STUDYING CONCEPTUAL CHANGE AS A

NEWEST STRATEGY TO STUDY

SCIENCE

Septika Shania M Br Sinaga

4163131028
Kimia Dik C 2016
STUDYING CONCEPTUAL CHANGE AS A NEWEST
STRATEGY TO STUDY SCIENCE

The goal of this article is to review recent result on

conceptual change and to attempt to set research agendas for
studying the conceptual change process.

This classroom experience has enable us to witness

first hand students constructions new understanding, which
only serves to increase our excitement about further
studying the change process.
 While there is more than way to organize thinking
about the conceptual change process

• How Can We Describe Conceptual Change?

1.

• What Is It That Is Changing, I.E., What Are Conceptions?

2.

• Is Every Example Of Conceptual Change Different Or Are There Categories Of

3. Conceptual Change Which Can Organize Teacher’s Thinking In Useful Way?

• What Conditions Must Be Established To Initiate The Process Of Conceptual

4. Change? Do The Conditions Differ For Specific Examples Of Conceptual Change?

• How Can The Process Be Nurtured Once Initiated? Should This Nurturing Process
5. Differ For Different Example Of Conceptual Change?

• What Evidence Should Be Looked For To Determine That Conceptual Change Has
6. Occured?
 Conceptual Change
A more effective approach is one
that encourages students to
questions their beliefs, to catch
themselves in explanotory
incoherences, and to engage in a
process of changing those beliefs.
In other words, diseguilibrations
most occur in their thinking.
Research Agenda Item: Wee
need to be able to describe
conceptual change i detail. To
date, there is no concensus
within the research
community about how to
describe the process of
conceptual change.
 An Example of Conceptual
Change

Student typically enter

introductory physics with the
conception., “motion implies
My view on
force”, together with an
conceptualchange can be
undifferentiated view of motion.
through observations of a Even if stundents can recite
sequence of conceptual Newton’s three laws of motion
changes induced in students their responses to questioning
involving the relationship and their problem-solving
between force and motion performance usually reveal
conceptions which are not in
accord with their statement of the
laws.
This Conceptual Change Is Represented As A Shift “Refined Initial
Conception” To “First Version Newtonian Conception”in Figure

A Series of Conceptual Changes

 What Is It That Is
Changing ?

Briefly, one sees “alternative conception” used to describe

the incorrect answers student give to specific guestion. One
also sees it associated with the particular physical situation
in wich student give answers which differ from those of the
scientist, and one sees it used in the more fundamental way
that my colleagues and I use it

Research Agenda Item : Attempt to reach a consensus on the nature

of conceptions. If we have several different notions about the nature
of conceptions , then we will have differing answer to the subsequent
agenda items. This is less likely if we eventually reach some sort of
consensus.
 Categories Of Conceptual Change :
Toward A Taxonomy Of Conceptual Change
If each instance of conceptual
change differed from every other
teachers would need to have
knowledge of all the instances leaving
them dependent on the research
community to provide an analysis of
each and very conceptual change
expected in a course.
Research Agenda Item : Identify
categories of conceptual change
which ard functionally useful in the
classroom . It appears that
conceptual change can be organized
into a taxonomy . The categories in
this taxonomy are characterized by
unique changes in the
representations of conceptions from
the pre-conception to the post-
conception and by unique features of
the strategies which seem to induce
the type of conceptual change are
meaningful , then they can be used to
guide instruction.
 Based on experience in the classroom and understanding of conceptual
changes described in the literature I will suggest the following three potential
categories as a start for a taxonomy :

 Differentiation : new concept emerge from existing more general concepts

 Class extensions : existing concepts considered are found to be cases of one
broader
 Reconceptualization : a significant change in the nature of and relationship
between

Differentiations :
 Differentiations Of Velocity And Acceleration Out Of The Less Specific
Idea Of Motion
 Differentiation Of Electrical Current And Electrical Energy Out Of The Less
Specific Idea Of Electricity And
 Differentiation Of Our Tactile Sense Of Hot And Cold , From Temperature
And From Heat .
 The General Treatment Strategy For Inducing
Differentiation Is:

 The development of trusted extensions of the senses and

 The concomitant additional exposure to the phenomena,
 A focus on inducing disequilibration via these new tools by
based on contrast between the reports of the tools anh the
studetns’mprevious onceptions
 Establishing a “town meeting”, facilitating environment
whish supports the student community in a discussion to
develop and test new ideas
Class Extension :
Another conceptual change process which seems
to constitute a taxonomic category is class extension. For
example is extending the class of objects moving at a
constant velocity to includeobjects with the constant
velocity, zero.

Reconceptualization:
In contras to differentiation and class extension,
conceptual change from “motion implies force” to “acceleration
implies force” is a much profound and coceptually difficult
change. Such changes in students thinking of scientists in the
past which may have occured over a period of decades. I
believe other axamples this kind of change include shifts.
 • From Thinking About Light In The Pre-
ray, “Person-on-the-street” Model Of
1 Light To A Scientific Ray Model Of Light,
Or

• From The Scientific Ry Model Of Light

2 To The Wave Model Of Light

• From Thinking Of Thermal Enery As A

Fluid To Thermal Energy As
An”agitation” Of The Internal Parts Of
3 Body.
 The general strategy for inducing such changes focuses primarily on
student examining their beliefs by attempting to explain or predict some
phenomena and then seeing that existing explanation fail in a way that calls
into question the beliefs alternatives without cocern for whether their
suggestion survive or not and in which these ideas can be tested logically and
phisically by the group, then the student, as a “scientific community”, will
come up with major reconceptualization.

If we find all conceptual changes can be understood as being members

as being members of categories such as those describe above, and that those
categories are associated with general strategic which can be instantiated for
each member of the category, then we will have a powerful tool for inducing
found to fit an existing categories. Even if some examples of conceptual change
should they be categorization, as long as a majority do not, the taxonomy will
be useful. It would not be constructive to wage long argument over the “reality”
of the taxonomic categories. Debate over taxonomy for the taxonomy’s sake, i
believe would be a perversion of its utility.
INITIATING CONCEPTUAL CHANGE: DISEQUILIBRATION

Assimilation is the regocnition that an event (physical or

metal) fits an exsting conception. This recognition process is also a
selective ignoring of discrepancies deemed not salient. assimilations
strengthen existing beliefs or convictions. accomodation is a change in
a belief about how the world works, that is, a change is a conception,
which enables an event to be assimilated that could not have been
assimilated under previosly held conceptions.

It should be noted, before going on that disequilibration is not

contradiction. The latter refers to a logical consequence of formal, truth-
valued statement, but, rather, of the surprise produced when an expected
event does not occur. Conceptual changev does not depend on
contardiction, but on disequilibration. One cannot prove or disprove a
belief. It is better to think it terms of what supports or undermines belief.
 Research Agenda Item : Investigation the nature of
disequilibrated. Can we record it happening so that it can be studied at
some length? Are different types of disequilibrated associated with
different types of conceptual change? In what ways is it useful to think
of the logically –based (objects on the table example) and physically-
based (forces and optics examples) disequilibrated just cited as
manifestations of the same thing? Would it be more useful not to
consider them both as disequilibrated? Can we learn to routinely
disequilibrated students when we need to? Would the notion of
dissatisfaction with a conception (Posner, Strike, Hewson and Gertzog,
1982) be a more generally useful idea than disequilibrated.

Nurturing Conceptual Change

If we stopped at the point of disequilibrated students we would
quickly find that our efforts had largely been a waste of time. If students are
not given a change to build new conception when they find the old ones no
longer satisfactory many conclude that they :just cannot do science”
 Minstrell (personal communication) and I both have
noticed that it is essential to create a classroom environment in
which students are free to suggest tentative ideas and then to
test them without concern for the ‘rightness or wrongness’ of
these ideas.

The radical constructivist position is that knowledge

is a construction of the human mind. The fact that students
majoring in subjects such as Elementary Education and
Theater Arts regularly invent sophisticated ray models of
light and Newtonian ideas about forces supports the radical
constructivist position.
Research Agenda Item : Investigate the process of nurturing conceptual
change. Can we rocord what happens in a way that allows us to study it
after the fact? What are the characteristics of a classroom setting which
nurtures conceptual change? Why is it so helpful to have a community of
peers struggling with the same issue? What skills and knowledge are
required of the teacher to nurture conceptual change?

Identifying Conceptual Change

At present most evaluative methods in science instruction
require the student to perform some skills or to recite or identify some
scientific fact. In repeating a performance or citing a fact, no evidence
of the meaning of that performance or fact to the student is asked for or
evident.
This is evidenced by the frequent discussions among teachers about
alternative ways of teaching ways of teaching a topic which make it
quicker and easier for the students to demonstrate the desired
performance.
 Instruction attemps to get students to examine and
change their beliefs about how and why the world works, then
evaluation of the students should examine their beliefs.
Traditional test items reveal little about students beliefs about
how the world works. Furthermore, if evidence of change is
desired then there should be pre and post – testing of student
conceptions.
Research Agenda Item : Devise methods which can
be used by teachers in the classroom to determine whether
conceptual change has occured. What does it take to be
convinced that a student has a particular conception? Can
strategies for devising these measure in new tests be used by
teachers? What role should conceptual change play in the
determination of student grades?
 Studying Conceptual Change

Action research is a good model here. We need to involve

numbers of people together trying to make sense of phenomena and
we as researchers need to be embedded in the settings so as to get
inimate looks at the process as it occurs, as well as recording it.

Item for a research agenda studying conceptual change:

We need to be able to describe conceptual change in detail
Attempt to reach consensus on the nature of conceptions
Identify categories of conceptual change which are functionally in the
classroom
Investigate the nature of disequilibration
Investigate the process of nurturing conceptual change
Devise methods which can be used by teachers in the classroom to determine
whether conceptual change has occured.