Longitudinal Conceptual Change in Students' Understanding of Thermal Equilibrium: An Examination of the Process of Conceptual Restructuring
- 1 August 2006
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Cognition and Instruction
- Vol. 24 (4), 467-563
- https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532690xci2404_3
Abstract
This research analyzes students' conceptual change across a semester in an 8th-grade thermodynamics curriculum. Fifty students were interviewed 5 times during their 8th-grade semester and then again preceding their 10th- and 12th-grade years to follow their subsequent progress. The interview questions probed students' understanding of thermodynamics in everyday situations. The analysis of the transcripts first focuses on the full cohort. The analysis then focuses on 2 fairly successful and 2 less successful students in greater detail. Direct quotations provide the primary warrants in the analysis of the 4 case-study students, but the analysis also incorporates 2 new analytical–representational forms to map students' conceptual change trajectories. Ultimately, the results clarify the conceptual change processes through which students' understandings of thermal equilibrium evolve from disjointed sets of context-dependent ideas toward, if not achieving, integrated cohesive perspectives.Keywords
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Processes and Challenges of Conceptual ChangePublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,2006
- Commonsense Conceptions of Emergent Processes: Why Some Misconceptions Are RobustJournal of the Learning Sciences, 2005
- Helping students revise disruptive experientially supported ideas about thermodynamics: Computer visualizations and tactile modelsJournal of Research in Science Teaching, 2003
- Designing for Knowledge Integration: The Impact of Instructional TimeJournal of the Learning Sciences, 2003
- Difficulties in Learning Thermodynamic Concepts Are They Linked to the Historical Development of this Field?Science & Education, 2002
- Science Education as Conceptual ChangeJournal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2000
- Using bridging analogies and anchoring intuitions to deal with students' preconceptions in physicsJournal of Research in Science Teaching, 1993
- Toward an Epistemology of PhysicsEthics & Behavior, 1993
- Secondary students' conceptions of the conduction of heat: bringing together scientific and personal viewsPhysics Education, 1985
- Development of the concept of heat in childrenScience Education, 1978