International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change

Stella Vosniadou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136578205
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Conceptual change research investigates the processes through which learners substantially revise prior knowledge and acquire new concepts. Tracing its heritage to paradigms and paradigm shifts made famous by Thomas Kuhn, conceptual change research focuses on understanding and explaining learning of the most the most difficult and counter-intuitive concepts. Now in its second edition, the International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change provides a comprehensive review of the conceptual change movement and of the impressive research it has spawned on students' difficulties in learning.

In thirty-one new and updated chapters, organized thematically and introduced by Stella Vosniadou, this volume brings together detailed discussions of key theoretical and methodological issues, the roots of conceptual change research, and mechanisms of conceptual change and learner characteristics. Combined with chapters that describe conceptual change research in the fields of physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and health, and history, this handbook presents writings on interdisciplinary topics written for researchers and students across fields.

Part I

Theoretical Issues in Conceptual Change Research

1

CONCEPTUAL CHANGE IN LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION

The Framework Theory Approach

Stella Vosniadou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Conceptual change research investigates learning requiring the substantial revision of prior knowledge and the acquisition of new concepts, usually under conditions of systematic instruction (Hatano & Inagaki, 2003; Vosniadou & Ioannides, 1998). The term “conceptual change” was first introduced by Thomas Kuhn (1962) to indicate that the concepts embedded in a scientific theory change their meaning when the theory (paradigm) changes. Posner and his colleagues (Posner, Strike, Hewson, and Gertzog, 1982; see also McCloskey, 1983a, 1983b) were instrumental in seeing the relevance of the problem of conceptual change for the learning of science and the extinction of students’ misconceptions. They drew an analogy between Piaget’s (1970) concepts of assimilation and accommodation, and the concepts of normal science and scientific revolution offered by philosophers of science such as Kuhn (1962), and derived from this analogy an instructional theory to promote “accommodation” in students’ learning of science. According to Posner et al. (1982) there are four fundamental conditions that need to be fulfilled before conceptual change can happen: (1) there must be dissatisfaction with existing conceptions, (2) there must be a new conception that is intelligible, (3) the new conception must appear to be plausible, and (4) the new conception should suggest the possibility of a fruitful program.

This theoretical framework, known as the classical approach to conceptual change, became the leading paradigm that guided research and instruction in science education for many years. In the classical approach, misconceptions are incorrect alternative theories that need to be replaced by the correct scientific views. Students are seen to be very much like scientists who will be led to the scientific view when they become dissatisfied with their existing conceptions and realize the fruitfulness of the new conception. In this context, dissatisfaction with the prior conception became an important prerequisite for conceptual change, making cognitive conflict the major instructional strategy for producing it.

Over the years practically all of the above tenets of the classical approach were subjected to serious criticism. Researchers argued that conceptual change is a slow and gradual affair and not a dramatic gestalt-type shift (Caravita & Halden, 1994; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992); that misconceptions are not inaccurate or misconceived theories but that they should be reconceived as faulty extensions of productive knowledge (Smith, diSessa, & Roschelle 1993); that not only cognitive/rational but also affective and motivational factors have an important role to play in conceptual change processes (Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993; Sinatra & Pintrich, 2003); and that conceptual change is significantly influenced by social and situational factors (Hatano & Inagaki, 2003).

Smith et al. (1993) criticized the use of cognitive conflict on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the ideas of constructivism and that it presents a narrow view of learning that focuses only on the mistaken qualities of students’ prior knowledge, ignoring their productive ideas that can become the basis for achieving a more sophisticated scientific understanding. According to Smith et al. (1993), instruction that “confronts misconceptions with a view to replacing them is misguided and unlikely to succeed” (p. 153).

diSessa (1988, 1993) put forward a different proposal for conceptualizing the process of conceptual change in the learning of science that emphasized the continuity between prior knowledge and scientific understandings. He argued that the knowledge system of novices consists of an unstructured collection of many simple elements known as phenomenological primitives (p-prims for short) that originate from superficial interpretations of physical reality. P-prims appear to be organized in a conceptual network and to be activated through a mechanism of recognition that depends on the connections that p-prims have to the other elements of the system. According to this position, the process of learning science is one of collecting and systematizing these pieces of knowledge into larger wholes. This happens as p-prims change their function from relatively isolated, self-explanatory entities to become integrated in a larger system of complex knowledge structures such as physics laws. In the knowledge system of the expert, p-prims “can no longer be self-explanatory, but must refer to much more complex knowledge structures, physics laws, etc. for justification” (diSessa, 1993, p. 114).

We agree with diSessa (1993) and Smith et al. (1993) that a theory of conceptual change should provide an account of the knowledge acquisition process that captures the continuity one expects with development. We also agree with them in that we need to move from thinking of conceptual change as involving single units of knowledge to systems of knowledge that consist of complex substructures that may change gradually and in different ways. Finally, we agree with Smith et al.’s (1993) recommendation to researchers to “move beyond the identification of misconceptions” toward research that focuses on the evolution of expert understandings and particularly on “detailed descriptions of the evolution of knowledge systems over much longer durations than has been typical of recent detailed studies” (p. 154).

For a number of years now we have been involved in such a program of research that attempts to provide detailed descriptions of the development of knowledge in various areas of the physical sciences, such as observational astronomy (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992, 1994; Vosniadou & Skopeliti, 2005; Vosniadou, Skopeliti & Ikospentaki, 2004, 2005; Samarapungavan, Vosniadou, & Brewer, 1996), mechanics (Ioannides & Vosniadou, 2002), geology (Ioannidou & Vosniadou, 2001), biology (Kyrkos & Vosniadou, 1997), and more recently in mathematics (Vosniadou & Verschaffel, 2004; Vamvakoussi, Vosniadou, & Van Dooren, this volume). Our studies are mostly cross-sectional developmental studies investigating the knowledge acquisition process in subjects ranging from five to 20 years of age. We have also conducted several text comprehension studies and other instructional interventions in which the results of our research were used to develop instructional materials to be used in schools in Greece (Vosniadou, Ioannides, Dimitrakopoulou & Papademitriou, 2001; Vamvakoussi & Vosniadou, 2012; Vosniadou & Skopeliti, submitted a, submitted b). The results of this research have led to the development of the framework theory approach to conceptual change (Vosniadou, Baltas & Vamvakoussi, 2007; Vosniadou, Vamvakoussi & Skopeliti, 2008). In the pages that follow we outline the basic principles of this approach and describe its similarities and differences to other theoretical positions on conceptual change in learning and instruction.

THE FRAMEWORK THEORY APPROACH: BASIC PRINCIPLES

The framework theory is based on cognitive/developmental research and attempts to provide a broad theoretical basis for understanding how conceptual change is achieved in the process of learning science. At the heart of the framework theory is the idea that young children start the knowledge acquisition process by developing a naïve physics that does not consist of fragmented observations but forms a relatively coherent explanatory system – a framework theory. Learning science requires fundamental ontological, epistemological and representational changes in naïve physics. After all, currently accepted science is the product of a long historical process characterized by radical theory changes that have restructured our representations of the physical world. Because learners use additive, enrichment types of learning mechanisms to assimilate scientific information to existing but incompatible knowledge structures, the process of learning science and mathematics is slow and gradual and characterized by fragmentation and misconceptions, many of which can be interpreted as “synthetic models.” In the pages that follow the main principles of the framework theory will be explicated with reference mainly to the domain of natural science.

Naïve Physics is a Framework Theory

The human child is a complex organism capable of engaging in quick and efficient learning immediately after birth. Cognitive developmental research has provided substantial empirical evidence to support the view that children organize the multiplicity of their sensory experiences under the influence of everyday culture into narrow but relatively coherent domains of thought from early on (Baillargeon, 1995; Carey & Spelke, 1994; Gelman, 1990). At least four well-defined core knowledge domains can be distinguished and considered roughly as “framework theories” – physics, psychology, mathematics, and language.

Framework theories are skeletal structures that ground our deepest ontological commitments in terms of which we understand the world. They are very different from scientific theories in that they are not explicit, well-formed, socially shared constructs; they lack the explanatory power and internal consistency of scientific theories; they are not subject to metaconceptual awareness; and they are not systematically tested for confirmation and/or falsification. Nevertheless, they are called “theories” because they are relatively coherent and principle-based systems characterized by a distinct ontology and causality and are generative in that they can give rise to prediction and explanation.

For example, it appears that infants use the criterion of self-initiated movement to distinguish animate from inanimate entities, thus creating two fundamentally different ontological domains – naïve psychology and naïve physics. Naïve physics and naïve psychology are also distinguished in terms of their causality. Naïve physics obeys the laws of mechanical causality while naïve psychology is governed by intentional causality. Once categorized as a physical or psychological object, an entity inherits all the characteristics and properties of the other entities that belong to the same category. Knowledge acquisition proceeds from a very broad and relatively explanatorily weak set of structures to more detailed and explanatorily rich categorizations with better fit to the world (see also Keil, 1981).

A great deal of cognitive developmental and science education research has shown that children and lay adults who have not been exposed to much science answer questions about force, matter, heat, the day/night cycle, etc. in a relatively consistent way, revealing the existence of initial conceptions rooted in a framework theory of naïve physics (Baillargeon, 1995; Carey & Spelke, 1994; Gelman, 1990; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992, 1994). Some of the many examples are the following: Categorization studies in astronomy have shown that young children categorize the “earth” as a physical object (as opposed to an astronomical – physical – object) and apply to it all the characteristics of physical objects in general, such as solidity, stability, and up–down gravity (Vosniadou & Skopeliti, 2005). Similarly, children as well as lay adults categorize concepts such as force, energy, and heat as properties of objects that can be possessed, transferred, and dissipated (Chi, 2008; Ioannides & Vosniadou, 2002). In the case of the concept of “matter,” preschool children group solids, liquids, and powders together as consisting of some kind of stuff, distinguishing them from gases (air) and non-material entities (heat, electricity), or mental entities (ideas, wishes). In other words, material entities are things that can be seen, touched, and felt, and produce some kind of physical effects. They find atoms very strange because they have almost none of the properties of macroscopic objects – they are too small to be seen, they are not colored, they are neither hard or soft, they are never created or destroyed, etc. (Wiser & Smith, this volume; Carey, 1991). Finally, Evans (this volume; see also Mayer, 1985; Wellman & Gelman, 1998) argues that evolutionary concepts are counterintuitive because they challenge two entrenched biases of naïve physics, namely the belief that living things are separate, stable, and unchanging (essentialism) and that animate behavior is goal-directed (teleology) and intentional (intentionality).

Conceptual Change Requires Fundamental Changes in Students’ Ontological and Epistemological Commitments and in their Representations

Understanding the scientific concept of the earth requires children to re-categorize the earth from the ontological category “physical object” to the ontological category “physical–astronomical object.” Such re-categorizations happen in the conceptual system of elementary school children between third and sixth grades (Vosniadou & Skopeliti, 2005). Similar re-categorizations are made in many other domains. The concepts of force, energy, and heat, which are categorized as entities or substances in the initial conceptual system of novices, are re-categorized as processes or interactions in the conceptual system of experts (Chi, 2008; Wiser & Smith, 2008). Plants are categorized as inanimate in the conceptual system of the preschooler but are later re-categorized as living things. In this process new ontological categories are formed while old ones might be radically reorganized (Carey, 1985; Hatano & Inagaki, 1997).

Such re-categorizations are accompanied by significant epistemological and representational changes. As shown in Figure 1.1, categorizing the earth as an astronomical object allows it to be represented as a spherical, rotating planet in space as opposed to a flat, solid and stable ground with the solar objects above its top. While such new representations are often constructed with the help of external, cultural models and artifacts, they nevertheless depend crucially on the development of children’s perspective-taking abilities and their epistemological sophistication. Children must unde...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Educational Psychology Handbook Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Conceptual Change Research: An Introduction
• Part I Theoretical Issues in Conceptual Change Research
• Part II Conceptual Change in the Content Areas
• Part III Conceptual Change in the Philosophy and History of Science
• Part IV Learner Characteristics and Mechanisms for Conceptual Change
• Part V Instructional Approaches to Promote Conceptual Change
• Part VI Reflections
• Contributors
• Index