Using visual representations to qualify students’ understanding of causal relationships in price

• The aim of the study was to contribute to the understanding of how two different visual representations of price facilitate learning of the concept.  The study focuses on students in upper secondary social science education and takes its outset in a multimodality perspective (Kress, 2010). Three introductory lessons on pricing were conducted with four classes (in all 92 students), of which two had lessons based on graphs and two on a causal loop diagram (Wheat, 2007).  Written responses to pre- and post-test questions were analysed phenomenographically and in relation to the visual representation used in teaching. Results suggest that students’ understanding of the relationships between supply, price and demand was affected by the visual representations used in teaching. The intervention based on a causal loop diagram facilitated a more qualified way of understanding the causal relationships in pricing than the graph-based intervention. The traditional way of introducing price to upper secondary students, through the use of supply/demand graphs, is thereby problematised. The results have important implications for teaching and learning through visual representations in general and for economics teaching in particular and point to the importance of reflecting on visual representations in teaching in order to facilitate a qualified conceptual understanding. The study thereby contributes to practice as well as to theory in terms of practical implications for teaching about price to upper secondary students and in terms of expanding theory on how learning is affected by the structural composition of a visual representation.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Didaktik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Didactics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Visual representations

Social Science

phenomenography

teaching and learning

ämnesdidaktik med inriktning mot de samhällsvetenskapliga ämnenas didaktik

Teaching and Learning with Specialisation in the Social Sciences Education

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)