Progression in children's understanding of a ‘basic’ particle theory: a longitudinal study

Johnson, Philip M.

doi:10.1080/0950069980200402

Cited by 189 publications

(208 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…As a number of researchers suggest (e.g. Stavridou & Solomonidou, 1998;Johnson, 1998aJohnson, , 1998bJohnson, , 1998cPapageorgiou & Johnson, 2005), pupils, who are not aware of the particulate nature of matter cannot understand the concept of a substance and, as a result, they fail successfully to manage its forms and transformations. This could probably explain pupils' insufficient and intermediate representations, concerning the conservation of matter in the liquid state (e.g., Q1), inside the bubbles (Q2) or in the gaseous state (e.g., Q3).…”

Section: Discussion and Educational Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to some researchers (e.g. Stavridou & Solomonidou, 1998;Johnson, 1998aJohnson, , 1998bPapageorgiou & Johnson, 2005) this originates from the lack of an understanding of the concept of substance itself; if one cannot understand the 'substance', one is unlikely to understand its changes. From Piagetian point of view, this is expected to a certain degree, since 'substance' is an idea based on the particle theory, which is too difficult for those ages, as it involves late formal thinking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Tsikalas

Stamovlasis

Papageorgiou

2014

Ppej

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Summary. Students' understanding of physical phenomena is determined by their relevant representations, which are very crucial for science education. Since these representations are often incompatible with the scientific view, their functional role in the learning processes has been the main interest of a plethora of research work over the last decades. In the present research students' representations for boiling and evaporation are investigated and an attempt is made to correlate them with two cognitive variables, which have been shown to be involved in mental processes of learning science, namely convergent and divergent thinking. The study took place with the participation of 375 sixth-grade elementary school pupils (aged 11-12). Methodologically the ordinal logistic regression was implemented to correlate the categorical-type dependent variable with scale-type independent predictors. The results show that both convergent and divergent thinking are significantly associated with pupils' sufficient responses. Interpretation of the results and implications for science education are discussed.

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Section: Discussion and Educational Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Tsikalas

Stamovlasis

Papageorgiou

2014

Ppej

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Classroom-based case studies (Wightman et al, 1986) again found students having difficulty acquiring scientific meanings for particle ideas. Johnson (1998aJohnson ( , b, c, 2000aJohnson ( , b, 2005 Johnson drew upon the Renström et al model discussed above, and developed an analytical scheme for a 'basic' particle model suitable for the lower secondary years in relation to the teaching scheme being used in the study school (Johnson, 1998a).…”

Section: Developing Understanding Of Particle Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Johnson drew upon the Renström et al model discussed above, and developed an analytical scheme for a 'basic' particle model suitable for the lower secondary years in relation to the teaching scheme being used in the study school (Johnson, 1998a).…”

Section: Learning About Particles In the English Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Secondary Students’ Thinking about Familiar Phenomena: Learners’ explanations from a curriculum context where ‘particles’ is a key idea for organising teaching and learning

Franco

Taber

2009

International Journal of Science Education

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. Secondary students' thinking about familiar phenomena: learners' explanations from a curriculum context where 'particles' is a key idea for organising teaching and learning. International Journal of Science Education, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2009, 31 (14), pp.1917-1952 Secondary students' thinking about familiar phenomena: learners' explanations from a curriculum context where 'particles' is a key idea for organising teaching and learning. Abstract:Particle models of matter are widely recognised as being of fundamental importance in many branches of modern science, and particle ideas are commonly introduced and developed in the secondary school curriculum. However, research undertaken in a range of national contexts has identified significant learning difficulties in this topic, and suggests that notions of particles that match scientific models are generally only attained over periods of some years. A National Curriculum in Science was imposed in England over the period 1989-1993, and was later supplemented by increasingly prescriptive guidance to teachers. This culminated in a framework for teaching lower secondary science, which identified 'particles' as one of five key ideas for organising teaching and learning. In this curriculum context, a basic particle model is introduced at the start of secondary education, and consolidated by being revisited in various contexts over three years. The present paper reports an interview-about-events based study that explored the way English secondary students explained phenomena commonly met in school science. It was found that most students used the notion of particles in their responses, although most of their particle-based explanations reflected alternative conceptions that have been reported in previous research. It is concluded that a curriculum strategy of early introduction and regular application during the early secondary years is not sufficient to support the desired level of progression in thinking with particle concepts, and more sophisticated pedagogy is needed.

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Constructivism and evidence from children's ideas

Johnson

Gott

1996

Sci. Ed.

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Progression in children's understanding of a ‘basic’ particle theory: a longitudinal study

Cited by 189 publications

References 19 publications

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Mental representations of 12 year-old children about boiling and evaporation: A probabilistic association with convergent and divergent thinking

Secondary Students’ Thinking about Familiar Phenomena: Learners’ explanations from a curriculum context where ‘particles’ is a key idea for organising teaching and learning

Constructivism and evidence from children's ideas

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