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- Adbo, Karina, et al.
(författare)
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Developing an Understanding of Chemistry : A case study of one Swedish student's rich conceptualisation for making sense of upper secondary school chemistry
- 2014
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Ingår i: International Journal of Science Education. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0950-0693 .- 1464-5289. ; 36:7, s. 1107-1136
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we report a case study of a 16-year-old Swedish upper secondary student's developing understanding of key concept areas studied in his upper secondary school chemistry course. This study illustrates how the thinking of an individual learner, Jesper, evolves over a school year in response to formal instruction in a particular educational context. Jesper presented a range of ideas, some of which matched intended teaching whilst others were quite inconsistent with canonical chemistry. Of particular interest, research data suggest that his initial alternative conceptions influenced his thinking about subsequent teaching of chemistry subject matter, illustrating how students' alternative conceptions interact with formal instruction. Our findings support the claims of some researchers that alternative conceptions may be stable and tenacious in the context of instruction. Jesper's rich conceptualisation of matter at submicroscopic scales drew upon intuitions about the world that led to teaching being misinterpreted to develop further alternative conceptions. Yet his intuitive thinking also offered clear potential links with canonical scientific concepts that could have been harnessed to channel his developing thinking. These findings support the argument that identifying students' intuitive thinking and how it develops in different instructional contexts can support the development of more effective science pedagogy.
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- Adbo, Karina, et al.
(författare)
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Learners' Mental Models of the Particle Nature of Matter: A study of 16-year-old Swedish science students
- 2009
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Ingår i: International Journal of Science Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0950-0693 .- 1464-5289. ; 31:6, s. 757-786
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The results presented here derive from a longitudinal study of Swedish upper secondary science students' (16-19 years of age) developing understanding of key chemical concepts. The informants were 18 students from two different schools. The aim of the present study was to investigate the mental models of matter at the particulate level that learners develop. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews based around the students' own drawings of the atom, and of solids, liquids, and gases. The interview transcripts were analysed to identify patterns in the data that offer insight into aspects of student understanding. The findings are discussed in the specific curriculum context in Swedish schools. Results indicate that the teaching model of the atom (derived from Bohr's model) commonly presented by teachers and textbook authors in Sweden gives the students an image of a disproportionately large and immobile nucleus, emphasises a planetary model of the atom and gives rise to a chain of logic leading to immobility in the solid state and molecular breakdown during phase transitions. The findings indicate that changes in teaching approaches are required to better support learners in developing mental models that reflect the intended target knowledge.
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- Taber, Keith, et al.
(författare)
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Developing chemical understanding in the explanatory vacuum : Swedish high school students' use of an anthropomorphic conceptual framework to make sense of chemical phenomena
- 2013
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Ingår i: Concepts of Matter in Science Education. - Dordrecht : Springer. - 9400759134 ; , s. 347-370
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The results presented here derive from a research project exploring 16-18 year oldSwedish upper secondary science students’ developing understandings of keyconcepts for matter and phase change. In the Swedish educational context there islimited prescription of what is taught at different grade levels, and students may onlymeet scientific models of the submicroscopic structure of the matter some years afterconsidering the phenomena that these models have been developed to explain.Students may develop alternative and sometimes idiosyncratic imaginative notions topopulate this ‘explanatory vacuum’. In this study we discuss one aspect of studentresponses in a sequence of semi-structured interviews spread over a single schoolyear, viz. the common use of anthropomorphic language in student descriptions andexplanations of basic chemical phenomena – change of state, chemical bonding andreactions. Such anthropomorphic language has been considered to have the potentialeither to facilitate or impede progression in students’ learning in chemistry. In thepresent study we found a high level of anthropomorphic language in students’explanations. In some cases there were clear indications that our interviewees wereaware of the limitation of their anthropomorphic explanations, which could beconsidered to take the role of temporary place-holder for technical ideas not yetavailable. However, in many other instances anthropomorphism was used without anyindication of its limited explanatory power. In these circumstances anthropomorphicexplanations would appear to satisfy epistemic hunger, the human “need to ‘makemeaning’ and understand their surroundings” (De Jesus, Teixeira-Dias, & Watts,2003, p. 1017), and take the place of canonical explanations.
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