mental model of simple thermal processes
which conforms more closely to the accepted scientific model.
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Accepted for publication 15 July 1995

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Learning the Scientific “Story”:

A Case Study in the

MICHAEL ARNOLD and ROBIN MILLAR

Science Education 80(3): 249-281 (1996)

TEACHING ELEMENTARY THERMODYNAMICS

THE THERMODYNAMIC ‘‘STORY’’

become an additional source of confusion. We would see the successful separation of

CONTEXT AND RESEARCH METHODS

Standards of reading, writing, speaking, listening and numeracy are unsatisfactory

Thus, the context of the evaluation was in no sense privileged.

control valve (input)

Figure 2. The water heating experiment.

accompanied by extensive opportunities to use the language of the scientific “story,”

THE TEACHING INTERVENTION

The Heating Experiment-Initial Understandings

The heat that is going in is going back out.

Making the Connections

Written Evidence: Is the Model Understood?

Interim Interviews: Is the Model Understood?

Applying the Model in Other Contexts

Two metal blocks touching:

Seventy-three students answered that the pool temperature would be unchanged by

Extension of the Model

In half an hour the water would to down to minus.

EVALUATION OF LEARNING OUTCOMES

0 The use of a construct “cold” in parallel with “heat.”

0 A sample of ten students, chosen to represent a range of performance, were in-

Figure 3. Comparisonof observational and written assessments of students’understanding.

Immediate Postinstruction Interviews

Delayed Posttest: Written Diagnostic Questions

The temperature will be 40°C because 60" + 20" + 2 = 40"

The third quotation above appears to be a phenomenological response in which the

THREE DIFFERENTIATED CONCEPTS?

grasp of the principles of thermal equilibrium, seems to have regressed somewhat as

The heat that is going in is going back out.

If there was more input heat the temperature will rise.

In these extracts student A demonstrates the differentiation of heat and tempera-

Further evidence of student B’s developing scientific conceptions is provided by the

This might be interpreted as a heat/temperature confusion, a view which is corrobo-

As well as learning how to spell “temperature” student C appears to have differenti-

Her “water mixing” answer could be charitably construed as correct:

However, a significant transposition of terms in a cloze procedure question of the

We will get 70°C. I had 60°C and 20°C.

becuase no one bese in the room. [sic]

Student Learning Outcomes

any attempt to measure or quantify this. As observed in previous research on a differ-

FACTORS INFLUENCING LEARNING

Full attendance at lessons 38 12 50

Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge. London: Methuen.

Accepted for publication 15 July 1995

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