Learner's Strategies for Navigating Conceptual Change in a ...
CHAPTER 1: STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Introduction
Science educators face a formidable assemblage of duties in science education. The National Science Education Standards (1996) report that teachers should help students "…develop the knowledge, understanding, and abilities described in the content standards." (p. 23). However, the knowledge students are to develop are often incongruent with the science knowledge and understanding with which students arrive in science classes. Cobern (1994) suggests that a substantial change in science knowledge requires a fracturing of what is essentially students’ natural understanding of their world. Teachers must first contend with the conceptual frameworks or science conceptions that students have accumulated from their life experiences before they can facilitate the acquisition of scientifically accurate conceptions (Driver, Guesne & Tiberghien, 1985; Driver, Squires, Rushworth & Wood-Robinson, 2001).
In order to guide the development of students' science knowledge and understanding, teachers must be aware of what students already "know". The adage "you have to start from where they are" comes to mind. However once teachers have located the "you are here" sign, on the students' conceptual framework, they are still challenged
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with planning the best itinerary to help the student reach the desired destination of consensual scientific knowledge. A learner’s conceptual framework is like a skeletal support, or filter of prior knowledge that is used as the basis for sorting and constructing new information. This course of action—how to bridge the content gap between where students are and where we want them to be—would best be charted if we had information on the strategies that students use to progress between their conceptual frameworks.
Problem
Just as the world observes changes in acceptable science theories over time, science educators notice conceptual changes in students' theories about scientific phenomena. (Hewson & Hewson, 1984; Halloun & Hestenes, 1985). Science teachers are challenged with the monumental task of helping students to adjust their pre-formal instruction science conceptions to more closely approximate globally accepted science conceptions (Driver et al., 2001). Sometimes this task can be attained with relative ease when students can annex concepts presented in formal instruction with their existing knowledge. However, this process can also be arduous, as children’s ideas are resistant to change (Carey, 1985; Novak, 1988; Bishop & Anderson, 1990). Changing students’ thinking is a difficult and persistent impediment in science education (Walberg, 1991). This is particularly true when new concepts presented contradict students’ existing knowledge, requiring students to reconstruct their knowledge (Hewson & Hewson, 1984).
In order to fulfill the role of teachers as defined by the National Science Education Standards (1996), teachers must be able to diagnose not only students' conceptualizations but also prescribe subsequent additions or remediation. The difficulty is how to go about performing this task? There has been a move away from the view that students are tabula rasa, or blank slates (Mintzes, 1984; Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999) that have knowledge imparted to them by their teachers. Many researchers (von Glasersfeld 1993; Tobin, & Tippins, 1993 ; Mintzes, Wandersee & Novak, 1998; Lorsbach & Tobin, 2000) instead hold students construct and alter their own knowledge. Understanding how students navigate this process should give researchers and practitioners valuable insight on how teachers could effectively aid students in transitioning between their naïve science theories and accepted science theories.
Purpose
Researchers recognize that only the learner can choose to consciously and deliberately reconstruct his or her cognitive framework (Novak, 2002). Researchers also acknowledge that rote learning is insufficient in replacing alternative conceptions (Ausubel, 1968) with consensual science conceptions. The purpose of this study was to observe, document and report on how learners reconstruct their cognitive frameworks and navigate conceptual change from prior knowledge to acceptable knowledge. My research interests were focused on what naturally occurs in the minds of students who acquire scientific conceptions, and the thought processes that students operate to amend their prior knowledge. My practical locus was to gain insight on what strategies, metacognitive or otherwise, students employ to adjust their existing theories so that practitioners can encourage these tactics in their pedagogical approach.
Through this study I investigated how students manipulate their prior knowledge and naïve theories about genetic inheritance, to successfully achieve conceptual change in the science classroom. I attempted to capture the metamorphosis of scientific understanding through student metacognition. I anticipate the results of this study will contribute to the literature on conceptual change and pedagogical strategies to better facilitate conceptual change in science classes. It is my sincere desire to contribute to the research in this field in order to aid teachers, myself included, in facilitating the occurrence of conceptual change in our students.
This study did not focus on motivation’s effect on conceptual change (Pintrich et al., 1993). The qualitative nature of this study should minimize the importance of motivation on conceptual change. Although motivational forces may affect the quantity and perhaps even quality of conceptual change, the basic cognitive processes should remain constant.
Rationale
Along with many of my colleagues in teaching, I have experienced lessons where I have 'taught my heart out' using varied instruction and student engagement to facilitate my students' understanding. My explanations were so lucid and my examples so intelligible that I was confident my students had attained scientific insight and understanding. However, upon assessing my charges, I found that their scientific understanding appeared to be a gallimaufry of concepts, the pieces of which I did not fully recognize.
I consulted my lesson plans to see whether I had furnished them with the alternate conceptions that they had so skillfully assembled. Of course I did not find them there. I then surmised that my students had not been listening attentively, and that was responsible for their failure to learn what I was sure I taught. However upon closer inspection of their notes I found that they had copied everything I had written and said, so they did give me their attention. I wondered if perchance I was a poor communicator, or they had deficits in their abilities of comprehension. However, after investigating each hypothesis, I found no satisfactory explanation. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above. Surely there was a reason why they did not get it the way I had given it. I accepted this phenomenon as one of the innumerable enigmas of education until I happened upon Piaget's theory of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation and accommodation refer to how learners incorporate new information into their preexisting cognitive structures or schema. These processes occur concurrently as learners observe and interpret their environment. Assimilation occurs when students incorporate new information into present cognitive frameworks conserving organization whereas accommodation requires modification of cognitive frameworks to accommodate new information (Piaget, 1981).
In assimilation, students transform incoming information to fit their existing ways of thinking. They interpret and distort information according to their own way of thinking. This is akin to adding a sandwich to an already full lunchbox. Without creating space for the sandwich, it is likely that it will get squished or altered in some way. In accommodation, students must adjust their cognitive constructs, which would be like re-arrangement of the contents of your lunchbox so that the sandwich can fit unaltered. This may result in the removal, replacement or reconfiguration of some of the lunchbox contents. Accommodation often results in a conceptual change with the new lunchbox configuration being a new concept that is different or changed from the old one. Conceptual change occurs when a learner modifies their conceptual framework.
After being exposed to Piagetian theories, I believed that the phenomenon that I was observing was congruent with assimilation and accommodation. I hypothesized that while some students were adjusting their conceptual frameworks, others were essentially attaching transformed pieces of new information to their existing theories without reconciling the inconsistencies. This resulted in a collision of ideas that was producing the disorder that I was finding as I assessed students. This interest in how students mediate new knowledge led me to the research questions that I posed in this study.
Research Questions
The initial guiding questions for this study were:
How do students in the process of changing their naïve science theories to accepted science theories describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception?
What are the methods that students utilize to bridge the gap between alternate and consensual science conceptions to effect conceptual change?
These questions guided the study in the types of data I collected and my methods for data collection and analysis.
In order to ascertain prior knowledge, student prior knowledge was assessed through pre-instruction activities. Knowledge of the science content was then assessed after instruction on the science content. Data collection focused on those students who demonstrated change from their naïve science theories to accepted science theories, as illustrated through gains in content knowledge and concept map development. These students were encouraged to describe their thinking, metacognition, strategies, etc. in explaining how they moved from their prior knowledge to their final conceptions.
My research questions were taken from a realistic perspective instead of an instrumentalist perspective (Maxwell, 1998). In dealing with patterns that are not directly observable—such as thought processes—it is important to allow students to report on what they were thinking and feeling during the period of conceptual change. I inferred my analysis from students’ observations. I used member checks, allowing students to review interview transcripts in order to verify my description of what happened in their minds.
High school biology students were observed and interviewed before, during and after a unit of study in genetics. Through a semi-structured interview I investigated students’ knowledge of genetics prior to formal instruction in their biology course. I used interviews, student artifacts and focus groups, to sketch the evolution of students' knowledge. After students received formal instruction and assessment on genetics and inheritance, I presented them with the artifacts that they produced and ask them to reflect on their experiences, relating what processes occurred during their cognitive transformation. The answer to my first research question was primarily descriptive, illustrating what processes, metacognitive and or otherwise, occurred in students who had the greatest amount of conceptual change as indicated by their post-test scores.
The data collected from my first research question, along with student accounts of when, why and how their ideas changed should provide insight on how students reconstructed their concepts to model acceptable scientific concepts. The second research question gathered data on which techniques facilitated a paradigm shift to result in conceptual change. My assumptions included the following:
1. Students were motivated and able to learn
2. Students possessed prior knowledge in context, even if not in content (Osman & Hannafin, 1994)
3. Students in some way accessed prior knowledge in order to change and create new knowledge
4. Students used metacognitive strategies in negotiating new knowledge
5. Students constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed their own knowledge
6. Students were presented with intelligible, plausible and fruitful new conceptions (Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog, 1982; Hewson 1982)
7. Students changed their concepts of genetic inheritance after instruction on genetics
Theoretical Framework
Conceptual change has become a central theme and organizing concept in science education research (Thorley & Stofflett, 1996) as well as a science curriculum emphasis (Blosser, & Helgeson, 1990). The idea of conceptual change arose in science education, as an analogy derived from the history and philosophy of science that helped to explain the difficulties people experience in changing from one explanatory model to another (Hewson, 1992). Conceptual change occurs when learners alter their thinking or theoretical frameworks about something. The conceptual change model, or CCM as outlined by Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog (1982) offers four cognitive conditions that must be met in the students’ mind order for conceptual change to occur:
1. Dissatisfaction with a students’ existing conceptions
2. New conceptions must be intelligible or easily understood
3. New conceptions must be plausible; believable and adequately explaining problems encountered by the student
4. New conceptions must be fruitful; useful possibilities to explain new situations
Contemporary ideas in the philosophy of science propose two discernible phases of conceptual change in the scientific community. The first phase involves a definition of the problem to be solved, strategies for solving it and the formation of standards determining acceptable solutions. The second phase of conceptual change occurs when these original tenets require modification (Posner et al., 1982). Halloun & Hestenes (1985) believe learning processes in individuals to be similar in conceptual changes to scientific knowledge, and that scientific struggles of the past should offer valuable insight into the conceptual difficulties encountered by students. Students organize information into a knowledge base and tend to incorporate new information according to the cognitive structures that they have already constructed. This process is termed assimilation. However, if new information is inconsistent with a student’s naïve theory, then the mental structure must be changed in order to incorporate new information. This reorganization of central concepts is termed accommodation (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969; Posner et al., 1982). Both assimilation and accommodation reflect a constructivist referent, where learners empirically build their own knowledge according to their experiences. Strike and Posner (1992) emphasized that their theory of conceptual change enumerated conditions necessary for conceptual change and is not a prescription for instruction.
When viewed through a constructivist referent, student perspectives move to the forefront of understanding how conceptual change occurs. Constructivism holds that learners build their own knowledge based on their own experiences. If knowledge is personally constructed and negotiated by learners and groups of learners (Vygotsky 1978), it is vital to understand learners’ viewpoints on how they construct and reconstruct their schema. As a result, recent reform efforts within science education focus on the need for students to cultivate conceptual understandings of science rather than rote memorization of science facts (AAAS, 1993, NRC, 1996). Constructivism supports these goals as a viable framework for viewing how learners acquire knowledge.
Students’ prior conceptions are important as part of teaching for conceptual change (Strike & Posner, 1982). Prior conceptions or prior knowledge is knowledge that learners bring to and use to make sense of each new situation. Prior knowledge can be a double-edged sword depending on whether the learner’s existing frameworks are congruent with or at odds with accepted knowledge (Taber, 2001).
In watching the evolution of student conceptual change and scientific reasoning, we are viewing a demonstration of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny (Clough & Wood-Robinson, 1985b; Lawson & Thompson, 1988). Science educators should find it exciting that student conceptual change travels a similar pathway as the one traveled by historical scientists. For example, many students initially have Lamarckian views on inheritance of traits, believing that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring (Clough & Wood-Robinson, 1985a, 1985b). Acquired characteristics was the prevailing belief in the scientific community early in the 19th century. It was not until after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1858 that the scientific community abandoned acquired characteristics for natural selection (Bishop & Anderson, 1900)—the conceptual change that biology teachers strive for in the classroom. In any event, alternative conceptions can present many barriers to teachers, who may feel “I taught that already, they must not have been listening because they did not get it”. We need to better understand how and why conceptual change occurs for relatively inexperienced scholars if we are to become more adept at assisting our students in becoming successful with their conceptual change.
Psychologists and educators have recognized for many years that not only can learners acquire subject knowledge, but they can also acquire knowledge about learning, or the nature of knowledge (Novak, 2002). This type of knowledge is termed “metacognition”. In short, metacognition is thinking about how one thinks. Metacognition fits into the constructivist referent because it recognizes the responsibility of thinking as belonging to the thinker. Metacognition requires that learners contemplate and regulate their thinking processes, reconciling new concepts with pre-existing concepts. One tool that learners can use to facilitate metacognition is concept mapping.
Concept maps have been demonstrated to be a tool for documenting and investigating the complexity and restructuring of knowledge held in science domains (Wallace & Mintzes, 1990; Markham, Mintzes & Jones, 1994; Pearsall, Skipper & Mintzes, 1997, Novak 2002). A concept map is a graphic organizer constructed when learners create a web of interconnected concepts, linked by propositions. Concept maps enable learners to share the interaction of their science concepts, or “conceptual ecologies” with others.
Through the lens of constructivism, the learner’s role in conceptual change becomes apparent. Not only are students responsible for their knowledge construction, they are also responsible for modifications to that construction. Whether consciously or subconsciously, students must navigate from their prior knowledge to consensual science knowledge. Information on strategies that students use to make this transition would inform learning theory as well as teaching practice. Metacognition is one such strategy that has been suggested but can be further investigated. Concept mapping can be used as a road map to offer a glimpse of the cognitive and metacognitive processes that the learner operates during the conceptual change process. Concept maps could be particularly useful in illuminating the conceptual change process when used to seed student narrative of their journey through conceptual change.
Methodology
This investigation focused on five students from an urban public high school in the metro Atlanta area. Students were enrolled in two 9th grade, general level inclusion biology classes, with special education students mainstreamed into the class, and a special education teacher present in the classroom. For the purposes of this study, the school where the research occurred has been dubbed Pondview Prepatory School, or PPS. PPS was a primarily middle-SES school where 20.3% of the students qualified for a lunch subsidy. Roughly 28% of the student population was African American, and some of those students were continuing as participants in a court-ordered desegregation plan that had been abandoned a few years prior. However, this school’s ethnic demographic was not represented in the two general level biology classes which were 56% African American, 16% Caucasian, and 31% other ethnic backgrounds. The collective male: female ratio in the classes was been 44% to 56%. These heterogeneous classes contained students who were seeking academic, technical and special education diplomas. Students in these classes were from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds ranging from poverty level to upper middle class.
Design
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized to accumulate and analyze data. All students in the biology classes were given a pretest consisting of both open ended and multiple-choice questions about genetics. Students were also asked to create a concept map of their understanding of genetics before the unit of study. Students also responded in the “bio-log” section of their notebooks to questions about their opinions on inheritance. After the pre-tests were scored, 12 students from the two classes were chosen to participate in the initial interview (interview questions are located in appendix A). These 12 participants were chosen based on their willingness and availability to verbally share their ideas and on their ability to represent their ideas through concept maps.
Prior to genetics instruction students were interviewed to offer biographical information and an idea of their genetics pre-conceptions. During the unit of study, photocopies were made of students’ initial concept maps, and student responses to open ended questions about their ideas of inheritance. Videotapes were made of student group discussions as students reviewed their Unit 1 and Unit 3 genetics tests. Instruction for this unit was not altered during the study, and students received similar assignments and instructional feedback as they had during the remainder of the school year and previous years. Intervention from the researcher was minimal during the formal instruction of genetics.
After the unit of study, all students in the biology classes were required to make a "new and improved" concept map of their genetics understanding. They were supplied with their initial concept map and were given the option of either adding to their existing map to form the new map, or to re-construct a completely new map. Based on responses in the first interview and continued availability, six students were chosen to complete the second interview. In the second interview, students were asked to articulate their thinking processes during the construction of both maps, highlighting the differences in the construction processes and suggesting what cues prompted their change in thinking.
Due to scheduling conflicts five of the six students continued to the third interview. In the third interview, students were given index cards with genetics concepts on them, both concepts that they included in their concepts maps, and those that they did not include. Students were asked to pile sort (Bernard, 2001) the index cards into one of three piles: changed concepts, unchanged concepts and new concepts.
Students were given transcripts of each interview session prior to the subsequent interview. Students were allowed and encouraged to comment on interview transcripts, as well as clarify or change any statements they made in those interviews. Two focus groups occurred after all individual interviews were completed in order to gather group consensus about experiences. Finally, students were individually asked to respond in writing to reflective questions about their experiences during the study.
Participants
Participants were chosen from two general level biology classes. Pre-test scores, willingness and availability to participate, completion of permission slips and classroom observations were used to determine the initial participants. Observation aided in establishing those students who were outspoken and possessed the ability to construct informative concept maps. Purposeful sampling (Maxwell, 1998) was used to select four students who had best acquired conceptual change and one who had not after formal instruction. This type of sampling was chosen to best provide learners who were capable illuminating the process of conceptual change. Changes in conceptual understanding were surmised by gains students make between pre and posttests. Students were also chosen based on return of the parental consent form, their willingness to share their ideas and their ability to articulate their thought processes and insights as well as availability to schedule and attend interview sessions. An effort was made to have gender and ethnic equity in the choice of the participants. The average age of the participants was 15 years and 8 months old.
Data Sources
Data was collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods included the Rasch method for determining gains between student pre and posttest scores. Qualitative methods were used to analyze student interview responses. Pre and posttest scores were used to identify informants for the research. Pre-test open-ended responses, including student designed concept maps (Novak, 1998a), interviews and journal questions were used to indicate students’ prior knowledge and subsequent possibility of conceptual change. One semi-structured interview (Bernard, 2001) conducted before class instruction on genetics, two semi-structured interviews and two focus groups conducted after class instruction on genetics provided the primary data for probing the context of conceptual change and alteration of naïve theories.
Initial interviews offered biographical sketches of the participants' science experiences as well as a foundation of student prior knowledge. Initial interviews also offered the impetus for subsequent interview questions. In addition, initial interviews facilitated in familiarizing students with the interview process to increase their comfort level during latter interviews. Interview questions are made available in appendix A.
The second interview was used to have students compare their pre and post instructional responses to the concept map, and their ideas about inheritance. Students were asked to discuss any changes in their concept maps, and changes in their knowledge of genetics. Students were presented with a copy of their first interview transcript prior to the second interview. Students were given the opportunity to comment on the researcher’s representations of them in the transcript.
The third interview was utilized to have students pile sort genetics terms. Piles were initially sorted into three categories; new concepts students accumulated as a result of instruction, concepts that changed as a result of instruction, and concepts that were not changed as a result of instruction. Students were allowed to create new categories, if they felt the three initial categories were insufficient. The third interview was held to clarify any remaining questions, on the part of the student and the researcher and so that students were afforded an opportunity to respond to the researcher’s representation of them in transcripts and analyses. Any additional questions that arose during the data collection were also addressed here.
Two focus groups occurred after the third and final interview to minimize peer influence. During focus groups students were asked to comment on similarities and differences in their experiences of conceptual change during the 5 months of the research.
Student artifacts were also collected, in the form of concept maps, biologs and other written class assignments in order to lend insight to conceptual changes as they occurred. Artifacts were also used to guide areas of exploration through interview questions.
Significance
Much of the research on conceptual change (Hewson, 1981; Hewson & Hewson, 1984; Posner et. al, 1982; Smith, Blakeslee & Anderson, 1993; Novak, 2002) has focused on the external stimuli and environment present during conceptual change, however we know little of our students’ thoughts, attitudes and perspectives with respect to conceptual change (Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993). The emerging epistemology of constructivism should endorse the empowering of students as active partners in the learning process and constructors of their own understanding. If we sincerely believe that students construct their own knowledge, then we must be committed to learning as much as possible about the supplies, tools and techniques that students employ in that process.
A major criticism of the conceptual change model is that it presents an overly rational model to learning that places too much emphasis on cognition (Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993). Pintrich et al. refer to this approach as "cold conceptual change" because it ignores the affective and social components of knowledge construction. Traditionally, conceptual change focuses on the learner's cognition and not on the learner as a whole.
This qualitative nature of this study should offer a more holistic view of the conceptual change process as well as an in-depth look at how students manipulate their prior knowledge to induce conceptual change.
According to Posner et al. (1982), there are a series of steps that must occur in order to make conceptual change happen. The first one deals with being dissatisfied with one's prior knowledge. In order to be dissatisfied with one's prior knowledge, one must first acknowledge it, and think about what they are thinking—metacognition. It stands to reason that metacognition aids in the reconstruction process. Hopefully, my contribution to metacognition of prior knowledge will narrow the knowledge gap on conceptual change. Praxis is significant in my research. As I aim not only to enrich conceptual change theory, but also contribute to practitioners. Once I have identified how metacognition about prior knowledge leads to conceptual change, I can better advise pedagogy that encourages student metacognition of prior knowledge and conceptual change.
Summary
Many science teachers are of the opinion that students generally fail to learn the science content that is presented to them (Taber, 2001). The purpose of this study was to observe, record and report on how learners remodel their cognitive frameworks to successfully learn science content and arrive at consensual science theories of genetics from their naive science theories. Ultimately, I desired to suggest some effective strategies or pedagogy that encourage techniques that enable students to experience a higher incidence of conceptual change and success in scientific understanding. Through this study I sought to 1) describe how students successful in conceptual change apply their prior knowledge and 2) explain how students renovate their existing science theories to better explain scientific phenomena. Contributions to information in these areas should advise teaching techniques that will increase the incidence of conceptual change in the science classroom.
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to investigate how learners bring about changes in their cognitive structures from prior conceptions to consensual science conceptions. This chapter will offer a review of literature providing the theoretical foundation for this study, informing the reader of the major claims that have been offered concerning the issues of conceptual change and the strategies the learners use to achieve it.
Constructivism
Guba & Lincoln (1994) describe four paradigms that inform and guide qualitative research: positivism, post-positivism, critical theory and constructivism. This study subscribes to a constructivist ideology. Constructivism is a popular buzzword in contemporary education, although constructivist ideas have been in use long before the actual word. Constructivism has a relativist ontology, which holds that knowledge and realities are experientially and socially constructed. Constructivism can be described as a referent or a way of explaining how a learner acquires knowledge. Circa 400 B.C.E. Socrates postulated that knowledge was akin to perception. His Socratic questioning
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techniques have become well known for leading students to formulating understandings without actually giving it to them (Murphy, 1997). In the example of Socrates we see two
basic assumptions when viewing knowledge from a constructivist perspective.
Knowledge is subjective, similar to perspective, and knowledge is constructed by the
learner, hence the term constructivism. Knowledge, like science, can be a verb. It is a process, which is under constant scrutiny and revision by the knower. In describing knowledge, Driver (1973, p25) writes "…to know is to act upon, either externally by manipulating the system physically, or internally by manipulating the system in the mind." So knowers acquire knowledge by interacting with their environment.
In the 18th century a philosopher named Giobattista Vico wrote that humans can only understand what they themselves have constructed (von Glasersfeld, 1983). Here again we see the imagery of architecture, and that learners manipulate the supplies provided by their environment to build knowledge. In the early 1900’s John Dewey was a popular scholar in the field of education. Dewey (1916) advocated for experiential learning and argued that students learned best when they were “active learners” who learned from their experiences. He promoted discovery learning and students interacting with their environments to build meaningful knowledge. Dewey’s ideas were followed by those of the psychologist Piaget. Piaget described a variety of cognitive stages that learners went through. In each of these developmental stages learners built theories based on what they had acquired in the previous developmental stage (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). Although neither Dewey nor Piaget used the term “constructivism”, many present-day scholars would argue that they would certainly consider themselves a part of what has become the constructivist movement.
Although Lev Vygotsky was a contemporary of Dewey and Piaget, it was not until the 1960s that his works became popular in Western education circles. Vygotsky added a new component to constructivism, which was later termed “social constructivism”. Through the lens of social constructivism, knowledge is co-constructed by learners through social interaction, within the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). Knowledge is negotiated as learners interact with each other and share ideas and experiences. Bruner (1986, 1990) has included the social and cultural aspects of learning in his theoretical framework.
Social constructivism purports that knowledge is a social construction, a cultural product consensually negotiated by various communities. Cobern (1993) calls constructivism “contextual”. Learners construct knowledge within the cultural context that gives meaning to that knowledge. Students also apply their cultural experiences to observations of their environment (Jones, Carter & Rua, 2000). Knowledge only exists in cognitive beings, and cognitive beings only exist as part of a social structure, so knowledge must be socially mediated and constructed. In science education, we are trying to raise our students’ understanding of scientific phenomena to that of consensual scientific knowledge that has been mediated by the scientific community. From a constructivist viewpoint, this can best be achieved if students are active and interactive participants in this process.
In the 1970’s Novak actually used the term “constructivism”, and he is presently known for “human constructivism” (Mintzes & Wandersee, 1998). Novak (1998b) is very dynamic in describing what constructivism actually looks like in the classroom and illustrates pedagogy that supports the constructivist ideology. In the 1980’s Ernst vonGlaserfeld focused on the subjectivity of knowledge and termed it “radical constructivism” (1983, 1993). Radical constructivism views all knowledge as subjective since it is subject to the experiences of the knower. As a result, though we may try to share or describe our experiences through language, there is no way that we can be sure that our experiences are analogous and thereby our knowledge is identical. From a constructivist perspective, individuals have no direct access to the knowledge of other learners (Geelan, 1997).
Not only can constructivism be viewed as an ontology, defining the nature of knowledge, but some scholars have actually characterized constructivism as the epistemology of learning (von Glasersfeld 1993; Lorsbach & Tobin 2000), that is how one comes to know what they do about what and how they learn. Knowers come to know by configuring meanings of and from their experiences. From the epistemological perspective of, it is assumed that the learner is not tabulae rasa, or a blank slate, but that each learner comes to each learning situation with some prior knowledge whether it is content knowledge, or contextual knowledge. This prior knowledge becomes the foundation on which new knowledge is built.
The constructivist referent assumes that knowledge is subjective and not objectivistic. Historically, philosophers have posited that since objects had permanent unchanging qualities, that knowledge about them must also be so. However, under the constructivist model, knowledge does not and cannot exist outside of knowers (Tobin & Tippins, 1993). Since knowledge exists only in the mind of a cognitive being, then it is subject to the experiences and interpretations of that being. This implies alternative realities. I believe it was Socrates who said “perception is knowledge”. These alternative realities do not however deny that there may be absolute truths, but it does question whether we could attain them, and if we could, how we could be assured that our understanding of that/those truth(s) was congruent to the understanding of our neighbors. From a constructivist viewpoint, science is not the search for truth, but a way for people to make sense out of their world (Lorsbach & Tobin, 2000).
A constructivist ontology and epistemology informs us about how learners learn, and as a result there are constructivist learning theories. A constructivist learning theory takes into consideration the ontological and epistemological assumptions about knowledge and applies that to how learners can attain knowledge. Constructivism rejects the idea that one can transfer knowledge to learners that will result in subsequent understanding, so constructivist learning theories encourage active learners who are engaged in social, contextual, authentic, meaningful learning experiences.
Constructivist teaching models arise to offer the pedagogy that supports constructivist learning theories. There are a plethora of teaching strategies that stress constructivism and conceptual change. In many of these proposed models, the teacher has a very active role (Hennessey, 1999). However, the role of the students should be paramount if operating in a constructivist framework. Brooks & Brooks (1993) suggest that constructivistic teaching: encourages student autonomy and initiative, presents students with open-ended question with adequate wait time for responses, promotes higher level thinking, supports student dialogue with teacher and peers, engages students in experiences that challenge hypotheses and encourage discussion and uses raw data, primary sources, manipulates and interactive materials to facilitate learning.
A constructivist teaching model promotes environments where learners are motivated, engaged and participating in the learning process. Some activities that would contribute to this type of atmosphere include: class discussion, concept mapping, analogies, student centered activities, open ended labs, cooperative learning, linking prior knowledge, discrepant events and fostering metacognition (Hewson, 1992; Mintzes, Wandersee & Novak, 1998).
Prior Knowledge
“Good teaching” has always recognized that educators must start “where the child is”. “Where the child is”, has traditionally been defined by what the child was missing, which in science education has been scientifically acceptable knowledge. However, educators are now defining where the child is by what the child has, and that is prior knowledge. According to Ausubel (1968), the most important factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. In order for meaningful learning to occur the learner must already possess concepts on which to anchor new ideas. These anchoring concepts are what we call prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is knowledge that has been subsumed by the learner from life experiences, and life experiences begin when life begins. These knowledge schemas interact with and influence students’ subsequent encounters and learning experiences (Driver & Leach, 1993).
Children assemble intricate ideas and explanations about natural phenomena long before they encounter formal science instruction in school. These explanations are termed “naive theories”. Wellman and Gellman (1992) describe a theory as a specific conceptual understanding. Theories, or schemata, are the hypothetical cognitive or mental constructs by which individuals adapt to and organize their environment. Children, and learners in general, form these theories in response to environmental stimuli and in order to make sense of the world around them. The learner does not have to be aware of their theories in order to use them. For example, an infant watching a bouncing ball disappear behind a screen will look for it to emerge on the trajectory along which it was traveling, and expresses surprise when this does not occur. The surprise occurs because the event was not inline with the infants theory about the movement of the ball.
Naive theory is also known as theory-theory in the literature. Theory theorists have a neo-nativist approach to cognitive development. Neo-nativists believe that infants are born with innate knowledge and ideas about the world and that cognitive development is similar or possibly even identical to the process of scientific discovery and theory change in science (Bjorklund, 2000). Kuhn’s (1989) description of children as intuitive scientists, who coordinate theories and evidence, has gained wide acceptance over the past two decades. Developmental psychologists such as Karmiloff-Smith (1988), Carey (1988, 1991), Wellman & Gelman (1992) and as Gopnick (1996) see children functioning as scientists because they construct naive theories using the evidence available to them to interpret, explain and predict information about their worlds.
Prior knowledge is an important consideration within a constructivist framework because what a student has already constructed in the way of prior knowledge affects further knowledge construction. Some researchers argue that the constructivist framework only works well with students who have rich experiences in science to build their learning on. However, others dispute that even if there is little content knowledge, learners can always build on contextual knowledge, and knowing what a student’s prior knowledge is, is paramount in knowing how to help them to build future knowledge. In either case, students must be able to make the connection of their prior knowledge to new knowledge in order for meaningful learning to take place (Taber, 2001).
Prior knowledge plays a paradoxical role in the learning process (Pintrich, Marx & Boyle, 1993; Dole, 2000). Prior knowledge can act as a foundation or scaffold for building new knowledge, or it can interfere with knowledge construction if the prior constructs are incompatible with the new data. When learners’ prior knowledge is incongruous with intended learning outcomes, it can interact with information presented in formal instruction, resulting in unintended learning outcomes. When these incongruent concepts were first discussed in the literature, they were termed “misconceptions”.
Misconceptions are defined as knowledge spontaneously derived from extensive personal experience that is incompatible with established scientific theory (Lawson & Thompson 1988). Misconceptions are usually deviant from consensual science conceptions and the conceptions being taught, and have also been labeled naive conceptions, private concepts, alternative frameworks, intuitive theories and preconceptions (Mintzes, 1984; Linder, 1993; Dole, 2000). However, scholars have moved toward replacing this term with “alternative conceptions”, since many conceptions once considered misconceptions, later became the scientifically acceptable ones. Novak (2002) labels these cognitive difficulties LIPHs or “Limited or Inappropriate Propositional Hierarchies” which he asserts better describes the origin of the problem, the history of the conception and/or the role the conception plays in the thinking of the learner. Alternative conceptions were initially referred to as misconceptions in the literature because they were judged as untrue. However, Guba & Lincoln (1994) point out that using constructivism as a referent, conceptions cannot be considered as “true” in an absolute sense. Conceptions are more or less informed based on the experiences and realities of the learner. In addition, under a constructivist construct, realities are constructed and “truth” is what we try to approximate, but may never achieve. Whereas scientists more readily dismiss misconceptions in science, students are not as easily disabused of these beliefs, because they are grounded in long personal experience (Halloun & Hestenes, 1985) and attempts to make sense of the world (Bishop & Anderson, 1990). As a result, learners choose these conceptions as alternates over scientific knowledge.
Alternative conceptions often parallel explanations of natural phenomena offered by previous generations of scientists and philosophers (Gopnick, 1996; Gil Perez & Carrascosa Alis, 1985; Halloun & Hestenes, 1985; Thorley & Stofflett, 1996). Gopnik argues that there are powerful similarities not only in content knowledge of early scientists and children but in the cognitive processes as well. Gopnik sees parallels between cognitive development in learners and the evolution of scientific theories. Gopnik further proposes that there are similarities in the rules and representations that allow scientists and children to make cognitive advances.
Pintrich et al. (1993) challenges the validity of the child as scientist and the classroom as a community of scientists. Pintrich persists that the goals, intentions and motivations of scientists differ from those of children. Pintrich et al. accept the position that theories of the scientific community are determined by logical and empirical factors instead of personal, social and historical factors. However, science is driven by human interests and in that sense is very similar to what drives knowledge in individuals. Driver (1989) holds that the public knowledge of science is a product of human corporate endeavors and as a result is subject to societal pressure, concerns and biases.
Students come to formal science instruction with a plethora of alternative conceptions of the real world that are highly unyielding to formal instruction. These alternative conceptions are resistant to modification (Pintrich et al. 1993; Georghiades, 2000; Hewson & Hewson, 1984) and difficult to remediate with formal instruction because they are framed by the set of propositions in which they are embedded (Novak, 2002). Alternative conceptions have their origins in a diverse set of personal experiences including direct observation and perception, peer culture, and language, as well as in teachers’ explanations and instructional materials. Such experiences and consequent conceptions make up a learner’s conceptual ecology.
Conceptual ecology describes the dynamic interaction between learners’ concepts and their environment—which includes cultural beliefs, language and accepted theories as well as observations (Hewson & Hewson, 1984; Strike & Posner, 1992). This environment of the learner naturally selects concepts. Some concepts are developed preferentially over others. These concepts do not exist as discrete entities in the minds of learners, they are interconnected to each other as well as to learners’ beliefs, memories, experiences and culture. These schema are dependent on an entire host of other schema held by the learner. They affect how other concepts are perceived. Altering one of these concepts can be as difficult as trying to move one brick from an entire house. However, learners can and do change their concepts, resulting in conceptual change.
Conceptual Change
Conceptual change, like constructivism, is another educational idea that has been discussed in various circles. Susan Carey (1988) is a cognitive psychologist who recognized that concepts change during knowledge acquisition and delved into conceptual change in the mid 1980s. Kuhn (1989), another researcher in cognitive psychology, suggests that the process of how a learner’s theories are revised when they encounter new evidence is subject to change. In science education circles, Posner et al. (1982) is the “father” of conceptual change theory. Conceptual change occurs when a learner transitions from alternative conceptions to scientifically accepted or consensual science conceptions. Hewson (1981) describes conceptual change as how learners’ concepts change when confronted with new, particularly anomalous information.
Though the term “conceptual change” is a relatively new construct, the idea of conceptual change has been around for centuries. Conceptual change is not only carried out by individual learners, but is also present in the history of science (Carey, 1991). Kuhn (1970) suggested that paradigm shifts in the scientific community follow a prescribed pattern. The prevailing paradigm was rendered in a “state of crisis" by failing to produce adequate answers to questions posed by the scientific community. It was replaced—although often not immediately—by an alternative paradigm which was fruitful in that it offered solutions to those problems. In Posner’s conceptual change model, we see a similar framework for shifting paradigms, or concepts, except at the individual level instead of a community level.
Piaget described conceptual change when he distinguished between assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when learners fit new information into the knowledge constructs that they have already built whereas accommodation requires changing existing knowledge to accommodate new knowledge. When learners filter or modify input to match their existing schema, they have assimilated knowledge. Conversely, accommodation is apparent when learners modify their internal schemes as a result of the input. (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). Equilibration occurs when learners seek a balance between their internal conceptions and new information.
Students disproportionately use assimilation and accommodation (Klaczynski & Narasimham, 1998). Not all information that is contrary to a student’s naïve theories causes accommodation and a concept change. What enables some information to cause a paradigm shift and not others? Traditionally, explanations for students using assimilation instead of accommodation, and the resulting learning difficulties, have been attributed to theories of general intellectual development, such as the developmental stages suggested by Piaget. However, in the past two decades research has been focusing more on the nature of ideas and beliefs that children have about scientific phenomenon (Carey & Gelman, 1991; Driver & Leach, 1993; Driver, Squires, Rushworth & Wood-Robinson, 2001).
Much of the original research about children’s conceptualizations focused on physical science and physics instead of biological concepts (Clough & Wood-Robinson, 1985b; Kargbo, Hobbs & Erickson, 1990; Southerland, Abrams, Cummins & Anzelmo, 2001). Perhaps this was in part due to the Piagetian focus on physical science, or that biological intuitive theories seem to arise later in life than physical science (Kuhn, 1989; Carey, 1988). Another possibility may have been the relative ease in testing and developing physical science theories due to the immediacy of observable physical science phenomenon whereas biological phenomenon takes a longer span of time. However, since then work has been carried out on biological concepts such as selected physiological processes, ecology, evolution and inheritance (Carey, 1987; Lawson, 1988; Wandersee, Mintzes & Arnaudin, 1987; Lawson & Thompson, 1988; Trowbridge & Mintzes, 1988).
Posner et al. (1982) initially recognize two forms or phases of conceptual change and uses Piagetian terminology to describe these phases. Assimilation uses existing concepts to deal with new phenomena whereas accommodation is the reconciliation of new conceptions with existing conceptions that may result in the rejection and replacement of older conceptions. Posner et al. identify conceptual change as akin to knowledge acquisition in scientists because both the scientist and learner develop central commitments in order to define problems and propose solutions and because conceptual change occurs when those central commitments require modification.
According to Posner et al. (1982) the four cognitive conditions necessary for conceptual change are: (a) the learner must be dissatisfied with existing conceptions, (b) new conceptions must be intelligible or understood, (c) new conceptions must be plausible helping to solve past experiences as well as reconcilable to existing conceptions, and (d) new conceptions must be fruitful and have the potential to solve problems that are not resolvable by existing conceptions. Once these conditions have been met, then conceptual change can occur. In order for students to successfully navigate the components of conceptual change, students would need to engage in metacognitive reflection where they re-evaluated their prior conceptual frameworks and compared them with new ideas to ascertain whether the new ideas were plausible and fruitful (Pintrich et al. 1993).
Cobern (1993) suggests that students do not share the plausibility structure of their science teachers because for many students, science is a second culture. Students’ worldview is often not synonymous with that of the scientific community; however, successful science learning involves being inducted into the culture of science (Driver & Leach, 1993; Driver et al, 2001)
I have included 5 of the 12 knowledge claims about conceptual change from Mintzes & Wandersee (1998) as assumptions in my study. They are as follows:
1. Learners are not blank slates, they bring with them ideas about natural objects and events, which ore often incompatible with “formal” science concepts
2. Alternative conceptions are robust and serve a useful function in decoding/explaining the everyday lives of individuals
3. Alternative conceptions are often resistant to change by conventional teaching strategies
4. Unintended learning outcomes arise as learners’ prior knowledge interacts with formal instruction, and these may remain hidden from teachers
5. Explanations that learns cling to often resemble those of previous generations of scientists
Hewson (1981) modifies Posner’s model of conceptual change to replace assimilation and accommodation with rote memorization, conceptual capture and conceptual exchange respectively. Hewson explains that rote memorization occurs when the new conception is accepted but not reconciled with existing conceptions. Reconciliation of the new concept with prior knowledge can occur in two ways. Conceptual exchange occurs when a new conception is irreconcilable with the learner’s existing conception and is subsequently replaced by the new conception. Conceptual capture occurs when a new concept is given meaning in the context of the existing concept.
Conceptual change is related to constructivism because it demonstrates alternative conceptions that students have that vary longitudinally (over time with that student) as well as from student to student, and student to society. Social constructivist and the socially mediated nature of constructivism have influenced conceptual change theory, encouraging discourse in the learning environment (Hewson, Beeth, & Thorley, 1998). Similar to constructivism, a variety of learning and teaching models have arisen as a result of the implications of conceptual change (Nussbaum & Novick, 1982; Minstrell, 1985; Roth, Anderson & Smith, 1987). However, the aim of this study is to investigate the internal influences (carried out by the learner) that promote conceptual change, in order to further inform pedagogy.
Pintrich et al. (1993) agree that the conceptual change model may be useful for conceptualizing student learning, but find this model too cold or dependant on cognition to describe learning in a classroom context. A “cold” model is driven by logical and rational findings. Pintrich et al. believe that we are leaving out the human element of conceptual change, and that it should include more of a “hot” model, driven by personal interests, motivation and social processes. Pintrich et al. use the constructivist position to advocate for a hot model of conceptual change. Since knowledge is created by learners, the conceptual change model should include an affective as well as cognitive domain.
Pintrich et al. (1993) further question how goal orientation of learners affects conceptual change. Learners who adopt a mastery orientation and focus on intrinsic task-involved goals are reported to have different processing and metacognitive strategies that learners with performance, extrinsic ego orientation goals. These processing and metacognitive strategies influence the likelihood that the four conditions necessary for conceptual change will occur. Pintrich et al. suggest that these differences need to be taken into account when one considers conceptual change. Pintrich et al. question how motivation, interest and value beliefs, self-efficacy beliefs, control beliefs, classroom climate, the teacher and a myriad of other circumstances affect conceptual change. This study will not focus on motivation’s effect on conceptual change. The qualitative nature of this study should minimize the importance of motivation on conceptual change. Although the quantity and perhaps even quality of conceptual change may be affected by motivational forces, the basic processes should remain constant.
Pintrich et al. use the constructivist position to advocate for a hot model of conceptual change, however this study views the conceptual change model as inherently hot because it is occurring within the minds of learners. Each learner is an individual, replete with idiosyncrasies and an infinite number of factors that change from even moment to moment, which affect how they respond to each situation.
Concept Maps
Concept map use became prevalent as a teaching strategy in the 1980’s. Novak initially fabricated concept maps in 1977 to represent knowledge evidence by children in clinical interviews (Novak, 1998a). These concept maps were used as knowledge representation tools that showed concepts an explicit prepositions forming a hierarchical structure (Novak, 2002). A concept map is a type of graphic organizer, which shows relationships between concepts or ideas, by linking them via prepositions that describe connections between concepts. Graphic organizers were originally constructed by specialists to aid learners (Trowbridge & Wandersee, 1998), however now they are often utilized as tools of instruction, research and assessment.
Concepts maps are particularly useful because concepts do not exist in isolation. Concept maps provide a “cartography of knowledge” (Mintzes, Wandersee & Novak, 1998) replete with landmarks and reference points. Knowledge is built upon and connected to prior knowledge, and is dependant upon these relationships for meaning. Concept maps are useful in identifying alternative conceptions (Trowbridge & Wandersee, 1998). Concept maps are a valid and useful mechanism for documenting and exploring conceptual change (Wallace & Mintzes, 1990; Markham, Mintzes & Jones, 1994), as well as assessment tools.
One type of concept map frequently used arranges concepts in a hierarchical organization with more general inclusive concepts at the top of the map, branching into more specific subsets (Trowbridge & Wandersee, 1998). Once a theme or superordinate concept has been chosen, smaller related concepts can be organized under the main topic. Concepts should be ranked from most inclusive to most specific, with related importance on similar levels of the hierarchy. Each concept should be linked with prepositions that show how it is related to its adjacent concepts. Hierarchical linkages occur first, however cross linkages can demonstrate depth of knowledge. Concept mapping requires integration of concepts and the ability to think on multiple levels.
Concept mapping offers a variety of pedagogical uses. They can be used to teach difficult topics by arranging them in a systematic order. Concept maps can be used to check learning and identify alternative conceptions that students possess. Concept maps can aid students and teachers in visualizing their conceptual framework and summarizing relationships. Concept maps can be used to check student progress or assess student prior knowledge (Carey, 1986; Wallace & Mintzes, 1990; Markham et al., 1994; Pearsall, Skipper & Mintzes, 1997), and measure conceptual change (Trent, Pernell, Mungai, & Chimedza, 1998). Concept maps can also illustrate metacognition in learners (Novak, 2002).
Metacognition
Historically, the term metacognition was introduced in the 1970’s by Flavell. Flavell (1976) describes metacognition as the monitoring and regulation of one’s own cognitive or thinking processes, or according to Brown (1978) "knowing about knowing". “Meta” is a Greek root which means “along with” or “among”. Cognition is the mental process of knowing. When put together metacognition is thinking along side of one’s thinking. Flavell himself acknowledges that metacognitive knowledge may not be different from cognitive knowledge (Flavell, 1979). The distinction lies in how the information is used. Metacognitive thoughts do not originate with external stimuli but instead are anchored in a knower’s mental representations (Hacker, 2002). Knowledge is deemed metacognitive if it is used as a tactic to reach a goal set by the learner. Kuhn, Amsel & O’Loughlin (1988) have noted that the key aspect of metacognition is the ability to think about a theory rather than with it.
Metacognition is thinking about thinking. It occurs when a learner realizes that they are an actor in the learning process and when they think about how they learn (Flavell, 1977). Novak (1998a) divides metacognition into metalearning and metaknowledge. Metalearning focuses on how the learner thinks about learning i.e. “I learn best when I put things to songs”, or “I remember best when I chunk items into several or fewer groups”. Metaknowledge focuses on what the learner thinks about knowledge, i.e. learners may have a constructivist framework, or many of them may believe that knowledge is a noun that can be attained from the teacher, reading books or memorization. Metamemory occurs when the learner knows how their memory works, and is able to access their memory. Metacomprehension involves the learner knowing when they do not understand and how to take action to ensure comprehension (Garner, 1987). Vosniadou and Ioannides (1998) introduce the term metaconceptual awareness. Students exhibit this state when they are aware of their science conceptions. Vosniadou and Ioannides attest that students can only experience conceptual change if they are aware of their initial science conceptions.
Gunstone and Mitchell (1998) suggest that metacognition is intricately entangled with conceptual change, since recognizing, evaluating and considering whether to reconstruct one’s conceptions are metacognitive processes. Conceptual change requires learners to think about their theories not merely with them as well as to think about evidence instead of solely being influenced by it, both of which are metacognitive strategies (Khun, 1989). Metacognition is related to constructivism because it is a way for learners to mediate their own knowledge building. By making students more responsible for their learning, students become more active participants in the learning process (Georghiades 2000).
If students knew that knowledge was something that they created themselves, it should empower them to take ownership, be more motivated and more proactive in construction of their scientific frameworks. Metacognition takes the power of thinking from an elite group and gives all students the power of learning. Although the research has recognized that there is a relationship between metacognition and conceptual change, there is not a lot of research that explores the metacognitive orchestration of one’s conceptions (Hennessey, 1999). In this study, I endeavored to uncover what metacognitive strategies—if any—students are using to attain conceptual change.
As a conscious and deliberate practice, metacognitive thoughts are not only potentially controllable by the learner, they are also potentially reportable and therefore accessible to the researcher (Hacker, 2002). The results of this study shed light on whether the processes that students employ to arrive at conceptual change are non-conscious automatic responses that have been acquired over years of learning, or whether are they the result of conscious and deliberate choices and directions that students give to themselves. This study illuminates when, how and why students interact with their prior knowledge and how thoughts are altered after initial structuring and storage and retrieval. How are they returned to storage, exactly how they were retrieved or changed somehow? What governs why they get changed and how they are changed? This study should offer insight into what differentiates successful students from their less successful peers as it is related to their manipulation of prior knowledge.
Summary
The purpose of this study is to understand how students navigate conceptual change in a high school genetics unit. Student perspectives of this process are an invaluable key to unlocking this dilemma. Geelan (1997) states that attempting to construe another’s construction process is not philosophically tenable or educationally fruitful, however this is precisely why it is paramount to encourage learners to report this process to the best of their ability. From the constructivist viewpoint, students are responsible for their own learning and are therefore needed to inform us about this process. The process of conceptual change starts with prior knowledge and ends with an acceptable science conception. It is likely mediated by metacognitive strategies. The goal of this study is to capture and understand how these pieces interplay to result in meaningful learning.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This study explored how learners described the modification of their prior knowledge to achieve conceptual change and the methods that they employed to achieve that change. This research was exploratory in nature, and employed a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. In this chapter, I will describe in detail the manner in which I collected, compiled and analyzed my data. A timetable for procedures is given in Table 1, methods are described and justification for the methods chosen is explained.
Choosing the methodology
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to assemble and analyze the data in this study. Qualitative research requires that the researcher study phenomena in their natural setting (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Such research allows researchers to better actualize the perspectives of the participants. Using qualitative methods helped the researcher to gain contextual information in conceptual change that would not necessarily be present in an artificial or contrived setting. Qualitative studies are especially useful when the purpose for research includes understanding processes by which events and actions occur, developing causal explanations and generating grounded theory about unanticipated phenomena (Maxwell, 1998).
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The specific primary questions that I endeavored to answer through this study are 1) how do students in the process of changing their naïve science theories to accepted science theories describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception and 2) what are the methods that students utilize to bridge the gap between alternate and consensual science conceptions to effect conceptual change.
Prior to this study I developed specific plans for collecting data about my primary questions as suggested by Hoepfl (1997). However, my methodology was shaped by the quest for insight into how students mentally access their prior knowledge to bridge the gap between alternate and formal science conceptions. As a result, I altered my approaches and methodology to elicit informative responses from informants. Just as learners shape and adjust prior knowledge to incorporate fresh data, this research was shaped by the collected data and ongoing analyses as well as the ideas that I, as researcher, brought to the study.
In depth, semi-structured interviews (Bernard, 2001) were the primary method for probing the change in content, context and details of the students' thought processes and metacognition. No interviews were scheduled during the teaching of the unit because the focus was not on how students respond to instructional strategies, but on how students subsume new scientific concepts with previous knowledge. In the interim between the pre-instruction interview and post-instruction interview, I was engaged in fieldwork, informally talking to students, monitoring the learning process through listening to audio-tapes of teacher-student interactions and student discussions as well as reviewing student work.
Fetterman (1998) articulates that the emic perspective, or the insider’s perspective of reality, is the heart of most qualitative research and is paramount in investigating situations and behaviors. My interview questions were framed to identify the respondents' perceptions of their metacognitive processes. This is the closest snapshot that I can acquire of what is going on inside of their heads. Informants were self-reporting offering emic perspective. I then applied my theoretical framework to offer an etic, or outside perspective.
Ethically Responsible Research
This research topic and my approach to this study are rooted in my conviction of the necessity of praxis. Praxis is practice that is guided by reason, ethics and justice, in order to better society and the human condition. Praxis concerns itself with the application of theoretical constructs to effect social change or reform and is the social responsibility of the researcher. Kozaitis (2000) holds that data collection and qualitative research should be intellectually mediated, ethically sound and socially responsible. As researchers collect data about their environments, they are also responding to it and modifying it. It is the responsibility of researchers to ensure that their interaction with the groups that they study is not only ethically sound but also beneficial to the group with which they are interacting. The purpose of this study was to accrue insight into how students direct their own learning in order to make them more proficient learners as well as inform other learners, educators and scholars of these processes so that they may facilitate their occurrence.
This research was inherently safe and not detrimental to the participants. It adheres to the Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association as described by Fluehr-Lobban (1991). Classroom practice was not altered for the purpose of this study. Instruction continued in a manner consistent with how it occurred prior to and after this investigation. Research data was collected primarily through interviews. Not only were the research methods innocuous, but also, no damage to the informants, school or school system has been committed with the data that this study produced. The results of this study were beneficial to the community from which they were attained in providing them with more information on how students learn and offering implications for improvement of student learning and teacher pedagogy to effect conceptual change. The primary benefactors of this study were the participants because they became enlightened about their own thinking and learning processes. Students have grown from their experience of being research participants by learning to recognize and articulate their own cognitive and metacognitive processes. Student participants and parents of participants were offered a written report of recommendations for enhancing learning through conceptual change at the end of this study. In addition, the school involved was given recommendations not only for student actions, but also for pedagogical strategies that may support conceptual change in the classroom.
Students were assured that their identities would remain confidential, and that what they reported to the researcher in no way affected or influenced their academic or conduct grades in any of their classes. Participants had an opportunity to respond to the researcher’s representation of them after each interview. Students were presented with transcripts of their interviews and asked if they wanted to alter any of their responses. Student identities were protected in transcripts by the use of aliases. The school’s identity has also been protected and will be referred to as Pondview Preparatory School, or PPS throughout the study.
Several steps were taken to ensure that students and parents that chose to participate gave informed consent. A copy of the letter of consent is provided in Appendix f. Copies of my proposal were made available to parents at parent teacher conference, online, and per request. I made myself available to answer questions about the study via appointment, phone and email.
Selection of Participants
Participants were selected via purposeful sample chosen from two general level biology classes. Purposeful or judgmental sampling is used in qualitative research to provide informants that are capable of answering questions pertinent to the study. A purposeful sample allows for the examination of conceptual change, which is critical to this study (Maxwell, 1998). Pre-test scores, observation of students to determine those who were outspoken and the ability to construct informative concept maps determined the initial 12 students who were interviewed. My familiarity with students in a structured setting allowed me to identify which students had the ability to best articulate their thought processes and insights. Students were also chosen based on their return of the parental and student consent forms and their willingness to share their ideas as well as their availability to meet after school or during lunch for interviews. The 12 students chosen had variable prior knowledge about genetics and the inheritance of traits, as evidenced by pretest scores and concept maps. Although I selected informants best able to inform the questions posed in this study, an effort was made to have gender and ethnic equity in the choice of the participants. The average age of the participants was 15 years and 8 months. One male and four females were chosen, and the participants chosen represented each of the major ethnic groups in the biology classes as well as the school.
After genetics instruction and the posttest, 5 of the 12 students were chosen for in-depth post instruction interviews, focus groups and narrative analysis essays. These five students were the primary or key informants in this study. Primary informants were selected based on the degree of conceptual change they experienced from alternative genetics conceptions to scientifically accepted genetics conceptions. They were also selected based on the amount of concept map development that occurred as well as the success of the initial interviews and student continued availability.
When determining the five key informants, care was taken to choose students with varying degrees of conceptual change. Students demonstrated a range of genetics knowledge and experiences. Determination of amount of conceptual change that occurred was based on content gains from the pretest to the posttest and concept map development. The student with the least amount of gains in genetics knowledge as measured by posttest offered this study a negative case analysis as described by Lincoln & Guba, (1985). When searching for similarities in the four informants with substantial gains in genetics knowledge, I found characteristics different from as well as similar to the one student who showed negative gains. However, I do believe I found a characteristic in my negative case informant, that was not expressed in my other participants and expect that this configuration adds to credibility of this study (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
All students in the study classes received the pre- test and the posttest, and were required to participate in various assignments and recorded group discussions. Artifacts were also collected from all students. Artifacts included concept maps, answer to bio-log questions and open-ended questions on tests. Artifacts were used to identify students’ genetics content knowledge as well as inform interview questions.
Role of the Researcher
The role of the researcher in this study was primarily as an observer and recorder, to learn what students were thinking and metacognitively negotiating, as they attempted to understand genetics. I was primarily interested in the personal thoughts, experiences and intuitions of the students, rather than external influences such as the teacher. This research should also provide a window into the process of how students use their prior knowledge to attain conceptual change.
In this study, I was the primary data collection instrument. The human as instrument approach is advantageous and significant in qualitative research. Some characteristics identified by Lincoln and Guba (1985) that make the researcher the instrument of choice in this type of study include the ability of humans to: interact with the situation, respond to environmental cues, request verification of data, explore aberrant responses and collect data on multiple levels simultaneously. The researcher as instrument can capitalize on adaptability to modify the target focus immediately, holistic emphasis to make meaning of phenomena as they relate to the issues surrounding them and to further investigate atypical responses that might otherwise be discarded. (Robson & Dixon, 2001). Denzin & Lincoln (2000) view qualitative research as a value-laden interactive process that is shaped by the personal background of the researcher.
As a member of the school and school system my role was not simply as an outside observer, but as an insider engaged in community development. As the researcher, I was involved in native anthropology. This had the potential to give an even greater understanding of the phenomenon because I had more of an authentic emic view. I also shared common values, languages and beliefs that allowed me to represent more adequately the emic perspective of the group of students being studied. However, there are a few cautions to native anthropology. I may have been more biased since I felt that I already had an emic view of the culture. It was important that I use my training to analyze my personal experiences to ensure that I offered an edic perspective in my representations as well as an emic one. In addition to contributing to the scholarly body of knowledge, I have communicated my findings to students, parents, teachers, administrators and staff developers in the county where the research occurred so that it may inform practices, enhance learning and improve teaching.
Setting
PPS was a public high school located in a major city in the southeast. At the time of the study it had 1383 students and a full-time teaching faculty of 74. The student population is 50 percent Caucasian, 28.1 percent African American, and 19 percent Hispanic and Asian. The average income for parents of students varies from poverty to wealthy and 20.3% of students are on the free or reduced lunch program, compared to the county's 51%. Science is a high priority in the curriculum as demonstrated by the seven elective science courses available to students: chemistry, marine biology, anatomy and physiology, A.P. physics, A.P. chemistry, A.P. biology, A.P. environmental science. Four of which are Advanced Placement courses (the latter 4). This was compared to the county average of four science electives offered per school. 90% of students passed the science portion of the high school exit exam compared to the 69% county average and 73% state score. Of the 85% of students that graduated PPS in 2000, 95% receive diplomas with college preparatory diplomas, 4% obtain vocational diplomas and 1% receive special education diplomas. However, the percentages for vocational and special education diplomas were higher in general level biology classes as included in this study.
Data Sources
Table 1 outlines the chronology of events for this study.
Since I performed dual roles as researcher and as teacher, in order not to confuse my students, I limited my participant observation as a researcher. My classroom interactions with my students were through my teacher's role. I was able to observe part of my role as teacher through the video footage that was taken of various class sessions. I also discussed my role as teacher with the special education teacher that co-taught with me during the school year. My interactions with students as researcher were limited to the semi-structured interviews and focus groups. As the researcher, I did not answer content questions from students when they arose in the interview setting.
Data was collected in three stages; pre-instruction data, parallel instruction data and post-instruction data. Pre-instruction data was collected from the pre-test and concept maps, pre-instruction interviews and bio-logs. This data was used to identify primary
Table 1
Chronology of Study
|Phase |Time |Who |Procedure |Description |
|Phase 1 |Week 1 |Entire Class |Pre-test |Students were given a genetics pre-test with multiple choice and open |
| | | |Concept Map |response questions. Students were asked to construct a concept map on |
| | | |Bio-log |genetics and inheritance as well as answer some think ahead questions |
| | | | |in their bio-log. |
| | | |Choose 12 initial |12 initial informants were chosen based on pre-test results, |
| | | |informants |willingness to participate, ability to articulate thoughts, return of |
| | | | |consent forms and ability to make concept maps. |
| |Week 1-2 |12 Students |Initial interview |12 initial informants participated in biographical interviews |
| |Week 2-6 |Entire class |Genetics Instruction |Teacher presented the unit on genetics. Instruction was randomly |
| | | | |videotaped and small discussion audio-taped |
| | | |Collect student |Copies made of student work |
| | | |artifacts | |
| |Week 7 |Entire class |Post-test |Students were given a genetics pre-test with multiple choice and open |
| | | |Concept Map |response questions. Students were given their initial concept map, and|
| | | |Bio-log |were asked to construct a new concept map on their understanding of |
| | | | |genetics. Students answered similar think ahead questions that they |
| | | | |answered initially. |
|Phase 2 |Week 7 |12 students |Choose 5 primary |6 possible key informants were chosen based on post test, |
| | | |informants |availability, interview skills and concept maps |
| |Week 10 |6 students |2nd interview |In the 2nd interview key informants were asked to comment on the |
| | | | |changes in their concept maps and bio-logs. |
| |Week 10-12 |Researcher |Data coding & |Researcher aware of possible themes to inquire about in final |
| | | |transcription |interview and focus groups. Informants narrowed to 5. |
|Phase 3 |Week 12-16 |5 students |3rd & final interview |In the 3rd interview key informants were asked to pile sort a list of |
| | | | |genetics terms and to comment on how their understanding of genetics |
| | | | |has changed. |
| |Week 16-17 |5 students |Focus groups |Key informants met together to talk of their experiences during the |
| | | | |study |
| |Week 21 |5 students |Reflection Essay |Students reflected on their learning experiences during and since the |
| | | | |study. |
informants and to indicate where students were in their prior knowledge before the lesson intervention. Parallel instruction data was collected from non-participatory observation
through audio-tapes of lessons and samples of student work. This data offered documentation of group and individual activities that gave an external snapshot of the learning process. Post-instruction data was collected after the presentation of the lesson in genetics. It included the posttest and concept map, post instruction interviews, pile sorting, focus groups and the narrative self-evaluation.
My primary data was amassed from the three interviews at the beginning and end of the instructional unit. Data collection was an iterative and recursive process, where analysis shaped the data collection and the data collected shaped the analysis. This required that interview questions undergo a process of formulation and refinement over time. Analysis of data collected lead to noticing new trends, which resulted in slight alteration of types and methods of further collection.
Pretest
The New Worm performance assessment was used as the pre to assess gains in genetics knowledge and thinking. The pretest was administered to students in the classroom setting at the beginning of the second semester, prior to genetics instruction. The New Worm was developed to assess students’ ability to reason about genetics (Hickey, Kindfield & Horowitz, 1999). The NewWorm was a paper and pencil based performance assessment consisting of many short-answer items involving the genetics of a fictitious species of worm. A copy of this assessment may be found in appendix B. The pre-test included open-ended free response questions that explored student understanding of genetics concepts and reasoning. A similar test was also used as the posttest so that student gains could be calculated.
Data included a genetics concept map that students created as part of the pre-test. Students had been instructed on concept map construction from the beginning of the school year. Student success is fashioning concept maps was one of the criterion in choosing the initial informants for this study.
Concept Maps
Concept mapping have their roots in constructivism (Walker, 2002) as a learning technique that enables students to represent their understanding and how different concepts are linked to each other in their heads. Students express their ideas in boxed or circled words, linked by words or short phrases that explains the relationship between the ideas. Concept maps are part of the normal learning strategies used in the biology classes being studied. Concept maps can allow students to represent internal cognitive structures externally. This was initially thought to be beneficial in assessing conceptual change, and opening dialogue about that change with students. However, upon discussing the concept map construction during the interviews, it came to light that students were more interested in merely completing the concept maps that representing their cognitive frameworks. As a result, the analysis of concept maps did not provide as pivotal insights as I had expected.
In the study classes, concept maps were constructed at the end of the first semester, prior to instruction in inheritance. Concept maps were scored according to the number of concepts and linkages represented in the map. Concept maps were given half a point for each concept used, half a point for each hierarchical connection and one point for each cross connection. Samples of student concept maps may be viewed in Appendix C. Any scores assigned to student artifacts were independent of, and had no effect on students’ participation in the research, and vice versa. All students were asked to create a genetics concept map during their pre-test. I made photocopies of students’ pre-content concept maps. After the instruction and post-test on genetics, students were given their original concept maps and offered the option to add to their initial concept map, or create a new map as part of their assessment on the genetics unit. These concept maps were analyzed for clues to conceptual change as well as used to initiate discussion in the second interview.
Biologs
All students were asked to respond to “think-ahead” questions in their biolog at varying points during instruction. Osman & Hannafin (1994) describe think-ahead questions are predictive questions that reveal and activate prior knowledge and induce an anticipatory viewpoint preceding instruction. Students in the study classes used biologs as part of their normal instructional routine. Biologs were opinion questions, that students revisited and revised during lessons. Through biologs, students were in the habit of reflecting on their naïve theories and possibly dispelling any alternative conceptions they had prior to instruction. A copy of biolog questions can be viewed in Appendix D.
Interviews
Semi-structured interviews were used primarily to gather information from key participants. An interview guide, or written list of questions, was generated to focus the content of the interview, however participants were encouraged to share their thoughts in their owns terms and at their own pace, as suggested by Bernard (2001). Students were interviewed on campus before school, during lunch periods, during study hall periods and after school. Interviews were mainly conducted in the biology classroom, and occasionally in the chemistry stockroom.
Twelve students participated in the initial interview. These students were identified by general classroom observations during the school year as well as their pretest concept map construction. Although pretest scores were initially intended to help with informant selection, they did not available until after genetics instruction began. The purpose of the initial interview was to gain biographical information on students and identify those students who are potentially exemplary informants. The initial interview also allowed insights into student prior knowledge about genetics. The first interview occurred up to three weeks prior to formal instruction on genetics. A list of interview questions is available in Appendix A.
Six students participated in the second interview, which occurred after students received instruction on genetics and took the genetics post-test. These students were chosen based on how well they articulated their thoughts in the first interview, as well as the degree of gains (positive or negative) they made in their conceptual understanding of genetics. The second interview occurred within one month of the posttest and genetics unit instruction. Students were provided with a transcript of the first interview prior to the second interview. This process occurred routinely before each interview and focus group so that participants might approve, clarify and elaborate their responses.
The purpose of the second interview was to allow each student to discuss the metacognitive or other processes that they were involved in that allowed them to access and manipulate their prior knowledge to arrive at conceptual change. Students were asked to compare their concept maps during the second interview and describe what changes they made to their concept maps and how they decided what things to change and what things should remain the same. Students also described why they chose to either alter their exiting map, or recreate a new one.
A third interview occurred after instruction and transcription of the second interview. This interview allowed for the clarification of any questions that manifested themselves during the second interview. Students were given a transcript of their second interview to verify that I represented their words, thoughts and intentions accurately and to corroborate my analysis. Students were invited to ask any questions that they may have had about the research or reporting experience. During the third interview, students were asked to pile sort a list of genetics concepts into new genetics concepts, changed genetics concepts and unchanged genetics concepts.
Pile Sorting
During the third interview, students were asked to form pile sorts as described by Bernard (2001). Students were given a list of concepts related to genetics written on index cards. Concepts included terms that students did and did not include in their concept maps. Students were asked to sort the concepts into the following three piles: concepts they had about genetics that changed during or after instruction, concepts they had about genetics that did not change during or after instruction, and new concepts about genetics that they learned during or after instruction. Students were then asked to describe their methods for sorting concepts into the three piles. Students were given the opportunity to sort the concepts into piles that they themselves defined if they requested additional categories.
Audio tapes
Classes were audio-taped at various intervals as a record of instruction. This enabled me to reflectively view teacher-student and student-student interactions. Small group discussions were audio-taped to gather a record of student dialogue while engaged in metacognitive activities. This data offered insight concerning how students may socially construct knowledge. Audio recordings suggested how students were thinking and feeling as they were learning the genetics unit.
Artifacts
Various student assignments were copied and collected during instruction. These artifacts did not purposefully aid in the decision of which students to interview. Artifacts mainly included concept maps and bio-log questions. Artifacts were instrumental in identifying alternate conceptions about genetics in the general student population, and aided in the development of interview questions for the key informants.
Post Test
The posttest aided in determining which students achieved the greatest and least amount of conceptual change. The posttest was similar to the New Worm assessment issued as the pretest and found in appendix B. The posttest was conducted during a regular class period after genetics instruction. Pre and posttest scores were compared to see what gains in genetics content was made by participants. As part of the posttest student produced a concept map that illustrated their most current knowledge and genetics concepts. The two concept maps produced in the pre and posttests offered a starting point for students to discuss how their thinking was altered during the instruction.
Focus Groups
Data included the transcription of two focus groups with the key informants. Four of the five informants attended the first focus group, which was held after school in the biology classroom. The second focus group was conducted in the biology classroom during a lunch period and was attended by all five primary informants. Focus groups were held one week and a half apart. The focus groups were informal discussions (Schensul, 1999) of the five informants after the third interview. Students were able to candidly express their opinion, ideas and perceptions about their experiences. Students were given some questions to help focus their comments and then encouraged to freely discuss their prior knowledge, thought strategies and conceptual changes--or lack thereof--with their peers.
Reflection Essay
Informants produced a self-evaluation one week after the last focus group. Students were asked to write a reflection essay on their experience. Students were given four questions to help focus their reflections. A copy of the questions may be found in appendix E.
The aforementioned varied sources of data provided triangulation in my data.
Data Collection
Data was collected during three phases: Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3. Phase 1 data was collected prior to the lesson on genetics and represents student prior knowledge and ideas about learning. Phase 1 data includes the pre-test, initial concept map, artifacts such as bio-log responses and initial interview. Phase 2 data was collected after the lesson on genetics and explored students’ reflection on how they achieved conceptual change during the period of instruction. Phase 2 data is comprised of the second interview. Phase 3 data was collected after Phase 2 and examined conclusions that students had about the learning and conceptual change process. Phase 3 data includes the third interview, two focus groups and reflective essay. Table 1 summarizes the data collection process.
While transcribing interviews, recurrent themes emerged. These themes were noted in memos that were recorded after each transcription. These initial and recurring themes guided questions in subsequent interviews. After the collection of all the data, I began to organize and officially code the data into categories. I was able to refine my ideas about each category as I found more instances of that category. Categories were further revised due to the clustering of codes, and finally were linked to develop larger domains in which they occurred. Themes persisted through these domains giving rise to a tentative theory or conceptual framework. By employing the constant comparative method, the following themes emerged with respect to conceptual change: student initiated, teacher initiated, relationships and multimedia. A summary of the data collection and analysis process may be found in Figure 1.
Data Analysis
Statistical analysis was used to determine which students made the greatest increase in conceptual understanding of genetics from the New Worm assessment (the pre-test). Scores on the NewWorm and the multiple-choice pre and posttests were scaled using Facets (Linacre, 1989). This Rasch method made it possible to directly compare gains for students across the entire range of proficiency and characterize proficiency according to the specific items and general types of items that students at that level of proficiency are able to solve (Hickey et. al. 2002). For interpretability, raw logits were transformed to a T-scale (mean = 50, SD = 10). Four of the primary informants had positive gains in their genetics knowledge and one of the primary informants had a negative gain in their genetics knowledge.
The primary data in this study was collected qualitatively from interviews. Qualitative data analysis has been defined by Bogdan and Biklen (1982, p145) as "working with data, organizing it, breaking it into manageable units, synthesizing it, searching for patterns, discovering what is important and what is to be learned, and deciding what you will tell others". Data collected from interviews was interpreted once it has been coded by thematic analysis. Discovering themes is at the heart of analyzing
qualitative data. In qualitative analysis—text analysis in particular—researchers look for patterned behavior and thought. Data from each interview was analyzed inductively prior to the next data collection with the expectation that patterns would emerge from the data and shape future interview questions.
Themes first arose during the process of transcription. Comments about themes were memoed after each transcript. After collection of all the data, analysis officially began. During initial analysis, transcripts were coded into categories. Categories were descriptions of ideas that students reported that occurred repeatedly, or seemed relevant to the study. After the coding was completed, and categories identified, subcategories and super ordinate categories were developed. For example, conversations with peers, or with family members, or about family members were all placed in the category interaction with family and friends. Categories were revised multiple times as analysis continued. Themes were revisited and found to permeate categories, so categories were grouped into pertinent themes. Domains helped to further organize themes.
All data in this study was analyzed using a constant comparative method (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Glaser, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The constant comparative method assumes that data collection and analysis are recursive, occurring jointly and informing each other throughout the course of the study. As I transcribed data from interviews, I also engaged in memoing. Memos were comprised of further questions that arose during the interview and transcription, emerging themes, possible relationships between data and other hypotheses. Memos were a way to acquire quantifiable means to explore aforementioned questions, relationships and hypotheses in subsequent interviews.
I combined coding with analysis to ascertain and assemble grounded theory as advocated by Glaser and Strauss (1967). Grounded theory was used to explore the research questions. This involved producing transcripts of interviews, identifying themes and relevant categories that arise through open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), comparing the data from analytical categories that emerge and using relationships among
Working Assumptions Data Collection Theme development
Figure 1. Flowchart of Data Analysis Method: There are three phases of data collection and concurrent analysis. The rows represent the phases of data collection and analysis. The columns represent the organization of the data. Phase 1 established student prior knowledge and ideas about learning. Phase 2 explored student reflection on how they achieved conceptual change during the period of instruction. Phase 3 examined students’ ideas about the learning and conceptual change process.
categories to develop theoretical models (Bernard & Ryan, 1998). Saturation was attained as participants’ descriptions became repetitive and confirmed previously collected data.
Trustworthiness of Data
Qualitative research is held by some to lack rigor when compared to quantitative research and has even been challenged as downright unscientific (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). Lincoln and Guba (1985) proposed four criteria for judging the trustworthiness of qualitative research; they are credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability respectively.
Credibility involves establishing that the results of the research are believable from the participants’ perspective. The purpose of qualitative research is to describe or understand the phenomena of interest from the participant's eyes, therefore the participants are the only ones who can legitimately judge the credibility of the results. Credibility was evidenced in this study as participants were given the opportunity to comment on transcripts of prior interviews and the researchers’ interpretations of those interviews. Raw data such as transcripts, artifacts and audio-tapes have been archived for subsequent scrutiny. This helps to enhance credibility by making available the researcher's raw data. Triangulation was also used to facilitate credibility through multiple data sources and collection methods which facilitated in constructing plausible explanations about the phenomena being studied.
Transferability refers to the extent to which the results of the research can be generalized or transferred to other contexts or settings. Transferability has been achieved by maintaining data in original forms and through presentation of rich “thick description” as described by Geertz (1973). As mentioned earlier, raw data such as transcripts, artifacts and audio tapes have been archived for later retrieval. The researcher also attempted to increase the transferability of this study by describing the characteristics, problems and challenges of Pondview Preparatory School, as well as its students so the results of this study may be generalized for similar students.
Dependability may be substituted for reliability in qualitative research. Dependability in interpretive research is often accomplished through triangulation of methods used and through providing an audit trail (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The audit trail used in this study includes raw data. The audit trail also describes how data was collected, how categories were created and how data was analyzed. The audit trail has been written in sufficient detail that a reviewer could easily follow my trail and confirm the findings of the study.
Confirmability involves ensuring that the findings of the study are grounded in the data and can be confirmed or corroborated by others’ review of the data. I have inspected the data for and have reported negative instances that are contradictory to the study’s findings. A thorough analysis of the data has been made to ensure that conclusions about the processes of conceptual change are in keeping with the data. A thorough analysis of the data has also ensured that biases present are due to the grounding of the data and findings in events, rather than being exclusively from the researcher (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In addition, an attempt to maintain confirmability has been furthered by providing raw data that can be traced to original sources and by describing how the data was categorized and interpreted. Lincoln and Guba (1985) also suggest that triangulation involve having multiple researchers and outsiders compare data and emerging themes. I shared my ideas-in-development with the special education teacher who was also present in the classroom at the time of the research. I asked for her input as to whether she was seeing the same themes I identified. I also shared interview transcripts with two other doctoral students to ensure that we agreed upon the meanings emerging from the data.
Summary
The goal of this research was to gain insight on students’ perspectives of how they navigate from prior genetics constructs to consensual genetics constructs. An interpretive methodology was chosen in order to render rich, descriptive data offering the students’ viewpoints of the conceptual change process. This study was conducted within the natural setting of the classroom and data collection relied primarily on semi-structured interviews and students’ discussions during focus groups. The aim of this study was to capture and present the students’ perspectives of conceptual change.
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to explore strategies students use to navigate conceptual change in a high school unit on genetics. The data collected was examined within a constructivist framework. The questions guiding this study were as follows:
1. How do students in the process of changing their naïve science theories to accepted science theories describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception?
2. What are the methods that students utilize to bridge the gap between alternate and consensual science conceptions to effect conceptual change?
In this chapter I will present student reported views about where and how students acquire genetics knowledge, and how their prior genetics knowledge is adjusted to more closely estimate consensual science knowledge. I have attempted to maintain the credibility of the data by directly quoting participants descriptions of their learning and conceptual change processes in most cases.
The data collection and analysis occurred in three phases: Phase 1-prior knowledge and ideas about learning, Phase 2- reflection on conceptual change during
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instruction and Phase 3-students’ ideas about the learning and conceptual change process. A flowchart (Figure 1) summarizing the data collection and analysis process was illustrated in chapter 3.
Phase 1: Prior Knowledge and Ideas about Learning
Phase 1 of the data collection and analysis focused on the first guiding question in this study—how do students describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception. In order to describe the change from prior knowledge to new knowledge, it is necessary to gain a picture of students’ prior knowledge. Phase 1 data was primarily collected from the initial interviews of 12 students. However, it also included data from answers to early biolog questions, the pre concept maps and post concept maps. Phase 1 data demonstrates how students report they acquire and alter their genetics knowledge prior to receiving 9th grade genetics instruction.
Phase 1 has been divided into three domains: genetics content knowledge, genetics knowledge origins and impetus for genetics conceptual change. Four themes pervaded the aforementioned domains as follows: teacher initiated, learner initiated, personal relationships and multimedia. Themes are further divided into categories that describe the types of codes that were evident in student transcripts. A summary of the themes that emerged during Phase 1 is provided in Table 2.
Symbols used in the transcript data are as follows: My statements within the interview transcripts are represented by “ I: ” as the interviewer. Student names have been changed to maintain confidentiality. “…” represents a continuation of an idea by the same student, later on in the same interview “__” represents a word or words that was
Table 2
Summary of student reported origins of genetics knowledge and conceptual change
Domain Theme Categories
Genetics Formal Education School in general
Knowledge (teacher initiated) Teacher Explanations
Origins Textbook
Informal Education Science Centers
(teacher initiated)
Relationships Personal interactions with Family &
Friends
Multimedia Internet
Television
Magazines
Impetus for Learner initiated Paying Attention
Genetics Interest
Conceptual Questions from life experiences
Change
Teacher initiated Teacher explanations
Visual aids
Dialogue with teacher
Inquiries to student framework
Relationships Family & peer dialogue
Multimedia Books
Note. A culmination of the domains that emerged during Phase 1 of the data collection. Student responses were coded into categories. Categories were permeated by four reoccurring themes. Themes were organized into larger domains.
unintelligible during transcription. Appendix G has a glossary of genetics terms used in this report.
Genetics Content Knowledge
Although many students alleged that they did not have prior knowledge of genetics, all students interviewed had definite ideas about how traits were inherited. It is important to note that students repeatedly contradicted themselves in their explanations during interviews. As the researcher, when I encountered a contradiction, I would bring it to the attention of the students for clarification. As I became aware of the prevalence of this phenomenon, I began to ask the same question in varying ways and multiple times throughout the interview, in order to arrive at the most accurate response. In the below transcript we see Kat say initially that the only place where she learned about how traits are passed on is in a biology class. Kat then later agrees that she had also learned some information about transmission of traits by observing and discussing family members.
I: that’s fine, you can say I don’t know. Um, where did you learn that information
Kat: from you, from the biology teacher
I: is that the only place that you learned information about how traits are passed on from one generation to the next?
Kat: I don’t know
I: ok, have you ever talked about this [transmission of traits] before your 9th grade year in science?
Kat: before, like, before we started the unit?
I: right, before we started the school year
Kat: no, not that I recall
I: so you never had a conversation about, well
Kat: well I’ve had conversations about genes, but not like specifically like you do in biology
I: ok, well what kind of conversations have you had about genetics
Kat: I don’t know. Maybe things like you look like your dad, or you look more like your mom or something
In a similar occurrence, Zack was asked if he had conversations about transmission of traits with friends or family members. He quickly changes his response from a no to a yes.
I: what about conversations with family or friends?
Zack: nah
I: did you ever hear somebody say ‘oh you must be related to so-and–so because you look like so-and-so’ or ‘you act like so-and-so’
Zack: yeah
I: when?
Zack: um, when my friend was looking at a photograph of my family she said you have your mom’s nose and you’ve got your dad’s eyes
The first interview began with a picture of an adult dog, surrounded by six puppies. This picture is Figure 2 in Appendix A. When asked if any of the puppies in the picture could be related to the parent dog in the middle Pam says no with assuredness. However, after questioning, Pam changes her response to a maybe and eventually to a yes.
I: do you think any of those could be her puppies
Pam: uh, no
I: why not?
Pam: she probably adopted them but they’re not born from her because they don’t look like her
I: so you don’t think any of those could be her natural children?
Pam: this one might be
I: the first one?
Pam: yeah, cause it has dots on it, but it might be mixed with another different dog
Students clearly say that offspring can express phenotypes not apparent in parent phenotypes. However they have difficulty explaining how human parents can pass on phenotypic traits to offspring that they, the parents do not have. Students have conflicting ideas and applications, which exist concurrently in their mental structures. When students were asked questions about their frameworks, these inconsistencies seemed to be brought to their attention. A portion of Pam’s interview illustrates this:
I: ok, tell me a story about a time when you found out something that you believed to be true was not true
Pam: something that I believed to be true?
I: and you found out it wasn’t true. If you can, I would like for it to be about something you understood about science, but it doesn’t have to be
Pam: like about the eyes thing I always thought that for you to have a certain color of eyes your parents had to have it, but if your grandparents didn’t have it was just, like, not right, I thought your parents’ parents had to have it
Early in the interview Pam explained that she came to believe offspring could express a trait if one of their ancestors, like a grandparent, also had that trait. This is different from what she believed before, because initially, she thought the trait must have been possessed by one of the parents in order to be expressed in the offspring. However, when asked a question later in the interview as to whether a black and gray striped cat could have kittens with orange spots, she vehemently said no, without asking if a grandparent, or other ancestor was orange with spots.
I: ok, what if I told you that I had a discussion with someone and they said they had two cats, one was solid black and the other was gray with stripes and when those cats had babies, one of the babies was orange with spots, would you believe me?
Pam: no, it would make no sense.
I: so you would say ‘no you’re lying’?
Pam: I would say ‘something’s wrong with your pets cause that makes no sense’.
I: so something would have to be wrong with the pets, to have a black and gray cat make and orange cat?
Pam: Well, that’s just kind of strange, unless they had, unless like their grandparents had orange they shouldn’t be orange, or their great-great-grandparents were orange
I: so someone had to be orange?
Pam: yeah, somebody in their trait had to be orange
Pam seems to have forgotten that she changed her understanding of transmission of traits to include ancestors as possible sources for genetics traits. When her comment about something being wrong with the cats was repeated back to her, Pam seemed to re-discover her ancestor theory.
Students were aware that an individual could pass on a trait that they did not express, but could not explain the mechanics of how this occurred.
Portia: that the dominant one [trait] is the one that shows the characteristic outside. But the other one, you can still have the characteristic, but the other one, you can pass it on to your children
Students were aware that traits were not manifested in every generation, because they were not apparent in the phenotype. However, students could not explain how a trait might skip a generation due to its presence as a recessive trait in the genotype.
I: ok do you have things that are not your mom or your dad?
Joe: yes
I: what?
Joe: I had 6 fingers
I: ok, where do you think you got that from?
Joe: my great great grandpa
I: on your mother’s side or your father’s side
Joe: on my mom
I: does your mom have 6 fingers?
Joe: no
I: so how was she able to give you 6 fingers?
Joe: she was probably like, I don’t know
Students demonstrated prior exposure to genetics topics, as they used genetics terminology such as dominant. However they seemed to use these terms without fully understanding them, as they could not give working definitions of the words.
I: ok, when you say they could have gone over and taken everything from their father’s side, what did you mean by that
Portia: like his genes were stronger than hers and they were dominant or whatever, like that Punnett square thing the dominant thing probably
I: ok, so what’s a dominant gene?
Portia: it’s like, I don’t know how to describe it actually. I learned about it but I don’t know how to describe it.
The most common genetics prior conception that students had was that genes could literally skip a generation, and be passed from grandparents to grandchildren without being present in the parent’s genotype. After genetics instruction, most students had adjusted this conception and were able to explain that recessive genes are not expressed in the parental phenotype, but are present in the parental genotype, and therefore can be passed on to offspring. Renee writes in here biolog response:
I use[d] to think that a child could pick up a trait that neither of their parents have. I learned that that can’t happen, and a trait could not be as visible in the parents as in their offspring.
Through Phase 1, students demonstrated that they had exposure to inheritance of traits and that they had developed theoretical frameworks about how information is transmitted through generations. Students’ genetics frameworks were fragile and still under revision as demonstrated by their tendency to change explanations and answers during interviews, as well offering contradictory explanations for inheritance phenomena. Students used the jargon of genetics, although not always with precision and accuracy, and held naïve theories of genetics not inline with consensual theories of genetics.
Genetics Knowledge Origins
Students reported that they learn new genetics content from a variety of sources. These sources have been categorized into four groups: Formal education settings, information education setting, personal relationships and multimedia. A summary of these groups may be found in Table 2.
Formal Education Setting
The primary source of genetics information in the formal education setting was the teacher. Students recounted that they learned new genetics content from teacher explanations
I: So is that the first time that you learned how things are passed from parent to offspring
Renee: No. The first time I learned about that was in 6th grade.
I: What did you learn
Renee: They [the teacher] didn’t really discuss it, they just said that you know we get some of our traits from our parents and they didn’t say a lot about it in 6th grade, they just said the basics
Students reported that teachers used examples, visuals and models to accompany their genetics explanations.
I: ok give me another example
Helen: like I mean, on his desk one day he [the teacher] had a turtle and on the other side he had another turtle but it was like a different you know, shape
I: were they alive?
Helen: yeah, and he was like this is the mom this is the child, do you think they came from each other, or did the child come from the mom? We were like ‘no not really’ cause that one is like dark green, that one is light green with little bitty spots on it, and he was like why we answered and then he was like it did, this is, they are related, we were like what, and then he was like, because this was the father, he brought the father out, I was like ew don’t touch it, he was touching it, that’s nasty. So he brought the father out and he was like this is what is called genetics he was making an example of it.
I: ok, so he would use a lot of examples
Sarafina: well, I heard my teacher was talking about genes, she really didn’t go into detail but they’re in the chromosomes, chromatin and all that. She really didn’t go into detail about all that, she just said a few things about the double helix and genes and she had pictures in her room of the double helix and she said it’s like a step ladder and that’s just the kind of stuff that she said. But we never really went into detail about it
Students often said that they learned genetics content from “school”. Unless students specified otherwise, these occurrences were grouped as teacher interventions. Some of those occurrences are as follows:
Sarafina: I really don’t know, but I learned that in the 7th grade, that some things are dominant over others and you’re more likely to get something that you are another thing, but there still is a possibility to get the other thing
Gary: uh, my science class last year I took and this class, biology
I: what have you learned about how things are passed on from parents to children?
Joe: um, like somehow your parents can pass on like facial features or something
I: now is this from personal experience, or from reading a book or watching TV, or learning it in class
Joe: learning it in class
I: which class?
Joe: biology
I: ok, so it was only one class where you learned this?
Joe: yes
I: So is that the first time that you learned how things are passed from parent to offspring
Renee: No. The first time I learned about that was in 6th grade.
I: What did you learn
Renee: They didn’t really discuss it, they just said that you know we get some of our traits from our parents and they didn’t say a lot about it in 6th grade, they just said the basics
Mahala: um, I also learned it on the, in um 8th grade, well some we kind of talked about it in 8th grade
I: what did you talk about in 8th grade?
Mahala: um, like, still we talked about traits and how other children, and how children get traits and um, talked about pedigrees and stuff like that
Students reported that teacher explanations that were peppered with humor were more enjoyable and readily understandable.
I: ok, give me an example
Helen: like, I don’t remember, but he would just make something up and start talking about it, like he would be like ‘what if your mom had freckles’ everyone would start cracking up, we were just, we were 8th graders big deal, we’d start cracking up and then he would say you don’t have freckles but your child wants freckles maybe, gets freckles and then that kid would be like, I don’t want freckles, I don’t want my kids to have freckles and then he would be like that’s what it’s called, that’s genetics, he would make it into genetics, something like that. He would just say anything to make us understand though
I: so when you say anything you mean he would say things about students or would he use examples...
Helen: anything, examples.
…
I: so you said you never really got [understood] science until last year
Helen: not really, yeah
I: what do you think was different about last year, why you understood it more
Helen: cause it, last year, even though all we did was write notes and basically that’s it, from the overhead, he still made it teachable, like he said stuff, put a little bit of joke in it, to make it understandable. Like he would probably jone [joke] on a boy in class and we would understand it you know, he would just jone on him, not jone, but start making fun of him, ‘oh look what he’s wearing’ you know, oh, just something dumb he would probably make it understandable.
In some cases, genetics information from the teacher was supplemented with information from science textbooks:
I: ok, where did you learn this [information about inheritance]?
Pam: science last year
I: tell me about your science class last year
Pam: we learned a lot of stuff but mostly we didn’t learn much because everybody was talking all the time, kind of like our class now, and it was crowded, they had a lot of people in there and the teacher was kind of confusing, we couldn’t always understand what he said because he wasn’t American and he couldn’t speak English very clearly, so we couldn’t understand him, we should have to guess what he was saying, so we learned better by actually looking at the book than by listening to him, and that’s all.
Informal Education Settings
In addition to formal education settings, students also gathered genetics information from informal education settings, such as science museums. In the below transcript, Joe reported that watching scientific television shows, reminds him of an inheritance lesson he learned at a local science center.
I: ok, so you say in 4th grade you went to the science center and they told you that um you could inherit various traits but you had thought about that before then, tell me where were you what were you doing when you thought about that
Joe: I was watching the discovery channel
I: and this was what grade? 2nd grade? 1st grade?
Joe: 2nd or 3rd
I: 2nd or 3rd? And what were you watching on the discovery channel?
Joe: it was this story about how this like baby was born and it had like ___and traits from the mother ___
In this example we see how an experience in informal education brings to the forefront of Joe’s thoughts prior information that he had accumulated about inheritance of traits from a different source.
Personal Relationships
Overwhelmingly, student interviews revealed that students were first exposed to genetics concepts through conversations with and about family members concerning family traits and the transmission of those traits. Pam came to the conclusion that somehow she received her birthmark from her grandmother, through her mother, but is at a loss for explaining how since her mother does not have the mark herself.
Pam: people say I look more like my mom, but I really don’t know, to me I don’t look like either
…
I: but you say that you don’t resemble either of your parents
Pam: I have certain things from them, but I’m not like actually either, it’s like a mixture of both
…
I: ok, is there something you have that is neither your mom nor your dad’s?
Pam: yeah, I have this birthmark that I got from my grandma. She has the same birthmark on the same spot
…
I: but your mom doesn’t have this birthmark. How do you think you got it
Pam: well, maybe she had the trait for the birthmark and it was passed on to me
Renee concluded that her hips are from her grandmother because that is what she has heard repeatedly from her family members. However, she used a picture of her dad to conclude that he is who she inherited her nose from.
Renee: I determined that I got my hips from my grandmother on my daddy’s side cause everybody was, everybody said that my hips were like hers, and so I just concluded that that was were I got it from
…
Renee: I found that I got my nose from my dad
I: how did you figure that out
Renee: cause I was looking at a picture and it was like my nose looks just like my dad
Portia’s exposure to transmission of traits comes from answers given by her parents, as well as reactions that she gets from people about her resemblance to her mother.
Portia: well I kind of knew it, but I learned it more in detail
I: when you said you ‘kind knew it’ where did you get that information?
Portia: uh, I just asked my parents sometimes
…
I: ok. Who do you resemble more, your mom or your dad
Portia: my mom
I: why do you say that
Portia: because most of the people say that, because I cant really tell when people look alike
I: so you don’t agree or disagree with them,
Portia: no
I: so you don’t think anything. Do you think you resemble your mom?
Portia: yeah, because we sound alike, like on the phone people think that I’m my mom or something, my friend started talking to my mom, thinking it was me
Sarafina’s conclusions about the offspring of the puppies in the initial interview picture, were influenced by comments about Sarafina by her mother, and comments about Sarafina’s physical similarities to her mother by acquaintances.
I: why do you say that? That they don’t have to look exactly like her? Who told you that?
Sarafina: no one really told me that, but, I mean, even with humans, like you don’t look exactly like your mom because you have characteristics from your dad. So you don’t have to look exactly like your parent, because the mix between the two is also all in your genes that goes back farther
I: have you learned anything about how traits are passed on from parent to offspring from videos like the discovery channel, or from conversations with your family or friends?
Sarafina: no, not really the TV, but, um my mom sometimes tells me like I am more like my grandmother than like her, just like our bodies are similar and things like that, we are more petite than other people in our family and stuff like that, but nobody has really gone into depth about it
…
Sarafina: um, a lot of people used to tell me that I looked a lot like my mom, and something like then when she was younger, and I just thought oh, we look alike you know we’re family, I really didn’t go in depth into these genes and traits, the only reason why I look like someone is because of the genes and traits, because if you would compare someone in my family to someone on the street they wouldn’t look alike because they are not related and they don’t have the same genes and stuff like that
Not only have students gathered ideas about how traits are inherited across generations from family experiences, students also attribute scientific terms to these ideas. In the following example, Sarafina uses the term “dominant” to describe a trait that occurs more frequently.
Sarafina: well, I’ve always been told that I have hair like my mom, my mom’s hair is straight and my dad has wavier hair and curlier hair, and most people that were in my family before that had curlier hair, and I think curlier hairs is probably more dominant and that’s probably why I have more people in my family that have curlier hair
…
Sarafina: um, sometimes we go and look in the mirror and our faces are right next to each other, wand we just look and we compare, I think I have my dad’s nose and my mom’s eyes and stuff like that
Renee arrives at a conclusion about which relative she inherited her hips from at an early age, but is unable to deduce how it happened.
I: ok. So, do you ever remember coming to conclusions yourself about how things got inherited?
Renee: yeah
I: how old were you
Renee: like, like when I was…
I: what happened?
Renee: I determined that I got my hips from my grandmother on my daddy’s side cause everybody was, everybody said that my hips were like hers, and so I just concluded that that was were I got it from
I: so did you come to a conclusion about HOW that happened?
Renee: no
I: is that the earliest you remember thinking about how things were inherited
Renee: yes, no the earliest was 5th grade
I: how old were you then?
Renee: ten? nine?
I: what happened then?
Renee: I found that I got my noes from my dad
I: how did you figure that out
Renee: cause I was looking at a picture and it was like my nose looks just like my dad
Mahala did not see any resemblance to her family members until they pointed it out to her, and then reluctantly. However, later, she could see similarities among herself, her brother and her parents. Mahala was also aware that the likeness was not complete. Sometimes traits would seem mixed or even absent.
I: ok, when was the 1st time you remember thinking about heredity, or genetics, or inheritance or “hmmmm we must be related” or “wait a second how did they both get those traits and they’re related” what is your earliest memory?
Mahala: actually, Sunday at dinner
I: that was the 1st time you ever thought about this stuff?
Mahala: no, that was like, well, the last time, but the 1st time I think, what I kind of, like when my parents tell me how I kind of look like my dad or something like that, that was when, they started like that was when I could understand what they were talking about because I didn’t really think I looked like any of them, but that was a like a while ago.
I: that’s it?
Mahala: yep
I: ok, so tell me what happened Sunday at dinner
Mahala: well, um, there had been some pictures that our family had took and I was looking at the pictures and, in the picture I’m like standing in between my mom and my dad and I could see like how I look like her and him, like I had certain features that my brother didn’t have that I have from my dad.
I: you and your brother don’t have the same features?
Mahala: well some of them, we have some of the same features, but, like, ok, like me and my brother, I have my dad’s nose but he has my mom’s nose, so we don’t have like, you can tell that we’re related but we don’t have like certain things though.
The input that students received from personal relationships about the topic of genetics was diverse. Interactions with friends and family varied to include explanations, raised but unanswered questions and comments that served as clues to the rules of inheritance. All of these experiences provided a background that students used to build the foundations of their conceptual framework about genetics. This background had both affective domains and content domains that came into play during the genetics instruction that occurred during this study.
Multimedia
Students also reported that they received some information about how traits are inherited through multimedia presentations, not in formal or informal education arenas. Multimedia includes books, magazines, television, movies, the Internet and other such sources. Joe says that he gained genetics information from science shows and magazines.
I: so you’ve never learned about how things were inherited before this year’s science class?
Joe: I heard it but I never learned it in more detail,
I: heard it where?
Joe: like on the discovery channel and through magazines
I: what did you hear?
Joe: I heard that like, um, something about like you can be a carrier of a gene, but it wont show, it could like show in your sex cells?
Portia states that she researches information on the Internet.
Portia: in school and by research
I: when you say research what kind of research?
Portia: like projects and if you get interested in the subject and school you just want to know more about it, so go and research about it
I: how do you research about topics you are interested in?
Portia: Internet
I: the Internet. Do you go to online articles like maybe a National Geographic, or Discover or Science or do you go to like online encyclopedias or do you go to kids’ web sites? Where do you get your information?
Portia: I go to yahoo or one of those sites
I: like a search engine?
Portia: yes.
Gary sums up the plethora of places that students glean the information with which they build their genetics conceptual frameworks
Gary: pretty much everywhere. A little from the Internet, some from last year, some from this year and stuff
The aforementioned transcripts indicate that learners gathered information about genetics from a superfluity of places, including books, television, the Internet, science centers, teacher explanations and interactions with family members and friends. The interaction of these sources, through subsumption, produced students’ prior knowledge about genetics prior to the genetics instruction that was the focus of this study. Once students’ naïve theories were assessed, it was then possible to focus on the second half of the first research question, and survey how students describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception.
Impetus for Genetics Conceptual Change
Conceptual change is a multifaceted process. It involves students modifying existing ideas in favor of novel or conflicting ideas. Students noted multiple catalysts for the evolution of their ideas about inheritance. These reported stimuli were complied and coded into categories with four common themes: learner initiated, teacher initiated, personal relationships and multimedia.
Learner initiated
Students reported that their varying interest about or attention to a topic could affect whether conceptual change occurs. Pam reported that personal interest played a factor when coming to understand that a child could have different colored eyes than either of it’s parents.
I: but in the beginning you said you didn’t believe it, so were you not given enough facts and evidence in the beginning?
Pam: yeah, I wasn’t really interested in it I guess
Similarly, Helen reported that she decides whether learning will occur based on interest. However, Helen’s interest is initiated by the engaging approach of the instructor, instead of personal interest she may have on the topic.
Helen: like sometimes I’m not into something and then sometimes it’s like ‘what is she talking about?’
I: when you say ‘into something’ what do you mean?
Helen: if I’m interested I will, if I’m not I won’t
I: ok, what makes you interested in something?
Helen: it depends on what it is, if I’m like awake and into it, like ok, I’m learning today, lets learn, I’m taking notes. If I have to take notes I’m probably interested. If I don’t I’m simply like ok, whatever, this is DNA who cares.
I: so you’re only interested I things that you have to take notes on?
Helen: no, but it’s like, ok, see, when you teach in the class, it’s fun I’m happy to learn, actually this is my first class that I actually like to come to. All the other classes are boring as anything. [Be]cause you don’t make teaching boring, you make it fun to learn. You make it want to learn, so if somebody comes in here, they’re just like ‘it’s school, big deal’ but then when they see you, and you start jumping up and down, singing across the room, it’s like ‘ok, she’s in the mood ok let’s start learning’. Like my next period is going to be boring as anything.
Students also reported that they are more inclined to change their naïve science theories for a consensual view of science if they are giving their attention to the topic. Joni reported that initially, since she did not like science, she did not pay as close attention, and as a result did not understand as many things. However, as she realized the importance for focusing her attentions (regardless of preference), she understood science concepts better.
Joni: I probably was different because sometimes I don’t pay attention because back then I didn’t like science so I didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying but probably like by the time I was a little bit older I started to notice that I should pay more attention to my classes.
In addition to her own attention and interest , Joni goes on to say her concepts are apt to change when teacher explain them differently.
I: how come you think it made sense to you that day, but it didn’t make sense to you before
Joni: probably because the teacher explained it to me in a better way, where other teachers couldn’t
Students reported that the attention and interest with which they approach new information can affect how or if that information is incorporated into their knowledge framework. In addition, external forces have the ability to influence the learner’s state, which in turn affects conceptual change. Learners in this study also reported that the impetus for conceptual change could be externally mediated as seen in the following sections.
Teacher initiated
In the knowledge transmission model of learning, knowledge is seen as something that is passed on from instructor to students. In this model, learning is teacher centered, dispensing a body of science facts to students. Many of our students subscribe to this idea of learning. As a result, they rely on teacher explanations as the momentum for conceptual change. The question that seems to arise, is why are teacher explanations sufficient sometimes to help students achieve conceptual change, yet at other times they seem inadequate. Gary hypothesizes an answer to this dilemma. He suggested that re-teaching with visual aids, coupled with his increased maturity, aided him to grasp previously confusing content.
I: so what made you change? When did you wake up and say “a ha! Eureka! I got it!” and what made that happen?
Gary: um, my teacher re-teaching us how to do it he said ‘alright, this is how you do it” and um, I guess basically like in the middle of the lesson I was like “oh my gosh, where was I?”
I: why do you think it came awake for you at that time and not before?
Gary: I don’t know, just uh, different, maybe I was just more mature then, and um, like in the 6th grade our teacher, she verbally taught us. And maybe in 8th grade our teacher used a visual aid, he used the board. And I guess probably I’m just a better visual learner than listening to somebody say something, so it’s easier for me to learn on the board, so when he taught like that it was a lot easier, I guess all of a sudden it just popped in my head
Some of the responses given by students about how they come to conceptual change indicated that students presume the transmission model of learning, where knowledge is something given by the teacher and acquired by the student. However, the majority of students’ responses about how their ideas were altered, attributed personal interactions as the antecedent to change. Students can modify their ideas by observing or participating in dialogue, or a verbal interchange of ideas with their instructor. Joni recounts that witnessing an exchange of ideas between her classmates and her teacher led to a change in her ideas.
I: do you remember the moment you said ‘you know I think they’re right’? Do you remember when it happened?
Joni: yes
I: what made it happen?
Joni: well my classmates would argue with the teacher that it couldn’t be possible so they started to explain everything, so and you could say, well that makes sense
I: so students were arguing with your teacher, your teacher started to explain and what happened?
Joni: I just noticed, well that makes sense, so it is possible
Sometimes a change of ideas is the result of a teacher making inquiries into a student’s existing ideas. This was apparent multiple times throughout the first interview, where students would rethink their own responses and frameworks about how traits were inherited, as a result of being questioned about their answers. Zack and Renee demonstrate this below:
I: ok, have you changed your mind about things that you’ve thought in the conversation that’ we’d had thus far?
Zack: yes and no
I: what have you changed your mind about?
Zack: that there could be like different possible changes in the baby, there could be so many ways they develop
I: when did you change your mind?
Zack: just now
I: what made you change your mind
Zack: a question you asked me
I: which question?
Zack: I forgot the question
I: were you aware that you mind was changed when it changed? Did you say ‘oh wow look at this my mind is changing!’ or was it later when you looked back that you said ‘oh yeah I changed my mind back there’
Zack: later when I looked back
I: uh, have you ever changed your mind about how you thought things were inherited?
Renee: no. Yes
I: when did you change your mind and about what?
Renee: I just changed my mind, right now
I: right now. Ok, what did you change your mind about?
Renee: I don’t know, I’m kind of confused, whether you can, how you get traits that are not from your parents. Like your example with the cats
I: so if I didn’t ask you those questions you would have never thought about it and your mind changed.
Renee: mm hmm
I: So has your mind changed or are you just now wondering?
Renee: I’m wondering.
…
I: ok, is there anything else you changed your mind about during this interview
Renee: yeah, I thought that it wouldn’t be possible to like make a baby that looks completely different from the parents, but now I kind of think that it would be possible
It should be noted that although students were asked questions about their genetics understanding, they were not instructed in genetics content during interviews. Any genetics questions that arose were deferred and students were encouraged to pose their questions during the next class period. Students were asked questions in a non-leading tone and were neither encouraged nor discouraged from changing their responses.
Relationships
As social creatures, humans spend a lot of time interacting with each other. Students discuss their ideas with their peers, and often consider and consult the recommendations from their comrades as seriously as one would reflect on a medical second opinion.
I: why do you think you finally catch on? What do you have in common with all the different times that you finally catch on? What’s going on that makes you catch on?
Gary: usually, I’ll be told by somebody outside of the situation. That’s the way that it is in order for me to say ‘oh my gosh’. Like it might be, I might be like you know, arguing with my sister about something and you know I’ll just like offhandedly mention it to one of my friends and they’ll say ‘yeah, she’s right, you’re wrong, completely’. So I guess for me it takes somebody outside of the situation to kind of tell me that’s the way it is, because I’m really like, I’m really stubborn and I have a lot of pride so I don’t always want to admit when I’m defeated.
Selena described a mutual discovery about genetics that occurred between herself and her cousin. Through verbal interactions they start to see connections between relatedness and inheritance of traits.
I: well what was the first time you remember thinking ‘oh yeah, there’s a connection between what mommy and daddy have to what the kids have’
Selena: oh yeah, ok. I think I was like eight and I didn’t know that my cousin was my cousin, I was littler, I was like six and didn’t know that my cousin was really my cousin until I looked at my dad and his sister, my aunt and was like ‘they look alike’ and then
I: so you knew she was your aunt
Selena: yeah, but I didn’t know my cousin was my cousin, and then we started talking about our last name we had the same last name and we were like ‘oh so we’re cousins’ and then I was like, I should have known you look like your mom you have her nose, you have her hair. Now that sounds funny
Interactions with others appear to be an important ingredient in conceptual change, however not all interactions are weighed equally. Learners seem to be more influenced by some interactions than others. In the below example we see that Helen is more readily persuaded by a peer who demonstrates strong convictions about his point of view. Helen is also more inclined to alter her viewpoint about the nature of science, because of how convinced her teacher was while presenting it.
I: is there anything else that you thought ‘wait a second I don’t know...’ and then you thought ‘yeah, ok, I believe it now’?
Helen: Aliens. I sit next to Gary and all he does is just ‘aliens’ I’m like ‘they’re not real’ and then he just starts talking about it and I’m like ‘ok maybe, now.’
I: what did he say?
Helen: is this universe too big and he’s like it’s too big to not have aliens in the world. I’m like they’re not real they’re just little green people he was like no they’re real, like ok whatever, then he just started talking he was like uh, this universe is not big enough you have aliens in all of those movies they might be fake but they are really real, I was like ok, whatever.
I: it sounded like he really believed what he was saying
Helen: yeah
I: were you more, uh, affected by what he said, or how he said it
Helen: how he said it, he actually convinced you of what he was saying
I: so if he said the same thing but he didn’t seem convinced...
Helen: I would not have believed him
…
Helen: I thought science was just something about learning stuff, but it actually changes over, time. I didn’t know that. I thought it was something, like if it’s like one thing today it will be there for the rest of life nobody changes. As scientists make more experiments it changes
I: how did you change your mind about that?
Helen: like you, you actually made me think about that
I: when you say I actually made you think about it, what do you mean?
Helen: before I was just listening to you, but you were actually convinced into what you were saying. So I was like, I started thinking about it and I was like, ok but then I like, I read, I read, I forget what chapter, but I read the chapter and I was like ok.
In the above passage we see that conviction of the source of new knowledge has some effect on whether learners are willing to rethink their present ideologies in favor of new frameworks. However, it is not conviction of the source of new information alone that abets conceptual change; Helen noted that her relationship with the source must also be considered.
I: what if he just said crazy stuff but he was still convinced, would you believe him then?
Helen: probably, knowing me
I: ok
Helen: Gary knows me, he knows me because we’ve known each other like since six or seven, so he knows what to say to make me believe
Multimedia
Students report that books have the power to help them alter their thinking. Renee explained that seeing something in writing is one of the few occasions where she might re-think an idea that she holds.
I: so you don’t change your mind? Once you think something you think it until forever?
Renee: if I see it in a book that shows that I’m wrong, yeah I change it
I: so as soon as you see it in a book ‘yeah I’m wrong’ and then you change your mind
Renee: I think about it and I see if their answer could be right
How conceptual change occurs
Students reported that change in ideas could occur in a variety of ways. At times it can be a gradual process, and at other times a rapid almost instantaneous process. In the first example, Pam reported a gradual change in ideas, due to gathering more information on the topic in question through reading.
I: did you change your mind suddenly or did it take a while?
Pam: it took me a while because at first didn’t believe that I was just ___ but then I started reading more about it and I was like ‘oh yeah, they’re right’
In her second example Pam reported the beginnings of a change in ideas that was precipitated by a teacher explanation. It should be noted in this example that Pam had directed her attention to the teacher, and that attention is a category under learner initiated impetuses for conceptual change. Once attention was given, to a teacher explanation, the student still consulted written explanations to help her achieve conceptual change.
I: can you look back now and remember the moment you changed your mind, when you said ‘you know what, I think I’m going to change my mind, I think that is right’?
Pam: yeah
I: when?
Pam: I was in the class and I was really listening the teacher was talking about it and I was like, ‘you know what, he might just be right let me go and check the noted what he’s talking about’
Gary explained that a change in ideas can and does occur both gradually and rapidly.
I: so do you think that when you change your mind it is a gradual process, or is it a sudden process
Gary: well, it can be both really, I mean, you might learn something over a time and, gradually you might learn a little more and more until your views are changed, or all of a sudden you just might learn something and your views are completely changed in a matter of seconds, so I mean it can be like both ways.
It has been illustrated in the genetics content knowledge section of this chapter that posing questions to students can cause students to reassess their inheritance understanding. Some students can initiate this process themselves, asking questions of themselves and others for clarification and refinement of ideas.
Pam: it’s like if you are trying to prove something to me you have to have facts and you have to things to say back to the questions that I ask, cause I’ll ask you a lot of questions and try to confuse you, and you have to always, like have something to back up whatever question that I make, cause I’ll make them like ‘what if it was this way instead of the way the way that you say it is, I know it can’t be that way cause it’s this way because of this reason’ you always have to back up something
On several occasions, students were asked to come to a conclusion about a query presented to them based on their conceptual framework of inheritance. Once inquiries were made about students’ explanations, inconsistencies were uncovered and students began to revisit and perhaps revise their conceptual frameworks. An example of this interaction is as follows: Selena is presented with the picture of the puppies at the beginning of the first interview. This picture and pertinent interview questions may be viewed in Appendix A.
I: ok, um, could these puppies, if these were puppies, belong to this parent?
Selena: no
Selena’s initial response is no, the puppies cannot be related.
I: why do you say that?
Selena: because they all look like different breeds
I: what do you mean by different breeds?
Selena uses a term that she is familiar with, but cannot define.
Selena: like their patterns of their like coat, like that’s a Dalmatian and all of the rest of them look like beagles and retrievers, I mean it’s possible for them to breed but they would have like spots or something, hard to tell
I: do any of the puppies have spots
The interviewer used learner’s own statement, that they puppies would have spots, and asked Selena something that is readily apparent, whether and of the puppies had spots.
Selena: yes. Yeah, so maybe one of the puppies could be
Selena changes her initial answer of “no” to a “maybe”. She now decides that maybe one of the puppies could be related.
I: so one of them could be, you say one could be what?
Selena: because of the spots on his coat
I: so would it be possible for this parent with spots to have puppies without spots?
Selena: yes, because the female could have no spots like take after this one, so
I: ok, so is it possible that another one of these puppies also belongs to this parent if the other parent were different
Selena: yes, yeah
Selena now agrees that more than one puppy could belong to the parent pictured. It is important to note that no additional genetics, or inheritance information has been given. It is also notable that the questions being posed to Selena are questions that have arisen from her own framework, from things that she has said and that the interviewer is simply requesting clarification about.
I: ok, one? two? three? All of them?
Selena: I mean, all of them
Selena has now completely changed her initial answer. She has changed from a “no” to a “yes”.
I: ok, so
Selena: yeah I changed
Selena recognized her adjustment and is aware that she has modified her response and her thinking before it can be brought to her attention.
I: oh so you did change your mind, I just wanted to say, wait a second, I just wanted to make sure because in the beginning you said no, but now you said yes, did I make you change your answer? I’m not trying to make you change...
Selena: oh, no, no, no, I just started thinking
Selena accepts ownership for her revised response, and attributes it to cognitive processing.
I: ok, so tell me what you thought that made you change your mind
Selena: well because I said that that it could be a Dalmatian and the other can be like, say, a retriever and it has no spots but this offspring that has this spots and this spots
I: ok, well just now, what made you make that change? Because just now you thought one thing and then you changed your mind and thought something else, what made you change your mind?
Selena: when I said, well actually I thought about cats, my cat’s black and the other cat that it mated with is a tabby and it came out orange, so I was thinking about that. So in the beginning I was like...
Selena’s first indication was that the change occurred as a result of something she said. Then she finished her response saying that the change occurred after she compared the present situation about the dogs, to a prior situation from her life experiences with her cats.
Later, in the interview, Selena is asked a general question—not related to the picture with the dogs—about how her genetics ideas have changed over time. She explains how she thinks an idea can be replaced by another idea in the learning process.
I: how have ideas, your ideas, changed about how things can be inherited over time? So at one point you thought this, but then maybe 3 later 5 years later you thought this, and then later you thought something totally different
Selena: oh, like the dogs
I: right, right, like the dogs yes
Selena: cause I said they couldn’t have them and then I said yeah they did
I: right, just like that
Selena: I guess it’s because you start thinking about it, like in the beginning you’re just like oh, ok that could be it, then you start thinking about it then you hear people talking and then you’re like “yeah that’s right” so thing’s start popping
This is the first time in the study that the idea of concepts “popping” occurs. This idea becomes a compelling force later in the study as Gary uses the same terms to describe his conceptual change. It is interesting to note, that according to Selena, things start popping after “you hear people talking”, or one hears dialogue in their head.
I: what’s right when you say ‘yeah that’s right’ what is right?
Selena: like, something like in the question like how would you say, ___ so if you say they have this mother and that they make this baby, I was like yeah that’s right they can
Selena also highlights that something in the questioning during the interview brought her to a dawning realization about transmission of traits.
I: ok
Selena: and, what was I going to say? Ok, cause you said, um the Dalmatian if it were spotted could have a mother that was like you know different, I was like yeah, that’s right cause...
I: I said that or I asked you?
Selena: you asked
I: ok
Selena: and I was thinking, like oh, what was I thinking, that’s right you can
From this example, and the examples given at the beginning of this chapter, it is apparent that asking questions somehow encourages students to rethink their theoretical framework. In fact, dialogue in general seems to be a very important component of interactions and conceptual change. Dialogue suffused three of the four themes in both the genetics knowledge origins domain and the impetus for genetics conceptual change domain. Dialogue appears to provide the stimulus needed to cause students to question their pre-existing theoretical frameworks.
Phase 2: Reflection on Conceptual Change During the 9th grade genetics instruction
This study was conducted from a constructivist framework, that the learner constructs learning. Phase 2 focused on how students navigate conceptual change. This section reported how students describe their journey of knowledge acquisition, from prior knowledge to consensual genetics conception. It seeks to answer the second research question regarding the methods that students utilize to bridge the gap between alternate and consensual science conceptions. Phase 2 data was collected primarily from the second interviews of six students; Gary, Kat, Mahala, Portia, Sarafina and Selena. Phase 2 data demonstrates how learners make meaning of new material, how learners identify alternate conceptions and what tactics aid in navigating conceptual change. A summary of the data collected during Phase 2 is provided in Table 3.
Helping Learners Make Meaning
From a constructivist perception, learners accumulate knowledge as they attempt to make meaning of their environment and their experiences. Science educators want to best facilitate this process, enabling students to make meanings that are in sync with paradigms in the scientific community. Knowing how learners navigate the meaning making process will aid educators in this endeavor. Learners reported a variety of
strategies that aided in their meaning making processes. They are discussed in the following two sections.
Table 3
Summary of student reflections about conceptual change
Domain Theme Categories
Helping Learner initiated Paying attention
Learners make Repetitive reading
Meaning Repetitive writing
Asking/exploring unanswered questions
Dialogue/verbal repetition
Externally initiated Application for creation
Point of view of presenter
Passionate presentation
Dialogue
Revealing Learner initiated Visual Stimuli
Alternate Relating to prior experience
Conceptions Dialogue
Externally initiated Visual stimuli
Dialogue
Aiding Learner initiated Visual stimuli
Conceptual Asking questions
Change Connecting to prior knowledge
Application through creation
Dialogue
Externally initiated Asking questions
Visual stimuli
Dialogue
Point of View
Note. A culmination of the domains that emerged during Phase 2 and persisted through Phase 3 of the data collection. Student responses were coded into categories. Categories were permeated by four reoccurring themes. Themes were organized into larger domains.
Learner Initiated
From a constructivist ideology, learning is learner initiated and controlled. Students mirrored this belief in some of their interview responses. In the following excerpts, students accept responsibility for their learning, and purport that they can direct the meaning making process by a variety of learner-initiated activities. These activities include: paying attention, repetitive reading, repetitive writing, asking or exploring unanswered questions, and repetitive verbalizing, or dialogue.
As reported in Phase 1, students conjectured that paying attention helped them to understand difficult genetics concepts.
I: when you say you worked hard at it, what do you mean?
Sarafina: um, like I just put effort into it, like I didn’t just go and say whatever, I put effort into you know understanding it, I didn’t just say oh well I’m not going to do that…
I: so effort means what specifically? If I wanted to duplicate what you did, what would I have to do?
Sarafina: you have, you would try hard to understand it, you would take noted you would listen, you would pay attention
…
I: ok, was there something that you think you could have used more of to help you understand quicker and better and more in genetics?
Sarafina: um, maybe I could have paid attention a little bit more and I could have taken more noted because, I write down as much as I can you know, but some stuff you say is really important, and sometimes you know I’ll be just like “maybe you know I won’t write it down”. I’d just be like “I can remember this”, you know but, it turns out you really do need to write it down because you’re not going to remember.
I: you said that maybe you could pay attention more, but I thought you said that you did pay attention
Sarafina: yeah, but I could have paid attention more, I did pay attention, more attention
I: how do you pay attention more?
Sarafina: because, sometimes, people, including myself, we sit up here and we pay attention for like some part of the period, but the other half of the period we just look away.
I: so you mean more often?
Sarafina: yeah
Students reported that repetitively reading items, such as their noted, aided their understanding of genetics. Sarafina communicated that reading not only helps with recall, but when done away from the formal education environment aids in making sense of information.
I: ok, what helped you most in understanding genetics?
Sarafina: I think reading over my noted did, because the stuff you say in class you put it in your noted and you go back and you read it because tomorrow you might not remember them. So you just go back and read it when you get home and everything seems to make sense and you remember it
Portia articulated reading is sometimes less confusing that listening because she can read a passage multiple times, which helps her to understand.
I: ok, what helped you, how did you get there?
Portia: mmm, by listening to stuff in class and just reading about it in class
I: ok, where did you read about it?
Portia: in worksheets and when you taught us
I: ok, um so you think that reading was what helped you most to meet your goal of understanding?
Portia: um, yes.
…
Portia: because I read it. I always understand better when I read something.
I: well, tell me more about that, you said you understand better when you read.
Portia: well by listening, sometimes I get confused, and if I’m reading I can go over it and read it again if I don't understand, and make myself understand.
Mahala suggested that reading a passage helps one to insure that they do not miss any items vital for understanding.
I: well put. I must tell you I am learning plenty from you in these interviews. That was very well put thank you. Um, which method of studying or learning do you find most helpful in helping you to understand something that you have difficulty understanding?
Mahala: um, looking over something a lot and uh examples too, that helps
I: when you say ‘looking over it’ is that literally with your eyes, just scanning it, or...
Mahala: trying, like uh, if there’s a problem that you have to solve, just kind of reading every aspect of a problem, sort of like, like sometimes people, they might read a problem and then they’ll miss it, like they’ll miss something that is really important, so I think that just not to miss anything that you should, just try to read over every aspect.
Repetitive reading is not the only form of repetition that learners find beneficial. Repetitive writing also helps learners to remember and understand. Selena reported that she learns from plenty of repetition.
I: ok, so do you have any more insights just about how you learn in general, about how things happen in your head?
Selena: well, I learn by writing it and seeing it and doing it more than once or twice or three times sometimes
According to Selena, writing helps to initiate the thinking process. Selena is the same student who in Phase 1 said that when she thinks, she hears dialogue in her head.
Selena: I guess it’s because you start thinking about it, like in the beginning you’re just like oh, ok that could be it, then you start thinking about it then you hear people talking and then you’re like ‘yeah that’s right’ so things start popping.
This motif of repetition is even seen in test review. Students were asked to review each of the three genetics unit tests after they took them. However, Sarafina points out that the most helpful test review was the final genetics test review, because it had the content from the prior three tests repeated on it.
I: so when over the six weeks do you think most of the changes occurred? At the beginning of when we were talking about genetics, or at the end? Was there a specific activity when you felt a lot of the changes occurring?
Sarafina: um, I think towards the end, like when we took back, like the big test, like the one that counted.
I: yeah, but how come that was different than the three that you took before it?
Sarafina: because, like the first one that we took was just like, just a couple chapters, but the last one was like all of them, and it was all there for you to see.
I: so did it change when you took the test, or when you were studying for the test, or after you got the test back?
Sarafina: after we got the test back and we started to look at it with our answer keys and everything.
Posner et al. (1982) reported that two of the conditions for conceptual change are dissatisfaction with the learner’s existing conceptions, and fruitfulness of new conceptions to provide solutions for new problems. Students reported that identifying unresolved questions and asking questions in general helped them to gain a better understanding of genetics content. Sarafina recalled an assignment that students were given towards the end of instruction on genetics. Students were asked to write and turn in three questions that they had about genetics that were still unanswered. Sarafina said that this activity of identifying unanswered questions helped her to focus.
I: where there any activities or discussions that you thought were really important that helped you to understand, or was it pretty much just what you did on your own?
Sarafina: um, I think that when, um you had us write the question on a piece of a paper and turn them in, and you answered them like where are you, give three questions that you have, I think that really helped because it focused on specific areas and I think It’s better than going up there every single day and learning something new, because then, some people don’t get it at the same, you know time, like maybe they need to go over it and over and over and over again until they get it
I: so you mean the review questions at the end when I said what three questions do you still have?
Sarafina: yeah
Mahala explains that asking questions and writing those questions down helped to make connections and sped the learning process.
I: how did you learn new things? How did you learn…
Mahala: doing assignments, like um, I’m a very visual learner, if I see something happen, then usually I can pick it up pretty quickly, so I mean when you see somebody maybe talk about genetics or stuff like that you cant really put a picture with that, for me, it’s kind of like leaving me in the dark, but when you do assignments, and up, like when you do assignments, and you’re asking questions about this and you’re actually writing it down on paper and you see pictures and diagrams and charts associated with it, then for me that helps me learn a lot more and I can learn a lot quicker like that.
This idea was also mirrored by Portia, who says that asking questions about a problem helps her to make sense about the problem as well as the solution.
I: so then you read the problem over…
Portia: uh huh and try to make sense out of it.
I: What does that mean?
Portia: Like, like get a meaning out of each word like who, why, like…
I: so you ask yourself questions?
Portia:Yes. Who is this about, why…why is this the way it is
Interestingly, students reported that having content material explained by a peer is sometimes easier to understand and internalize than having it explained by a teacher. In discussing genetics content, Mahala preferred to have it explained to her by another student, but thought it would have been more helpful for her to explain it back to a teacher.
I: ok, um, would it have been as helpful to have your teacher explain the answer to you? Or more helpful or less helpful than when your students, your classmates explained it to you
Mahala: probably it would have been more helpful to have the classmates explain it, just because sometimes the teacher might not really get, like how, like, some people they know how to put it so that more people understand it and sometimes some people don’t know how, like they’ll say that’s what it is and they’ll just like “ok, I have no earthly idea of what’s going on”
I: so you think your classmates have a better way of putting things so that you can understand them than your teacher?
Mahala: sometimes
I: ok, do you think your explaining it to your classmates would help you the same as, more than or less than explaining it to your teacher?
Mahala: probably, by explaining it to a teacher, that would have more of an impact on be cause you could be explaining it to somebody who has maybe more knowledge than you, on that subject, so, that would probably have a bigger impact on me
During Phase 2, dialogue emerged as a category that was as prevalent as the themes. In fact, it became a predominant occurrence. In this study, dialogue is defined as an exchange of thoughts, ideas or opinions through the use of words—whether spoken aloud to another, or in the mind of the learner. Students reported that whether it is in their heads, or out loud to themselves, or verbally to someone else, that dialogue aided in building conceptual frameworks. In the following passages, students recount how dialogue with themselves helps them to build conceptual understandings.
Selena distinguished between inner dialogue and outer dialogue, explaining that outer dialogue, where one verbalizes out loud, helps her to make better connections.
Selena: like, like I said before I talk in my head sometimes I’m forgetting things, when I talk out loud it’s easier and then you connect it
I: ok, so when you talk in your head you forget things, but when you talk out loud it’s easier, you connect it
Selena: uh huh
I: why do you think that is?
Selena: because you hear yourself in your head and it’s in your head you know, I guess you hear your voice you hear it better
Mahala described repetitive reading and dialogue as ways to help her understand when she is having difficulty understanding.
I: when you’re having trouble “getting it” what helps you to get it best?
Mahala: like keep reading over it, or keep going over it, over it, and then it will kind of click
I: when you say going over it, do you mean reading over it?
Mahala: right, reading over it, or talking to myself or reading it back to myself. Or just keep going it over and over and over
I: when you read over it, do you read silently or do you read aloud?
Mahala: aloud
I: so when you talk to yourself do you also talk aloud?
Mahala: yes
When asked if she tried to learn something by saying it out loud Mahala responded that she used egocentric speech (Vygotsky, 1986) to help her memorize content. Egocentric speech links external speech and internal thought. Mahala then goes on to say that she also uses egocentric speech to help her to figure things out as well.
I: What about things that you don’t want to memorize, but you need to make sense out of? Do you ever talk to yourself out loud?
Mahala: yes (laughs)
I: do you try to figure something out?
Mahala: yeah
I: does it help you to figure it out?
Mahala: yeah, actually it does, it kind of, I’m not good at like making, doing things in my head so I have to kind of say them out loud to sort things out, so, you know, to figure out the answers to questions.
Mahala described a time when she was able to work through difficult math problems that she did not initially understand by talking herself through the problems. By instructing herself and asking herself questions Mahala was able to facilitate the pieces coming together in her head.
I: have you ever had an idea pop in your head? Something that you didn’t get before, or even something that you thought you understood before and then you said ‘wait a minute!’?
Mahala: yeah, just today.
I: what happened.
Mahala: well I was in math actually. And um I didn’t know, there was some problem, I didn’t quite know how to do it. I couldn’t quite you know, grasp the concept of how to solve the problem. Then we had, I had to, we had moved on from there, then we came back to it, and I looked at the problem and I was like ‘oh, ok you have to do this, and this and this, to get your answer’. You know I didn’t quite know how to put the problem together to solve it or…
I: so, could you feel the pop getting ready to happen?
Mahala: yeah. I was, I was just sitting in math and it came to me, like a dawning
I: tell me about that, I’m very interested in that, tell me how it happened.
Mahala: um, well, it’s just, I had to, had to think about it for a second, I had to look at it. I was like ‘ok maybe if I do this or this, maybe I’ll get a different outcome’ and so I was kind of, you know, looking and looking at the problem, wondering ‘ok, I still don’t get this, how am I supposed to do this?’ or whatever. And then I thought ‘ok, maybe if I separate the problem, like break the problem down, then maybe I could figure out how to do it’. And so I did that, and it all came together and I got it right.
I: did you talk to yourself while you were doing this?
Mahala: yes
I: did you talk out loud or in your head?
Mahala: um, I was…..yeah, I was talking out loud (laughs)
I: so when you were talking out loud, were you explaining it to yourself, or were you…was it like “ok, this is how this works, first I do this and then I do this”, or were you saying “man, I don’t know how to do this, why do I have to do this problem”. What kind of talking were you doing?
Mahala: um, it was like I was giving myself instruction on how to do things
I: so you were teaching yourself how to do it?
Mahala: yeah
Mahala was able to give herself verbal directions and talk herself through her initial dead-end. Selena had a similar story about how she asked herself questions in a conversation in her mind and tried to connect the concept she was having difficulties with, to another concept with which she was more familiar.
Selena: um, gosh, I’m trying to think, um, oh, I know, I was doing algebra before you came, and, it’s on factoring of trinomials and before that there was polynomials and I understand that, but when we got to trinomials I didn’t understand that until I looked back to polynomials and you just connected them, it just popped because I saw an example and you connected
I: now, you said that you looked back, you didn’t say that you, were you still having the discussion in your head?
Selena: uh huh, I was just
I: give me and idea of what your discussion went like today
Selena: ok, before I looked back, I was trying to figure it out myself, like it was say, z to the second plus 3z plus 4z and you’re I didn’t know this before, but you’re supposed to multiply the ends, before that, I did that, but in my head I wasn’t sure if I should make a factor tree or make a factor tree and a sum tree I put that together, but, it clicked, but not as well, so I went back and it gave me an example and I did it better
…
Selena: that’s what I’m trying to do. In my head I was thinking, do I multiply this, or do I add this, or do I put these together, I was trying assumptions about what I was trying to do. And then probably if that wasn’t it I would say “wait a minute that’s not it” and try it again
I: did you answer your question?
Selena: mm hmm, I would be like “what is this?” and then I would look at a problem, you know, like really look at it, and then I was like “ohhhhh ok, you have to do this and that”
I: ok, so you drew a connection to what you had learned before and understood?
Selena: uh huh
Selena used both asking herself questions as well as dialogue to help her make meaning. Portia also had experiences with using dialogue to help her navigate through algebra problems:
I: do you talk to yourself in your head when you're doing your homework
Portia: uh, no. This is easy. It’s real easy for me.
I: what about, the quizzes too?
Portia: uh huh
I: so you only talk on difficult things?
Portia: uh, yeah. When I’m confused or I don’t understand things
Externally Initiated
Dialogue is beneficial with others as well as with oneself. Students reported that sharing their conceptions verbally with another student helped them to refine and understand their own frameworks better. As Selena explains to a peer something that she believes to already be in her conceptual framework, she realizes that verbalizing the concept seems to add another component to her framework and thinking process.
I: ok, do you think you got more from listening to other people, or from having to explain it yourself?
Selena: um, well sometimes when I was explaining it, like I’d say something and I didn’t know it before, I was explaining it and I knew it, I just never thought of it. Like when I’m explaining to somebody else or something, I guess, it just, it seems like I understand it better. Because I’m talking to somebody and I’m looking at it and I’m trying to help them so, I try to help them as much as I can.
I: so, you said things that you didn’t know?
Selena: that I did know
I: you did know them, but when you said them…
Selena: it was, it was, I knew it, but I’d just never thought of it
I: how could you know something without thinking of it?
Selena: I’m trying to think how to put it. I cant say it, like, I knew it, but I just never, um, connected it.
I: with what
Selena: with the things that I was working with
I: so, it was somewhere in your mind by its self, and then when you had to talk about it, then it became related to other things in your mind?
Selena: yeah. Is that weird?
I: no, no. um, tell me more about this. Have you noticed this happening before, or some other time?
Selena: yeah, whenever I have to talk, like, or I have to help somebody or explain something better to them. If they don’t understand it, I guess I get more into it I guess.
I: what does that mean?
Selena: like more onto the topic than I would if I was talking to myself or something, or writing. Because…
I: when you say “get more onto the topic” what do you mean?
Selena: like explaining it better, thinking of it better
I: so when you, when it’s just you, you don’t explain it very well to yourself, but you do a better job explaining it to somebody else.
Selena: yeah
I: why do you think that is? What’s different in your explanation for you than for somebody else?
Selena: I don’t know. I guess it’s just because I’m trying to help them so much to understand it that I’m…
I: is it perhaps just saying it out loud? Have you ever tried talking to yourself out loud?
Selena: Maybe not, I never talk to myself out loud. Well maybe I do, sometimes, but not like on, like if it’s work, I don’t think I do, maybe sometimes, but not a lot. Yeah I think because I’m saying out loud I can hear myself
I: so in other instances where you talk to yourself out loud, do you seem to understand it better than if you talk to yourself in your head?
Selena: yeah
I: give me an example
Selena: um, like I was, ok, last night, I was writing a paper for English and I was like saying it in my head what I was going to write, but I messed up like 2 times and so when I said it out loud, I could write it better because I guess I heard myself and if I was doing it in my head, it was like I would skip a word because I thought I wrote it, and I would skip right over it if I was just writing.
Kat similarly reported that talking about genetics while explaining it to her peers helped her to understand it better herself.
Kat: did you understand better after you explained it?
I: yeah
Kat: how?
I: because when I was talking and then I think about it, and then my, I don’t know, I can’t explain it, but…
Kat: because maybe if you didn’t understand one part of, like what you’re talking about, and then he says part of it, like the part you didn’t understand then you understand it.
I: but you said when you explained it to Helen that you explained it better.
Kat: yeah. Because if I say, if I say something, then I understand, like, then I know what I’m talking about, and I know, like what’s wrong and what’s right about what I’m saying like if it makes sense or note
I: so if you already understood it in your head, how does saying it out loud help? It doesn’t change anything does it?
Kat: well, I don’t know. I don’t know, it just does.
Revealing Alternate Conceptions
In order to change one’s conceptions, it is helpful to realize that one’s framework is inadequate to achieve desired results. Learners become aware of their alternate conceptions in a variety of ways, including visually comparing it to the correct conception and talking out loud.
Learner Initiated
Gary related an experience with a skateboarding technique as an example of a time when he realized that his understanding of that technique was insufficient to carry out it correctly. Gary was able to execute the maneuver as he realized what he was doing incorrectly. This realization was brought about as he visualized someone else performing the procedure correctly. By comparison, Gary was able to see the differences in their techniques and make adjustments accordingly.
Gary: like for a while, these actually happened within the past week, because for a while I was like aww man I’m not going to be able to have any more pops before the interview, and I was like, that’s not going to be good. But um, I had one yesterday actually, I was outside skateboarding, and I’ve been trying this move for like the last week, and I was so tired doing it, I was so tired of falling. And then I like tried it one more time, and I remembered watching someone else do it and they kind of brought their foot back, and it just kind of popped and I was like “oh my gosh, I cant believe that I’d totally missed that” because I had been neglecting it the entire time. So I finally did that and it worked out pretty good.
Portia was able to make sense of information by relating items that she saw on television, or conversations that she had, with the information she was trying to incorporate into her framework.
I: did you get any a “ha!”s or “eureka!”s—do you now what I mean by that (student nods)—outside of the classroom, maybe something you didn’t get in the classroom, that when you were at home something happened that made you say “oh, I understand” or you saw a video that made you say “oh I get it” or a conversation “oh, now I see how this works”
Portia: not really, but, but I saw this stuff and I related this to the stuff I saw and it made sense to me
I: like when you said you “saw the stuff” what kind of stuff did you say
Portia: like conversations and like on TV
Dialogue was helpful in revealing students’ alternate conceptions and leading to conceptual change. When asked how she came to change her mind about answers given during the interview, Mahala responded that saying things out loud contributed to this change. In addition, external dialogue helped to reprocess internal thinking.
I: ok, why do you think you changed your mind during this interview?
Mahala: when you think something, well for me, it’s a lot different than when it comes out, um, like you may think it and in your head it may sound ok, um, but when you say it out loud, you kind of reprocess it again
In the following dialogue Mahala recognizes an inconsistency in her own knowledge and subsequent explanation once she has to articulate her thoughts. Mahala gains insight to an explanation after describing a different experience.
I: ok, have you changed your mind about any of the things that you said the last time we spoke
Mahala: yes. Do you want me to go into it?
I: that would be good
Mahala: ok, um, you had asked me um about a picture that had dogs on it, and they were all different dogs and you asked if they came, could they possibly come from these parents, that looked totally different, and is aid no. Then, I was telling you a story about the mice that were in my science class who had 2 different parents that looked totally different, but they had babies that looked like them and then babies that didn’t look like them. So, I changed my mind about that, I think it’s possible to have babies that don’t look like either one of the parents.
I: why did you change your mind?
Mahala: um, because, well, first off, I was wrong
I: did I say you were wrong?
Mahala: no, I kind of caught myself and I kind of figured out maybe…
I: while you were saying it?
Mahala: not while I was saying it, like at the end, I and I was telling you the story I kind of caught myself and thought maybe I was wrong.
I: so when you were telling me the story about the mice, you thought you may have been wrong about the story of the dogs. Ok. Is there anything else that has, now that sort of , sounds like changed your mind during the interview?
Selena reported that verbalization can help her to realize that a concept she holds is invalid.
I: What makes you realize that something you think you already know is actually wrong? Like you remember you said you were explaining ex-linked traits to Joni and after it came out of your mouth you said “wait a second, that’s not right”. What makes you realize that what you “know” isn't correct?
Selena: well, in that case it was when I said it out loud.
Portia realized the error in an explanation while explaining it to a peer. It was enough for Portia to verbalize her explanation to realize that she was incorrect. Portia also reported that in the past she has successfully used talking out loud to help her understand difficult topics, however she does not use this technique routinely.
Portia: someone was asking me a question, and I answered it, and they told me to give them an explanation and I was explaining and then I was like “never mind”. I was wrong.
…
I: how come when you explained it to them you realized you were wrong?
Portia: because I just heard myself, what I was saying and just said it better.
I: so hearing yourself makes you understand better?
Portia: in a way.
I: how?
Portia: I don’t really know.
I: now earlier in this interview, you said that your mom said you should try and say the answer out loud and it would help you to understand, but you said it didn't work.
Portia: I was saying like studying for like a test, all by it’s self, like that.
I: oh, ok. Well then let me ask the question again. Not something you already understand, but if you don’t understand something…
Portia: it helps me better to say it.
I: out loud
Portia: yeah
I: so do you typically use that? Do you say things out loud when you don’t understand?
Portia: no, I just discuss it with someone who knows about it, and then ask questions to them and explain myself and then that helps me.
According to Gary there is a difference between how someone understands something that is entirely contained in their head, and understanding once they must verbally explain it to someone else. Gary poses that verbalizing one’s thoughts is advantageous as it helps to point out thinking that is not logical when it was solely done in the mind. This outer dialogue can help learners make meaning, even where repetitive reading cannot.
Gary: like, if I, if I like read it, over, if I read a problem, then, I mean, I might get it but then like I said there’s something you can miss. You’re talking to yourself, but it might make sense in your head, but when you say it [out loud], it might not make sense. So if you explain it...
In the above passages it becomes apparent that dialogue is a means of detecting alternate conceptions. Students realize inconsistencies in their conceptual frameworks, simply by saying them out loud. This pattern or stating an alternate conception and then immediately correcting it was also apparent in Maria’s case study on conceptual change (1997).
Externally Initiated
Although, from a constructivist viewpoint, learners are responsible for their own learning, learners and their learning processes can be influenced by a variety of outside elements. Sarafina reported that she became aware that she was executing dihybrid crosses incorrectly after watching the teacher perform them correctly on the board. Watching the correct conception helped Sarafina to realize that she held an alternate conception.
I: have you been in a situation where you didn’t know that you didn’t understand something until later and you found out “oh, I really didn’t understand it back then”?
Sarafina: well, I mean, just like some stuff, yeah, I’m not really sure, I cant really name anything specific, but there are have been some things that you know we have done that I’ve been like, thought that I knew how to do but I thought “oh I can do this perfectly” you know “I’m really good at this” but when I look back and I was like “oh, I wasn’t doing it right” you know and then I realize, “oh, you’re supposed to do this instead of this” you know, but I didn’t realize that.
I: did that happen in genetics?
Sarafina: um, I think that happened on any types of cross like Dihybrid crosses, I thought I was doing it right, and then I realized I wasn’t, and then I watched you on the board doing it and then it made sense.
I: ok, so you could just look at me doing it and then you realized by yourself that you weren’t doing it correctly?
Sarafina: yeah because I knew the way I was doing it, I knew the way you were doing it wasn’t the way I was doing it.
In a different scenario, Sarafina was able to watch a peer, relate their actions to what she was doing, and find out how her actions and understanding was different. Sarafina then refers back to the dihybrid Punnett squares, and says that watching the way to correctly complete them helped her to realize not only that she had and error in thinking, but how to rectify it.
Sarafina: well yeah. I just maybe like watched somebody and I was like how did they do that? I don’t understand, and I would examine what I’m doing and see that maybe I’m doing something wrong, you know. What am I doing wrong, what am I missing? And I just compare the two and see.
…
Sarafina: well, um, I really like in this class probably you might have explained something and maybe like I didn't get it. Like maybe with the Punnett Squares, or the dihybrid. Well, um at first I really didn't get it and I tried doing it, but I wasn’t doing it right, and I didn't understand what was happening, I didn't know. And then I think I might have watched you do it again, and then that’s what I realized, oh, this is what I’m doing wrong. This is why I’m not getting it.
I: all right. What was different the last time when you got it?
Sarafina: what do you mean?
I: how come you got it the last time and you didn't get it before? What was happening different in your brain?
Sarafina: well um, what was happening was I guess the last time that I saw you, maybe I just remembered that, or I though that I saw you do it the way that I was doing it, and then when I saw you doing it the other way I corrected myself and I realized that you know, you didn't tell us to do it that way and that I was doing something wrong.
Gary suggested that saying one’s ideas verbally, helps one to better think about them. That there is something about oral expression that adds coherency to one’s thoughts, and that conceptual change can be triggered by thinking aloud.
Gary: I’m sure that it has happened, just, you’ll think something and maybe it might seem right in your head, but then you say it out loud and you just kind of think about what you just said, you just sort of, like that’s a good time when a pop could happen, you know.
I: ok
Gary: like, just when you say it out loud and “pop” there it goes, you’re whole theory has gone down the drain about what you thought because...well I don’t know about the whole theory but, it might lead to be (tape ends) even though it may have made sense inside of your head, when you say it, it might not be as coherent.
Not only do students utilize dialogue with themselves to help them identify their alternate conceptions they also use it with others. As seen in the genetics knowledge origins and impetus for genetics conceptual change domains, students ask themselves questions to help them recognize alternate conceptions. Students use dialogue with their peers to help prompt themselves to ask the right questions. The power of questioning as a way to reveal inconsistencies in one’s framework was seen repeatedly in Phase 1 during interviews about genetics content topics. Students did not question their frameworks until they were asked questions that they could not answer, or questions to which the answers contradicted other answers they had already given. Gary has become aware of this pattern and starts to question himself to make sure that his answers line up with answers previously given.
Gary: let’s see. Overachiever…well, if a kid’s trying to be an overachiever…see like you’re even making me question my definitions of things.
I: how am I making you question your definitions of things?
Gary: because I have to think about them, like I’m starting to think of an overachiever as more of a, not as much of a personality, but…
I: don’t you usually think about the things you say?
Gary: No. Not really.
Sarafina realizes an alternate conception as she explains it to a peer. However, she does not confront this conception until a peer points it out to her.
I: its’ okay if you do, I won’t tell. Have you ever found out that you were wrong about something because you had to explain your answer to somebody else?
Sarafina: yeah, I did.
I: tell me about that.
Sarafina: well um, we were working in a group in this class and I was back there with Renee and Mahala and we were talking about you know genetics, or whatever, and um, I really don’t even remember the question, but I was trying to explain my answer, and I actually contradicted myself when I was explaining my answer, and then Renee was like, you know Sarafina, you just contradicted yourself, you’re not making any sense, and I’m thinking about it and I’m like saying it to myself and I’m like you know what, I’m not making any sense. And then I listened to Renee’s point of view and it made sense to me, her point of view and if my point of view did not make sense then you cant make sense out of something that’s you know, right. I mean if something’s right you have to be able to make sense out of it. I mean you don’t just pick that answer because it doesn’t make sense. So.
I: so, in this case somebody else pointed out to you that you weren’t making sense.
Sarafina: yeah
I: that you were contradicting yourself.
Sarafina: I kind of already realized it, but I didn't say anything. I just kept talking, then I would have had to admit that I was wrong.
I: so is that hard for you to do?
Sarafina: yeah, it is, I don’t like to admit that I am wrong.
Learners reported a variety of ways that they were able to identify alternate conceptions that they possessed in general as well as in the genetics content area. Students were more prone to recognizing that their conceptions were inadequate to deal with new phenomena when they had experiences, such as visual stimuli or discussions that encouraged that they reflect on their ideas and compare them to the desired conception. Visual stimuli, relating to prior experiences and dialogue all fostered an environment where students realized the need towards accommodation, to modify their central conceptual framework.
Aiding Conceptual Change
Once students became aware that they were holding alternate conceptions, they reported a variety of factors that actually aided them in attaining conceptual change. The sources that supported conceptual change were very similar to those that revealed alternate conceptions. These factors included visual cues, asking questions, relating present experiences to prior knowledge, fruitfulness of new concepts and dialogue.
Learner Initiated
As mentioned earlier, Gary recognized an alternate conception he had about a skateboarding movement. He was able to visualize the correct movement, and realize what he was missing and adjust his movements accordingly. Gary’s experience with visual cues is slightly difference than Sarafina’s because Gary spontaneously remembers something he has already seen. Gary brings this visual aid to his remembrance to help him master the technique.
I: ok, you said that you remembered someone pushing or putting their foot back, so were you visualizing, like seeing pictures in your mind, were you talking to yourself and having a conversation with yourself “how am I supposed to do this, should I do this?” what was going on in your head?
Gary: it was a little bit of both, because I was, I was sitting there, I just kind of sat down for a second and I looked at the road and I was like “ok, how am I going to do this without falling?” and um, so, I just watched a movie, actually a skating movie that had to trigger it and I was just kind of trying to figure out how I should do this.
I: How long ago did you watch the movie?
Gary: oh, about 20 minutes?
I: ok, so it was recent
Gary: yeah, very recent. So it was fresh in my head and uh, I had said to myself when I was watching “oh, so they brought the foot back, that’s how they do it” but when I got out there I just kind of forgot it, and so I just sat there falling for about 20 minutes, and then finally I just kind of sat there and I just kind of walked through it and I remembered that.
I: walked through what?
Gary: through how to do it, through how to do the move
I: so, describe, when you say you walked through it, literally put your body in motion and tried it? Or sat there and saw a picture? Or you spoke to yourself?
Gary: I went over it in my head
Gary started by asking himself questions about the technique that he wants to master. Then Gary related his present situation to a prior experience, of watching the video, comparing the two. Finally, Gary found where the two experiences were incongruent and was able to correct his efforts.
Selena also described a comparative and connection process. Selena revisits the process of conceptual change, or “popping” as it came to be called during the interviews. According to Selena, verbalizing your ideas, is followed by thinking, which leads to making connections and then the understanding begins to dawn.
I: yes, or clicking, what did we say that was about? What does it mean when something “pops” or “clicks” in your head?
Selena: I guess, I think it was because I said you get it one minute and then you start thinking about it even more and then you connect it and then it’s like, ok, that’s it
I: you said “you connect it”, what does that mean?
Selena: like, like if you’re thinking of one thing and like you’re not thinking of it at that time, but you start to talk about it then like you connect them together, you combine them like “those go together”
Both of these incidents support the theory that one needs dissatisfaction with current concepts to cause the reflection or comparison necessary to change from current beliefs.
Externally Initiated
Knowing what external cues encourage conceptual change can enable educators to better facilitate the process in their students. The external cues that students site, are similar to the internal cues that stimulated change in concepts; visual stimuli, asking questions, connecting prior knowledge and dialogue.
Sarafina has an experience similar to Gary’s where she was having difficulty executing a gymnastics technique. However, Sarafina does not realize her error while practicing her technique, she realizes it while watching someone else perform the technique on television. In this instance, Sarafina uses the new input to reflect on her practices inside of vice versa. However, in both circumstances, students connect prior experiences with present experiences to effect conceptual change.
Sarafina: well um, I do gymnastics you know, and there are a lot of moves that you do, that like, it takes a long time to master, or whatever, but um, I like I think that maybe like I watched this gymnastics competition on TV and I was like “oh, so the trick to making this, is to you know do something” like you have to do something specific with your arms, like for example. Well um, you just say, oh well if I can see another person doing this, then I can go and do it and I can and fix what I’m doing and do what they’re doing and I can make the skill. So that’s how I’ve been like faced with that.
From a constructivist referent, learners do not discover, but create knowledge. Creation requires the manipulation of raw materials and application of understanding to construct an authentic creation. Students site this creation process as instrumental in gaining understanding and knowledge of genetics. Portia refers to this as “making stuff up”.
I: ok, so, if there was something you could have gotten more of, would it have been just more time to read, or was there something else that helped you to understand better?
Portia: maybe something like a lab or something like experiment stuff, to have, to make stuff up
I: how do you think that would have helped you?
Portia: by understanding, like we did that on the computer
I: right, you made stuff on the computer
Portia: I forgot, so that helped me more
Mahala alludes to the creation process as well in her interview.
I: ok. You said that you learned a lot of genetics. What helped most in you learning the genetics that you learned?
Mahala: um, the GenScope projects that we were doing, you know, that helped a lot.
I: when you say projects, what do you mean?
Mahala: like when, well not projects per say but like when we were doing hands on stuff like working on the computers and you had to create a certain type of child that had a certain type of trait and stuff like that it helped, you know, to figure out where the traits came from because you know you had to alter the parents or whatever, or give them abnormalities or something like that, so…
Sarafina noted that if something is right, then you have to be able to make sense out of it. This is inline with Posner’s conditions for conceptual change that new conceptions must be plausible and fruitful; believable and adequately explaining problems encountered by the student as well as useful possibilities to explain new situations (Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog (1982). In the following passage Sarafina trades one of her concepts for one that is more fruitful, similar to Posner’s final condition of conceptual change:
I: so do you think you benefited more by listening to other’s people answers, or did you benefit more by saying your own answer, like explaining your own answer?
Sarafina: um, I think it was both because I benefited by saying my answer because then other people could hear you know what I had to say, and then I benefited by hearing other’s answers because, I you know I could have been wrong you know, and it’s like “ohhh” you know “maybe that’s not the right answer” and then when you hear the other person explain it and it makes so much sense it makes more sense than your answer does, then you’re just kind of like “oh, you know, maybe this is the right answer” because my answer doesn’t make as much sense as hers does
Kat also described that she changed her mind if the new idea makes more sense than her old idea.
I: ok, so describe what it’s like when you change your mind about something.
Kat: I just change my mind.
I: do you just say “ok, today I’m going to change my mind”?
Kat: no, I might think about it. Like if we talk about it in class and then I realize that it’s actually different, then I change my mind.
I: how do you realize it’s actually different? What makes you realize it’s actually different?
Kat: um, because it makes more sense.
Students held definite ideas about their learning and thinking processes. When asked if he thought about his own thought processes, Gary responded:
Gary: I don’t really know how it goes, it just sort of happens, but I know while its’ going on cause I will think about something. Usually my thought process while I’m learning something I’ll say it over and over in my head, if at first it doesn’t make sense, then I’ll repeat it. Then I’ll try to like take words and maybe, or, like take words that are somewhat more complicated and put them maybe like put them in a phrase of smaller words if that makes any sense.
I: do you do this naturally, or do you think about doing this?
Gary: no, I do it naturally. I’ll just like think about something I’ll say “ok, she said this, ok, so that means that, ok I get it now”
I: can you feel it [conceptual change] getting ready to happen? Can you feel it while it’s happening, or do you just when you look back say there was a pop there, but when it happened you didn’t know it happened?
Gary: (laughs) you can definitely feel it happen, and um, sometimes you can tell when it’s coming, but other times, it’s just “oh my gosh, I cant believe it”
I: when you can tell it’s coming, what’s that like?
Gary: um, you cant really see it like coming too far ahead, like usually when I figure out that I learned it, like usually somebody will explain it and then, probably like 2 seconds laughter I’ll say like “wow, I totally get this now” because it probably, you can feel it coming on, usually as somebody is explaining something, or right after they’re done and you’re just kind of processing it and your going over it and you’re going over with it in your head.
I: so do you think it happens more when there’s somebody else around, or it happens more when It’s just you and your thoughts?
Gary: I’m not really sure, let’s see. Probably when there’s somebody else around because you can get somebody else’s point of view on things.
Gary used verbal repetition to go over ideas in his head, and then tried to make connections to aid in the sense making process. Gary went on to say that conceptual change is sometimes precipitated by dialogue from an outside source as well as another’s point of view.
During the instruction on genetics, students were given three genetics unit exam, and one final exam. Unit exams were returned to students the following day, along with the answer key, and an explanation of the answers, but without their individual tests graded. The final exam was returned graded, along with the answer key and an explanation of the answers. At the end of each exam, students were directed to go over each question with the three or four people at their table and discuss their answers, telling why they were right or wrong, and then to go over the answer explanations and see if they could explain the correct answer. A lot of data from peer interactions, dialogue and conceptual change arose from these activities.
Selena mentions the exam review as the catalyst for identifying and altering an alternate conception. Reviewing the exam with her peers forced Selena to talk out loud, instead of in her head, and as a result she was able to think through her responses better.
I: ok. Have you ever found out that you were wrong about something because you had to explain your answer to somebody else and then you realized that while explaining your answer didn’t make any sense
Selena: uh huh, yeah, that’s happened to me in before. In here. When we had the big test of genetics at the end, the last one, the 4th one. Um, I think I was explaining some x-linked and autosomes, with the options and I was talking to Joni, and I was like “no” because she was like “it’s autosomal” and I was like “no, it’s x-linked I’ll tell you why” and I was like, and then I started talking to her and then I was like “oh, I get what you’re saying”
I: why do you think that happened?
Selena: um, I don’t know. I guess, I think it’s the saying out loud thing. Like when you say it in your head and then you say it out loud it’s better. I think that it was because I was talking
Kat explained that “arguing” with her peers, helped her to change her mind and “figure it out” more quickly that she might have otherwise.
I: ok, tell me more. So didn’t it make sense to you before?
Kat: yeah, but when you argue it with your students theirs makes more sense, so, I might change my mind I guess.
I: what makes more sense about theirs than yours?
Kat: their reasons and explanations, and…
I: so if you did not argue with the other students would you have realized that your reasons and explanations didn’t make sense?
Kat: probably not. Probably it would have taken me a little bit longer to figure it out.
Portia reported that going over tests with her peers helped her understand better through discussions, and hearing her peers’ explanations.
I: ok, do you remember learning anything or having some “a-has!” when you were in your groups and reviewing after the test?
Portia: yes, I made so many mistakes that I remembered what was wrong
I: ok, do you think you would have done as well working by yourself, or did it help to work in a group with other people?
Portia: it helped to work in a group with other people because you got to discuss it good more, and understand it more
I: how did discussing it with other people help you to understand it more
Portia: like arguing about it, you didn’t know about it, but then it gave you examples and made you understand about it
I: who gave you examples?
Portia: the people I was working with
The idea of learners being influenced by another’s point of view arises several times in interviews. Gary expressed that being able to correct his peers as well as hearing his peers’ point of view added depth to his understanding of genetics. In addition, he says that having “equal input” with his peers helps to “complete” his conceptual framework.
I: ok, um, did it help you to go over your tests with your peers?
Gary: yes
I: how
Gary: getting everybody’s different point of view on it, and when they were wrong being able to correct them, I liked that aspect of it
I: where you ever wrong?
Gary: yes
I: and was it equally helpful when they corrected you?
Gary: yes
I: ok, do you think you learned more by teaching them, or by having them teach you?
Gary: teaching them, yeah
I: why?
Gary: because when you teach someone, I think that you should get an equal input, then you learn while you teach, so I mean they would say something and I would say, oh, no that’s wrong, this is how you do it, or this is what the answer is blah blah blah, and I think that that’s probably what, it teaches me something, while I help them
I: what
Gary: whatever the answer is I guess
I: but didn’t you already know the answer and that’s why you got it right?
Gary: yes, but it might not have been complete. Like they could have another reason why it may be right
I: who could have?
Gary: um, my peers
I: ok, so you’re teaching them the answer, how does that help you?
Gary: it gives me, let’s say that they got it wrong
I: uh huh
Gary: but they might have in insight on what it might be, they might have a little bit
I: ok
Gary: they might know a little bit what it is, then probably, I don’t really know, it just kind of, it helps me, it benefits me somehow
Sarafina explains that not only is point of view important, but that every point of view is not weighed equally. That input from an outside source is processed differently whether it is from a peer or an instructor.
I: well is that as helpful, or less helpful, or more helpful than hearing your peer’s point, your classmate’s point
Sarafina: well, I mean, it’s basically the same thing, when I think about it, I think it’s the same thing, but, like maybe you just think about it differently when it’s coming from somebody that you’re friends with, or coming from your peers or your teacher, I think that maybe it might…
I: so you’re saying that you learn more form you classmates, in that setting when you have to explain answers?
Sarafina: I think so…
Sarafina noted that discussing genetics content was helpful for understanding when she was able to share point of view with other learners who were in the same situation as she was.
I: tell me about the conversations you had with your classmates when you were grading, when you were going over tests. Did it help to go over it with other people?
Sarafina: um partially yes, and partially no, like the part that’s not is that some of the people were um, like saying like if I were to sit there and say “that’s not right” and “this is the answer” you know and then say that there’s three people in the group and then two people are saying that the other person is wrong, the other person is kind of going to back down, probably , most likely, I mean they’re going to back down and they’re not really going to stay behind it, behind they’re you know, conclusion, but I guess that they should because, I was in a group you know one time and it was Joe and Mahala and Renee and me and I think that all three of them got this answer, and I was about to back down you know, because I was like okay maybe you all are right, but I was the one with the right answer. So, I mean, it was helpful because yeah, you got to talk about it with people, you know, who took the exact same test, you know, and you got to hear their explanations of why they chose that answer and why they picked that answer, and then you get to tell them you explanation for doing that. And then they just get a better understanding of what was that person thinking when they put down that answer, and it just helps to think and understand other peoples point of view about how they’re thinking, why they thought this answer was right.
Sarafina also elaborates that sharing point of view with peers is more likely to affect her own viewpoint than hearing from the teacher. That she is more open to considering the ideas of her peers than those of her teacher.
Sarafina: well, I just want to say that I think it was good when we did the group discussions and everything, when we like met with the group because it helped you to see other people’s point of view, and that kind of makes you kind of think about your point of view and say “hey, maybe I’m not right”, you know maybe somebody else’s point of view could work too
I: so that’s different than when a teacher present’s their point of view?
Sarafina: well, I think that it’s the same thing, but maybe it’s different when it’s coming from one of your peers, it could be different.
I: what would make it different do you think?
Sarafina: um, well I mean, I think that the persons who it’s coming from is different, like maybe if you hear it from one of your friends you have to be more open and listen to them, but if you hear it from a teacher you’re like “ugh, I have to listen to this”. But maybe if you’re like another one of your classmates you’re like, ok, I’m going to be open to this, I’m going to listen to this, I’m going to consider their point of view.
Sarafina continues that peers are sometimes better communicators than teachers. Sarafina initially states that someone is able to be more convincing when they actively “argue” their point of view, which is not something that teachers and students typically do. Then Sarafina posits that perhaps it is not the arguing itself, but just the source of the point of view.
I: ok, now you said that you think that you gained more by having it explained to you by somebody else, but couldn’t a teacher do that same job?
Sarafina: yeah, but I think that, maybe other people in the class are a little bit more argumentative about their points and they make it seem like it’s more right, when they said it sometimes because they’re like “no it’s right because” so on and so on and so on, because they give all these fact to explain it. But yeah it is the same idea.
I: teachers don’t do that?
Sarafina: um, I don’t really think you’re going to get into an argument with a teacher and you are going to argue your points so…
I: but you said it wasn’t so much the arguing of the points, you said it was just hearing somebody else’s point. So you can hear the teachers’ point without arguing about it
Sarafina: yeah
I: well is that as helpful, or less helpful, or more helpful than hearing your peer’s point, your classmate’s point
Sarafina: well, I mean, it’s basically the same thing, when I think about it, I think it’s the same thing, but, like maybe you just think about it differently when it’s coming from somebody that you’re friends with, or coming from your peers or your teacher, I think that maybe it might…
I: so you’re saying that you learn more form you classmates, in that setting when you have to explain answers?
Sarafina: I think so…
When asked why it takes more time to get a person to change their idea about a subject Mahala responded that we are reluctant to give up our point of view for another person’s point of view:
Mahala: because a lot we’re kind of stuck on this is what I think, and hearing what someone else has to say about that subject, or hearing their view of what they think, is kind of difficult to kind of persuade another person to think what you’re thinking.
Gary offered that there are advantages to viewing an idea from another’s point of view. Gary suggested that others have plausible explanations that might help to clarify one’s own explanations.
Gary: like if you listen to what somebody else has to say, you can think that something is right, but instead of just giving up, saying “oh, I know I’m right” and being stubborn, then you look at it from someone else’s point of view and see what they’re trying to get at. And then maybe it might makes sense to you, and you might say “oh, ok, they were right and I was wrong, even though I thought I was right”
Gary concurs with Sarafina that peers can be more instrumental in achieving conceptual change than teachers achieve. Gary attributes this to incommensurate language, and suggested that peers are sometimes better communicators than teachers.
I: ok, um, would it have been as helpful to have your teacher explain the answer to you? Or more helpful or less helpful than when your students, your classmates explained it to you
Gary: probably it would have been more helpful to have the classmates explain it, just because sometimes the teacher might not really get, like how, like, some people they know how to put it so that more people understand it and sometimes some people don’t know how, like they’ll say that’s what it is and they’ll just like “ok, I have no earthly idea of what’s going on”
I: so you think your classmates have a better way of putting things so that you can understand them than your teacher?
Gary: sometimes
I: ok, do you think your explaining it to your classmates would help you the same as, more than or less than explaining it to your teacher?
Gary: probably, by explaining it to a teacher, that would have more of an impact on be cause you could be explaining it to somebody who has maybe more knowledge than you, on that subject, so, that would probably have a bigger impact on me
I: now are you theorizing that, or are you speaking from personal experience?
Gary: um, probably theorizing that, yeah.
I: ok, if I ask you to speak from personal experience, would your answer be the same?
Gary: I couldn’t tell you because I never really corrected a teacher majorly before, taught them anything, or anything that…
I: or you explained anything to a teacher
Gary: oh, yeah, I never explained anything to a teacher before
I: so a teacher’s never asked you to explain how something works, even if they just taught it and said “ok now, explain it back to me”
Gary: I mean, that’s happened before, when you put it like that, that’s happened before, I explained it to them, but it probably wouldn’t have as big of an impact if they didn’t understand it and I was explaining it to them, does that make sense?
I: I think so, so you’re saying it’s made a bigger impact in explaining it to someone who already understands than explaining it to someone who doesn’t understand?
Gary: no the exact opposite
I: its’ better to explain it to someone who doesn’t understand than to explain
Gary: uh huh
Mahala also believes that she learns more from sharing her answers with peers. Mahala points out that she learns from the mistakes of her peers and that they help her to avoid the same errors in thinking.
I: ok. Do you think you learned more from sharing your answers from your peers, or from sharing your peers share their answers?
Mahala: I think I learned more from hearing my peers’ answers. Because then I could kind of, if I had the correct answer then I could let them know how I got my answer, and when I was learning from their mistakes also, that when I was doing a certain problem or whatever, that I didn’t need to do, I didn’t need to make that same mistake that they did.
Students continued to report that they are more likely to change their ideas based on information from their peers, than on information from their teachers. Sarafina suggested that teachers are too overbearing with the information that they offer, and that
I: well if you come up with an answer to that later, because that’s really what I want to know. Are you more likely to have your ideas changed by your friends or by your teachers and why do you think so?
Sarafina: I’m more likely to have my ideas changed by my peers, because... I don't know why, like I’ll probably listen to my peers more and I’ll probably take into consideration what they’re saying more than I would, like teacher. Because a teacher kind of sits there and goes “I’m right you’re wrong, that’s how it is”
In Phase 2 of the data collection, peer dialogue emerged as the predominant cause for conceptual change reported by students. Through peer dialogue, students were able to articulate their genetics frameworks. As a result, students were able to make meaning, identify alternate conceptions and exchange those conceptions for the correct conception. Students reported that they were more likely to change their frameworks based on information from and interactions with their peers, than with their teachers.
Phase 3: Students’ ideas about learning and conceptual change
Phase 3 of this study focused on how students navigate conceptual change. This section reported those strategies that were most instrumental in helping students alter their genetics frameworks. Phase 3 data was collected primarily from two focus groups after the final individual interview. Gary, Mahala, Portia, and Sarafina were present at both focus groups, with Selena being present only during focus group 2. Phase 3 data summarizes students’ ideas on learning and conceptual change. A summary of the data collected during Phase 3 is provided in Table 3.
In focus group one, each student was given a list of the focus group questions. A copy of the focus questions is provided in appendix A. Gary was asked to lead the first focus group. As group leader Gary read the questions to the group and ensured that the group stayed focused on the assigned questions. In responding to the question “how would you get something that you’re trying to learn that was not initially making sense to you to finally pop in your head”, the group revisits repetitive reading, writing and verbalizing as ways to make meaning. Portia initiated the response to the question, in favor of repetitive reading.
Portia: I read it, if it’s written I read it over and over and explain it to myself, how it goes.
Gary agrees with Portia, and adds to repetitive reading, repetitive writing.
Gary: yeah, I’m going to have to agree with you there, um, like, just going over it a lot and maybe like writing it down actually, just going through it and analyzing every single part of a problem or something that didn’t make sense to me, that uh, was a great factor in helping it pop in my head.
Mahala responded differently, informing the group that repetitive verbalizing best helps her to reach conceptual change.
Mahala: Well, me personally I talk to myself, out loud (laughter) but that helps me out so you know. A teacher explaining that ‘s cool whatever, I’m hearing it but it’s like it doesn’t quite like until I break it down myself and get it. And repeat it out loud like over and over again.
Sarafina maintains that she does not have dialogue with herself, but instead uses repetitive reading, and visualizing the correct procedure to arrive at conceptual change.
Sarafina: well, I don’t talk to myself (laughter), I read like my notes over and over again and if there s a part in the book or a section in the chapter I read it over and over again, until you know I get it and the ideas kind of pop in my head when um, like maybe Ms. Parrott asks us to write down three questions of things that we didn’t get. Just watching her do it over and over again on the board, like the dihybrid crosses, watching her do it over and over again helped me get it.
Gary reiterated use of visual cues, as in reading explanations, as one of the leading factors in changing his mind about inheritance of traits.
Gary: um, another leading factor for me, is just having it being explained. I’m a pretty visual learner, so having it all like sitting there right in front of me, this is how you do it, that just helped me a lot because I could just read through it. If I messed up, I don't really have to ask anybody and explain it to me, I could just read through it.
Students reported that hey tried to find connections between new knowledge and prior knowledge. However, sometimes reconciling new knowledge with prior knowledge can be a daunting task and more confusing. Portia and Gary discuss their frustrations with this occurrence.
Portia: when I already know something and it comes up, I think “oh, I know this” but then I find out, oh never mind. Like with the Punnett Squares, I get confused at first but then I got it.
…
Gary: probably what I do differently to learn each type of information, would be to relate it to something that I like know. Like, if you have a concept, we’re going to make it a mess [students were probably playing with concepts on index cards] come on guys, let’s stay on track here. Like if you have an old concept that you’re like totally sure of, and something new comes along (laughter)
I: [voice from outside room] are you guys working?
Gary: sometimes when you learn like a lot of stuff, you just get kind of overwhelmed. So, like it kind of helps me when I’m different things, just to kind of relate it back and say, ‘ok, we’re still talking about genetics here’ and what it relates to. Oh, I did pretty good on that, go for it Sarafina.
Sarafina: um, ok, well. Uh, ok, information that like I know, but I add on to like when Ms. Parrott teaches us more stuff about what I know, well actually I don’t pay attention, but because I think that I know it, so I’m kind of like I already know this stuff, why do I need to pay attention.
Sarafina takes a different approach to integrating new knowledge with her existing knowledge. She simply discounts it, since she feels that she already understands it.
Four of the five participants agreed that talking out loud was most helpful when asked under what conditions they were most likely to correct a mistake or have something previously confusing finally make sense. Mahala was the most jovial in her response.
Mahala: Well, me personally I talk to myself, out loud (laughter) but that helps me out so you know. A teacher explaining that ‘s cool whatever, I’m hearing it but it’s like it doesn’t quite like until I break it down myself and get it. And repeat it out loud like over and over again.
…
Mahala: um, let’s see. Um I have to say basically, um, I just keep going over it and over it and over it and over it again. And basically as a I said before me, I talk to myself. I’m not ashamed to say that. (laughter) hey, you’re not crazy when you talk to yourself, you’re crazy when you answer. (laughter) I’m just trying to explain it to myself and then after I kind of get it, I keep reading over it and over it and over it, trying to get it to click, as she says pop in your head. Yeah, basically.
Gary agreed that being asked to think out loud helped him to process information in the third interview.
Gary: it wasn’t even that, it was like the last interview where she had those series of concepts to put them into the three categories, and she asked me to, uh, uh
Sarafina: to think out loud
Gary: to think out loud and it actually kind of helped me and um, so, yeah, I was a little bit more aware of it, but, It’s kind of like, I don’t know, it’s springtime, and I’m not really aware of anything.
Portia reported that she was likely to realize a mistake, while she was explaining it out loud.
Portia: I, um, I’m most likely to correct myself when I’m explaining myself when someone says I’m wrong I have to explain myself. And then, then I realize my mistake.
Selena concurred with this observation.
Selena: I agree. When I explain myself, I usually find to correct my statement by saying it out loud
Dialogue with peers was a leading factor discussed in achieving conceptual change. Mahala explains that discussing her test choices with her peers helped her to realize and correct the mistakes she made. Portia then mirrored this sentiment.
Mahala: um, well I mean, when we first came into genetics, I kind of like already had my own ideas about genetics. And when we started really working with the dragons and the Genscope thing, I don't want to say it forced me into other avenues, or other ways of thinking, like same thing, like with the Punnett squares, I mean I thought it was a really simple couldn't draw thing, you know. But it was more involved than I thought it was going to be, you know and we found that out when we did tests and everything. And like what Sarafina said, when we got into groups and we were discussing our tests and seeing why people got their answers in discussing, I was like “oh, ok, this is why you got this or this is why you got that, you know or this is why you put this down” and realized the mistakes I made.
Portia: ok, I’ll agree with Sarafina. Discussing it helped me a lot, and people explaining it to me helped me realize I was wrong and they were right
Sarafina reported that hearing the opinions of her peers made her reflect on her own ideas about inheritance of traits, and helped her to find alternate conceptions that she held.
Sarafina: um, what changed my mind was when we were all in a group. When we would go back to the class or whatever and we would be taped, and we would go into the group and we would sit down and we would hear other’s people’s opinions and when you heard the other people’s opinions then it make you think about your ideas and made you think hey, maybe this person is right and maybe I should look at their point of view. And when you looked at the other person’s point of view you might see that you could be wrong, and that’s what really changed my mind of a lot of stuff. That I looked at another’s point of view instead of just looking at mine.
Reviewing the tests in peer groups provided the peer feedback that Sarafina used to help her examine her own viewpoint. Peer viewpoint was apparently more important to Sarafina because the opinions of her friends were not perceived as absolutes as was the information presented by the teacher.
Sarafina: well, going back over the test was a leading factor for me because when I had to sit down and hear other people’s opinions I could see you know what they were thinking, I heard what they were thinking and it made me, you know, think about I need to look at this other persons’ point of view compared to having the teacher stand up there and says what’s right and wrong. You go the wrong answer this is the right answer (laugher) then I think it means a lot more coming from your peers than coming from a teacher.
…
Sarafina: well, what made me change my mind was when you know my peers were telling me about their point of view and what they thought, and cause it meant a lot coming from them what they thought, and I just thought about well my answer obviously doesn’t make sense and their answer makes sense which just helps me see another person’s point of view and helps you change what you think you know.
Gary used the opinions of others to help him correct mistakes that he has made.
Gary: I correct a mistake that I’ve made after, usually after talking about it with somebody and kind of like getting their opinion on it and stuff like that
Sarafina agrees with Gary that opinions of others help her to correct her mistakes, although earlier, in Phase 1, she did not change an alternate conception until after she was confronted. Although apparently this is not true of teachers, since Sarafina says above that she is less likely to change her mind according to information presented by her teacher.
Sarafina: I agree with Gary, because it helps when someone tells me that I’m wrong and then they explain why I’m wrong and they explain their point of view on the subject or whatever, and they explain why I’m wrong and why they think that they’re right and it helps me realize like that I made a mistake
Mahala realized and valued the opinions of her peers. Mahala attributes tendency to listen to peers over teachers due to being a part of a community of learners.
Mahala: I think that we are more prone to listen to our friends than teachers because they're our peers and because we’re trying to figure this whole thing out together, and we don't really understand it, so we’re trying to figure it out together, I think that’s why we’d rather talk it out with friends. Or we listen to friends while we’re explaining it because they’re trying to figure out the same thing as we are. Like with a teacher you all already know it, and so we’re like, ok, this is how it is and this is how it’s supposed to go, but we don't really figure out how it gets that way, it’s just, you just tell us how it is. But with friends we have to figure everything out in order to get the right answer.
Gary suggested a slightly different reason why peers might be better communicators than teachers are. Gary proposes that teachers use incommensurate language and that students are more able to communicate effectively with other students.
Gary: no, um, actually what you guys said, I’m probably going to have to agree with it, even though hearing, like what people have to say, isn’t one of my strong points. Because sometimes it just doesn’t click for me, but what you guys said it actually made a lot of sense to me and um, it is, like really. If you talk to somebody, like talking to a teacher it’s cool and you can get it sometimes, but sometimes, teachers don’t really know how to put it in terms that we understand, well talking to your peers is definitely very good. Lets’ see, now we have to give an example. So um, probably, going over tests and stuff like that, like if you get something wrong, and you just think, I got this right every body else got it wrong, they’re wrong, but, having like them say, “well actually I’m right you’re wrong see ya later” like um, and then having them actually explain it to you and putting it in terms that you understand, because ya’ll know that sometimes teachers say stuff that’s just way over your head. Yeah, ok, so, yeah, that was probably it.
Sarafina supports Gary’s suggestion, that peers communicate with each other in ways that facilitate understanding.
Sarafina: and then Renee said “you just contradicted what you said” and then I was like “well why do you think it’s that answer?” and she explained it to me, and she like explained it and put it in terms that I really understood and it just like you know stuck to me and I was just like oh, ok and I changed my answer and I realized that she was right
Mahala and Portia reported that the hands on activities that required them to breed and create animals that lived helped them to understand genetics and adjust alternate conceptions.
Mahala: oh, ok, leading factor in changing my mind, let’s see. Basically when we were doing the whole Genscope thing, or whatever, I think it was really the hands on thing, like figuring out and putting animals together without them dying, that kind of helped me realize what I was doing wrong and what I didn't know.
Portia: I agree with all three of you, but the GenScope helped me a lot because, it was experimenting, and you just got to see stuff, and some of it new.
Gary pointed out that explaining your frameworks to your peers, gives your peers and opportunity to catch errors in your framework, that you may not caught by yourself.
Gary: all right, good, how was explaining, oh, this one kind of deals with what you guys just said, so that’s good, how was explaining an answer to yourself, different than explaining an answer to someone else? Well, explaining an answer to yourself can be pretty messed up because you can think that you’re right. (laughter)
…
Gary: like um, you can explain it to, you can explain something out to like yourself and you’ll skip over something, or something will be left out and you’ll have no earthly idea and you’ll explain it to someone else in the room and they’ll be like “what are you talking about! yeah, ok, I’m not following you”. So explaining it to yourself, yeah, it can, it leads, for me, I know personally, it leads to a lot of mistakes
Mahala offered that one might continue to think that they are right, and that they have a concrete understanding, unless someone else can point out to them a more accurate explanation.
Mahala: I think explaining an answer other people can, they can either agree, or disagree with your answer and then they can explain to you why they got what they got because like you said, if you try to explain it to yourself you can swear up and down that you’re right and you don’t got nothing. So I think explaining it to other people and having them explain it to you helps a lot.
Portia suggested that when you explain things to yourself, your brain corroborates it’s own logic, and that one can overlook incongruencies in their thinking.
Portia: when you explain it to yourself, it’s just, something in your head just tells you that you are right and you don’t look at the negative points, you just see it the way you think it is. Yeah.
Towards the end of the second focus groups, students shared some of their viewpoints on learning and knowledge. As reported by the participants, knowledge is acquired in a completed form and is stored. It is not changed and does not have to fit with pre-existing knowledge. It is stored in a broom closet with all the “other stuff”
Mahala: ok, anyway, I’m going to answer the question because I understand it. Well basically I don’t treat it that much differently, information is information, just put it in the brain and leave it there for however long it will last. That’s it.
Gary: wow, that’ was brutally honest, I’m going to have to agree with you. Um, yeah, that was really good what you said. Information is information and I mean probably I’ll treat new information like pretty, good, it will be fresh in my brain for a week, and then after that it’s just back there with all the other stuff.
Mahala: because Friday it’s gone (laughter)
Gary: yeah depending on what you do on Friday. But
Portia: I will have to agree with both of you, um, it’s just there for a few days, just like “ooh, I just learned this I know this now”, then it’s like “yeah, I remember that”.
Sarafina: yeah, I agree with all you guys because um, like, but with me, it’s like the old information I know, I don’t really pay that much attention to it any more. Because if it’s something I already know then I don’t really need to pay that much attention to it. But something that I just learned, I pay a lot of attention to it you know, I learned it and I review over it probably like a week or two and then after that it’s just there with the old information.
Portia acknowledges that learners need to be a little proactive about the learning process and accepts some of the responsibility for learning.
Portia: I think that the information doesn't just “get there” you hear it, but it comes out the other ear, if you want to learn it, you, like, you personally want to learn it, that’s when you learn it.
Summary
Each participant’s beliefs about genetics and the learning process were examined during the three phases of this study. The domains that were explored include: genetics knowledge origins, impetus for genetics conceptual change, helping learners make meaning, revealing alternate conceptions, and aiding conceptual change. The two themes that permeated these domains are that learning and conceptual change can be learner initiated—through attention, interest, questions and dialogue—or externally initiated—through multimedia, relationships with teachers or relationships with family and friends. Dialogue was a prevailing strategy useful towards conceptual change in both the learner initiated and externally initiated themes.
CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS
Introduction
The title of this study is “Learners’ strategies for navigating conceptual change in a high school genetics unit.” There were two objectives of the study: to explore how students describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception and to investigate the methods that students employ to bridge the gap between alternate and consensual science conceptions to effect conceptual change. I expect the results of this study to contribute to the body of knowledge about how learners learn as well as to inform and influence the pedagogical practices of educators.
There are several scenarios that can occur as learners encounter new information. Learners can:
1. Not realize their conceptual framework is incomplete or in conflict with current science conception
2. Realize their conceptual framework is incomplete but not be motivated to change it.
3. Realize their conceptual framework is incomplete but not know how to bridge the gap and complete it.
4. Successfully bridge the gap to consensual science knowledge.
This study sought to uncover the strategies that students used to help them recognize and bridge the gap between their naïve science concepts, and consensual science concepts.
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Three trends were noticed among the five domains uncovered in this study: 1) how learners gain prior knowledge, 2) how learners have prior knowledge challenged and changed and 3) how learners gain new knowledge through conceptual change. The domain genetics knowledge origins from Phase 1 and helping learners make meaning from Phase 2 and 3 illustrates how learners gain prior knowledge. The domain revealing alternate conceptions from Phase 2 and 3 illustrates how students have their prior knowledge challenged. The two domains impetus for genetics conceptual change from Phase 1 and aiding conceptual change from Phase 2 and 3 describe how learners gain new knowledge. Two themes permeated each of the domains, as ways that the conceptual change process was activated: 1) learner initiated interactions and 2) externally initiated interactions. Dialogue was a key component in all aspects of conceptual change, whether the interactions were self initiated or externally initiated. These interactions are summarized in Table 3.
Students’ ideas on how prior knowledge is gained
Learners possess a plethora of ideas about how they learn information. These ideas about learning were apparent during all three phases of data collection and analysis. When asked about how they learn, students subscribed to the knowledge transmission model, where knowledge was perceived as a body of facts that students needed to incorporate into their academic factual repertoire.
Learning by repetition
Assertion one: Students see their role in learning primarily as repeating information that they have been given until it becomes an automatic response.
Students reported that facts are transmitted easily if they pay attention and are interested in the topic. Students also reported that if they are presented with the facts then they could learn. They did not seem to believe that they needed to take an active role in constructing knowledge. Students perceived their role in learning to be mostly passive with a few perfunctory actions, such as repetitively reading, writing and saying the information that was presented to them.
Sarafina: to learn information you have to keep on going over it and over it, like read through your notes a lot
After paying attention, studying, taking notes, and a few repetitive exercises, students expect that they have learned.
Students seemed to undervalue the thinking part of learning. The component that requires them to compile, compare, contrast and evaluate information, in a context that makes sense to them personally. Students see themselves as recipients of instead of collaborators with knowledge. Learning is accomplished by the learner through reading, or writing, or some other outward manifestation, but not independent of an external force.
Selena: I think, when I write it, like more than once. When I actually see it and I write it. Because I notice that when I write, like it will just be a couple work sheets, I don’t mean in here, or just anywhere. Like if I write something and then later on if I see like a question about it I will remember it. And so, I think when I write it.
Selena reported that her thinking processes were initiated by writing. In effect, it was the writing that helped her to learn the information, not really the thinking its self. The interview with Selena continues:
I: ok. How would you get something that you were trying to learn that was not initially making sense to you to finally pop in your head?
Selena: how would I?
I: mmm hmm
Selena: um, asking or, looking it up, or doing it again.
…
I: ok. When you get totally new information, how do you categorize it in your head? What do you do with it in your mind?
Selena: when you...
I: you, Selena.
Selena: I memorize it.
I: so you just say it over and over and over again.
Selena: or write it
I: does that help you to learn it or just memorize it? Can you memorize something and not understand anything about it?
Selena: uh huh
I: so how do you get beyond memorization and into understanding?
Selena: by writing it, or if somebody explains it to me, or if I write it
When asked what goes on in their minds when thinking, or trying to understand a difficult concept, learners responded that one does not “do anything” when they are thinking. Instead one passively “waits” for understanding to come.
I: … I can see you writing I can hear you speaking but I still don’t know what’s going on when you think about it, up here [interviewer points to head].
Selena: like, just now, I was like thinking.
I: exactly.
Selena: well you don't really do anything in your thinking?
I: you don't? You don't do anything when you think?
Selena: well you do, but no words, it’s like you...
I: you don't think in words?
Selena: you go blank, you just sit there and you’re quiet and then you wait for it to come
The previous comment indicates that Selena, along with other learners, feels that learning is a passive process. However, students become involved in the learning process by wanting to learn the information.
Portia: I think that the information doesn't just get there you hear it, but it comes out the other ear, if you want to learn it, you, like, you personally want to learn it, that’s when you learn it.
Students in this study did not seem to appreciate their own thoughts, insights, thinking processes and abilities for making sense of information. Students were not of the opinion that facts by themselves, out of context and contextual knowledge are abstract and meaningless.
Students did not seem to feel confident that they could build knowledge themselves. Instead they felt as though knowledge must be transferred from another source. Knowledge is received intact and is stored in the same manner until further needed. In chapter four (p. 136) Mahala said that information was just information that stayed in the brain indefinitely until it was needed. Perhaps we should be teaching constructivism to students as well as teachers so that they see that learning is an internal process within them and not external to them.
Students did not seem to perceive their knowledge, prior to instruction as valuable. Students understood learning to be accumulating facts and adding them to what was already in their possession. According to the students interviewed changes in their knowledge were described as acquiring additional information.
Mahala: … ok, say for instance you learn something before, and you kind of put it in the back of your brain, but here and now it comes up again, and then you’re learning more information about the thing that you already knew so you’re kind of putting what you already knew and the new stuff together to make like this, big picture, are you getting what I’m saying?
Information is stored until it needs to be added to. New information is often considered discrete from information already in their possession—except in the few occasions where students spontaneously find linkages to what they already know. When comparisons can be made to prior knowledge, that is an added bonus, but neither expected nor sought after. Students seemed to think that knowledge exists discretely more often than in context of other arenas. Sarafina noted (p. 136) that she not pay attention to old information, but paid attention to new information until it was rehearsed enough that it became old information. Students rehearse information until it is incorporated into their frameworks, and then in general cease to activate it to make sense of future information.
Learning as addition
Assertion two: Students perceive learning as an addition of information, with little regard to how it fits with pre-existing information.
When asked to describe their conceptual change process as evidenced by the evolution of their concept maps students were consistent in something that they said. Students did not talk about changing concepts in their maps, however they talked often about adding ideas. On occasion, that addition of information was coupled with a shift in importance or ranking of ideas.
I: what has changed in your understanding between your genetics knowledge when you made this concept map and your genetics knowledge now?
Selena: um, well I know I could have put genotypes on here
I: ok
Selena: and phenotypes. And I could have put, I could have added stuff to it that I didn’t know then
I: ok, so you would want to have added things…
When students were asked whether they had any prior knowledge of inheritance of traits they often said no. However, learners had constructed conceptual frameworks about how traits are inherited, even though they may not have been aware that they had done so. Students did not consider their prior knowledge as substantial as science knowledge. Sarafina alleged that everything about her genetics knowledge changed and were new additions since she did not know much about genetics, yet she had plenty of prior knowledge that was expressed in the interviews, pretest, and pre concept map.
I: so everything that you knew about genetics has changed
Sarafina: yeah because I didn’t know a lot of things about genetics.
Since, according to learners, learning is an accumulation of facts or true information, there must also be fiction, or false information that must be distinguished from fact. Students view facts and fiction as discrete entities that sometimes coexist in their minds, but are not integrated with each other.
Mahala: subconsciously, you think you might forget about it or whatever, but it’s kind of like still in the back of your head, which is why like, when you said you’re trying to explain something to a teacher but you get it all jumbled up and backwards, it’s because you’re mixing up old information that you thought you had that was wrong, with the new information that’s right.
Alternate and current science conceptions can exist concurrently in a learner’s mind, and may even form a mosaic. However, learners do not mention a continuum between the two. Information is information, and it is all stored together until it is necessary to recall it.
How prior knowledge is challenged
Students did not, as a rule, connect new knowledge with their prior knowledge. They were content to allow them to be disunited bits of information in their minds.
I: why doesn't it have to be connected?
Sarafina: because like probably my old information doesn't really go with the new information, so you can’t really connect it, like they don't go with each other, like one was a completely different thing than another one.
Connections with prior knowledge seemed to be made most often when students were having difficulties understanding new information and then searched for something in their knowledge base to help them understand it better. This explains how students can have conflicting concepts coexisting in their frameworks, because they do not typically seek to link them together. However, students more adept at metacognitive strategies rehearse their prior knowledge when attempting to understand new knowledge. Writing it repeatedly, or saying it again aids students in seeing what does not fit properly in their conceptual framework. When asked which method of studying is most helpful in understanding a difficult concept, Selena reported that repetition was helpful.
I: so that helps you to remember it, but does that help you to understand something that you’re not getting?
Selena: yeah, because if it was a math problem and I was writing it and I kept writing it and writing it and writing, it or if I kept doing the same problems but different, you know switched around I think that helps me to learn because each time you go over it more.
I: so is that how you solved the trinomials today?
Selena: uh huh
I: by writing it?
Selena: uh huh, because you try, just like number 32 you do it, but each time you look at the example and see step by step, but by then the time I was doing it, I didn’t have to look back or anything.
…
I: ok. How would you get something that you were trying to learn that was not initially making sense to you to finally pop in your head?
Selena: how would I?
I: mmm hmm
Selena: um, asking or, looking it up, or doing it again.
I: what do you mean doing it again. You’re trying to learn it and you can’t seem to get it so you would do what again?
Selena: what you’re not getting again and again until you get it
I: do it again by reading it over and over, do it again by reading out loud, do it again by working problems in the book, do it again by...
Selena: like, on a math problem you can keep on writing it
I: the same math problem? Over and over again?
Selena: because if you’re making a mistake you would try to find out what the mistake was by keep on doing it
Repetitions of a learner’s own framework can aid them in clarifying that framework. Enabling them to see structural flaws or weaknesses in their conception. In the following example we see a student not misspeaking, but misthinking. This learner had a framework in his mind that he had not checked thoroughly, and as a result, his concepts did not articulate neatly. As he read his own thoughts, and saw them from an outside viewpoint, he recognized inconsistencies in his own explanations.
I: now do you think you changed your mind because of the course, the six weeks of genetics, or do you think that when you said “I can’t believe that I said that” you were misrepresented? Or do you think you said stuff you didn’t really think in your head?
Gary: yeah, said stuff that I didn’t really think inside of my head
I: ok, so in the interview you said things that weren’t really what you believed at the time that you said them?
Gary maybe not that. It’s just that they weren’t very well thought through. Just kind of what popped in my head I said it
I: ok, so that’ sounds like you’re talking about as far as what’s in your head coming out of your mouth maybe isn’t what you want it to be?
Gary: no even really that, just, if I would have probably thought about it a little bit more, it probably would have been a little bit different, maybe a little bit more well thought through
In the course of repetition, students may unearth a discrepancy in their knowledge. Students may come to realize that the new information does not align with what they already know or believe to be true. In this case we see repetition as revealing alternate conceptions as well as helping learners to make meaning. This repetition is particularly helpful if it is oral repetition on the learner’s part.
How new knowledge is gained
Students reported many viewpoints as to how new knowledge is gained. The one most often cited was in line with Hewson’s (1982) rote memorization. Students reported that they merely added new knowledge to their prior knowledge. On a few occasions, students admitted to conceptual exchange (Hewson, 1982), when they found their own explanations to be lacking. However in both scenarios, the transaction of between knowledges is described as a relatively simple transition. One student, however, suggested that gaining new knowledge might actually be a lengthier process. Gary suggested that one could change their mind about and idea, assimilating it into their prior knowledge, but not actually accommodating their understanding or framework.
Gary: uh, lets see here, I mean they’re sort of the same, then they’re sort of not. Um, changing your mind can be like an overall decision about something, but changing your understanding can be like maybe a process that leads you to that decision.
As a result of the interview process, students became more aware of their metacognitive and metalearning functions.
I: ok, have you been more aware of your thought processes and learning processes since this series of interviews?
Selena: uh huh.
This is one of the reasons why I conducted the majority of my interviews after the instruction of genetics as to interfere as little as possible with the natural succession of students’ process of conceptual change. This also supports the ethical considerations discussed in chapter three that participants in this study would benefit most from this study. Participants best benefited because they became enlightened about their own thinking and learning processes. Thinking to learn develops prior to learning to think. By participating in this study, learners gained more insight towards learning how to think and build knowledge for themselves.
Conceptual change in a community of learners
Much of the genetics conceptual change that occurred during this study transpired, as students were engaged in peer group discussions. This supports the basic principles of social constructivism. Meaning that triggers conceptual change is socially negotiated. We see this occurring in a collaborative environment where students must concur as to the correct explanations for unit test questions. Mediation or interactions with people convert social relations into psychological functions. This is particularly true of people significant to the learner. Relationships with peers is evident and important in prompting students to examine their own theories in light of another’s theory and to search for the most fruitful construction. We also see knowledge development within classroom culture. Learning occurs through interaction and dialogue with individuals at similar content stages to the learner.
Communal Conceptions
Assertion three: Students are more open to consider challenges to their frameworks by their peers than by their teachers.
It is interesting to note that of the four sources that students reported having learned genetics content in Phase 1, that three of them involved social interactions: formal education settings, information educational settings and personal relationships. In the high school science setting, a community of learners (Brown & Campione, 1990) is a place where students can together explore scientific questions and the answers to those questions. Ideally the teacher would be included in this community of learners, but this is difficult to manage, since the teacher is expected to already have the answers and have previously acquired scientific knowledge. In this study there existed a culture of learners who were similar, although they possessed varying worldviews, because they were trying to acclimate to the consensual science conception of genetic inheritance. Mahala was very insightful when she noted that they were all trying to figure it out together (p. 133). That teachers present “this is how it is” without allowing students to construct the understanding themselves.
In a community of learners, knowledge is collectively negotiated and communally constructed. Due to a shared frame of reference, students are better able to make sense of what they communicate to each other. In a community of learners, incommensurate language is less likely to be problematic. Vygotsky (1987) wrote “as students interact with one another…they develop ideas that, because they are held in common, create a universe of discourse, a common frame of reference in which communication can take place.” (p. 68) This frame of reference is a supportive, though stimulating environment where students must assemble, present, consider, evaluate and arrive at consensus about knowledge.
Assertion four: Students are more motivated to become active participants in restructuring their frameworks of scientific phenomena, when they are collaboratively constructing it with their peers.
When discussing content and concepts with peers, students are more like to see how the new knowledge fits, by examining their own viewpoint. This occurrence results in conceptual exchange or conceptual capture. However with teachers, students are more likely to reject information through affective resistance, or assimilate new information, more passively accepting it as discrete facts.
Students reported that it takes someone outside the situation to help them understand difficult concepts.
I: why do you think you finally catch on? What do you have in common with all the different times that you finally catch on? What’s going on that makes you catch on?
Gary: usually, I’ll be told by somebody outside of the situation, that’s the way that it is in order for me to say “oh my gosh” like it might be, I might be like you know, arguing with my sister about something and you know I’ll just like offhandedly mention it to one of my friends and they’ll say “yeah, she’s right, you’re wrong, completely” so I guess for me it takes somebody outside of the situation to kind of tell me that’s the way it is, because I’m really like, I’m really stubborn and I have a lot of pride so I don’t always want to admit when I’m defeated.
Teachers are outside of learners’ frameworks, as are their peers. However, there is a disparity in the response of learners to guidance from teachers and guidance from peers. Teachers are perceived as autocratic troublemakers or rabble-rousers. They are the ones who challenge students’ ideas and opinions and are the ones that the students are in direct opposition with. However, peers are in the same boat as the learners, and are a valuable resource to use, to volley ideas with. Teachers are not perceived as objective third parties. They have an agenda. Teacher’s roles, as perceived by students, are to bend students to teacher’s way of thinking—even if that thinking is inline with consensually accepted science theories.
Although students recognize that teachers and other adults have insights into areas that they themselves may not have, it is still difficult for students to accept information from authority figures without feeling as though it is challenging their own beliefs in an oppositional way. In a community of learners, guided by an educator, students have the opportunity to arrive at consensual science knowledge, in a manner to which they are more receptive. As a result conceptual change can occur more quickly and more completely.
Accountability
Assertion five: A community of learners makes learners more accountable for challenging and correcting their conceptual frameworks.
Students show little accountability for challenging their own conceptual frameworks and correcting alternate conceptions. Sarafina realized she expressed conflicting ideas, but was resistant to alter her response until her peers pointed it out.
I: so, let me as, have you ever been explaining something to somebody and once you said it out your mouth, you realize, “wait a second, that’s not quite right”, but then you ended up getting it right and really understanding it because you were explaining it and you caught that what you were saying wasn’t right?
Sarafina: um, I can’t recall a time, like on my own like that, the only time I can recall is when we were, you know, back there in that group. And the Renee kind of pointed it out. I realized that I wasn’t, I was contradicting myself already, because it wasn’t really making sense, because I was like, I know I’m not making sense, but they don’t know I’m not making sense, but then Renee said something and then Mahala was like yeah yeah, that does make any sense and I was like, well what’s your point of view Renee and then you know, she told me, and then I was like, oh, that makes sense.
I: so do you do that a lot? Say things that don’t make sense, but keep saying it?
Sarafina: sometimes, yeah (laugher).
Sarafina recognized the fault in her thinking but was not motivated to change it until it was challenged by the other learners in her community. Perhaps similarly students recognize where new information is incongruent with their prior knowledge but are not motivated to make sense of it since they are not immediately accountable. It is reasonable to assume that students do not closely think about what they think because they are not culpable in a tangible way. Students reported that their concepts are not often well thought through. However, explaining their conceptions to an audience who is closely attending what is being said, may help to make a difference.
Students are generally satisfied with their conceptions and see no reason to change. They are content to leave them as they are, possible making minor additions if need arises.
I: so, instead of re-doing it, sort of like a house, instead of tearing it down and building it over, you decided to build rooms onto it. Why did you decide to do it that way instead of starting it over?
Gary: probably cause, I was somewhat, I was satisfied with what I had, it just, I needed to have more stuff added onto it, also probably because I’m pretty lazy. Yeah, so just trying to, I mean I really didn’t feel the need to get rid of it all, because I probably would have ended up copying down most of it again, but it needed to be, updated.
Dissatisfaction with their framework occurs when students are required to elucidate their own theories and realize they are inadequate. This does not typically occur by teachers presenting contrary information, or by teachers even telling their students that their theories are insufficient. This is inline with Vygotsky’s social constructivism. That meaning is socially constructed.
When students are held accountable for expressing their frameworks, by sharing with a community of learners or being questioned externally, they become more conscientious in making sense. This need to make the correct change is not as pressing when students are not answerable for their ideas. Learners are not as likely to pursue the discrepancies in their frameworks if they do not have to be responsible to someone else for them.
I: does it usually bother you when you can’t figure out an answer to a question that you think you should know?
Gary: uh, a little bit.
I: like you just said “yeah, but see, that doesn’t make any sense, that means that what I thought was wrong”, does that bother you?
Gary: yeah, it bothers me but usually not for a while because usually I’ll just give up on it, I’ll just say “well…whatever”, that’s, I think that that’s what most kids do. Just like if something gets conflicted in their head, they’ll just say “oh, I’ll just go watch TV and think about it later”, or something like that.
Mercer (2000) lists four resources that enable communities to think collectively. One of his resources is reciprocal obligation. In reciprocal obligation members are responsible towards each other and have access to each other’s intellectual resources. This joint culpability increases the likelihood that students will more carefully consider their frameworks, since they are expected and will be called upon to share them with their learning community. Gary brings up the issue of “equal input” when peer teaching and reviewing the test with his classmates (p. 122). Gary feels that equal input benefits all parties involved in the learning process, and that it is a phenomenon not found often in the interactions between teachers and students. In a community of learners, learners become responsible for each other’s learning as well as their own. This increases the likelihood that they will consider their own frameworks more carefully, consider other’s frameworks more carefully, and compare both sets of frameworks, for the most fruitful explanation.
Value of students’ conceptions
Assertion six: Students do not have confidence in their ability to construct scientifically valuable knowledge
There is a perceived difference between the value of students’ knowledge and the value of teachers’ knowledge. Mahala reported that she wanted to receive information from her peers, but give information to her teachers. There is less risk involved with sharing with someone who is in your community of learners. Yet apparently it seems as though validation is still necessary from an authoritative view. Mahala (p. 126) is content to share opinions with her friends and have her peers explain things to her. However, Mahala thinks it more helpful explaining her ideas to a teacher who could authenticate her knowledge.
Students talked about opinions and values, and those of teachers are valued differently than those of peers. Students were more open to receiving ideas from their peers. Learners even preferred exchanging ideas with their peers, likely because they were more valued in the peer arena. However, students still sought to get validation on their ideas from their teachers.
Trust and relationship exist in a community of learners, which is not extended to the teacher.
Portia: people don't usually listen to their teacher, they just ignore them sometimes, and then, if they’re talking to their friends, they’re more likely to pay attention to them
I: why?
Portia: they trust them
Students had an affective resistance to the same individual that they wanted validation from. Students did not descry that their teachers considered their values, feelings and emotions. Students implied that learning in a community of learners involved more than an exchange of content, it also included an exchange of the emotions, beliefs and experiences that shaped the content understanding of the learners. In a focus group discussion Sarafina expressed (p. 127) that she was more likely to listen to and have her ideas changed by her peers. In fact, she was more tolerant of her peers ideas and explanations overall. This sentiment was mirrored by the other informants in the group
Selena: I agree with Mahala, I think it’s a trust thing too. If somebody, if it’s just a friend that you don't trust and they tell you that this answer is the answer “just because” and instead of a friend that says, that you trust and says it, you just believe that you believe rather than a teacher trusts more.
Students perceived that teachers expected them to abandon their own ideas for teachers’ ideas. Students reported that teachers occasionally teach their own point of view, and that a teacher’s point of view that is weighed more heavily than their own. That teachers have the right knowledge and students have the wrong knowledge.
There is a community of learners, possessing students’ views, that feel as though teachers do not respect their views enough. In most classrooms there is an equality that seems to be missing. Students and teachers do not have equal input. It was evident in this study that students looked to have their input valued. The expertise of the teacher was not discounted, as the student looked to dialogue with the teacher:
Some students were more welcoming of ideas that were on the same level of importance as their own. If there was no threat that mandated that they must give up their ideas they were more willing to weigh the plausibility of their theories against another set of theories. However, opposition arose when students were given facts from an authoritative viewpoint. Such opposition in fact, that students chose to discount and ignore the new information. Sarafina gives an example of such a scenario:
Sarafina: well, I just want to say that I think it was good when we did the group discussions and everything, when we like met with the group because it helped you to see other people’s point of view, and that kind of makes you kind of think about your point of view and say “hey, maybe I’m not right”, you know maybe somebody else’s point of view could work too
I: so that’s different than when a teacher present’s their point of view?
Sarafina: well, I think that it’s the same thing, but maybe it’s different when it’s coming from one of your peers, it could be different.
I: what would make it different do you think?
Sarafina: um, well I mean, I think that the persons who it’s coming from is different, like maybe if you hear it from one of your friends you have to be more open and listen to them, but if you hear it from a teacher you’re like “ugh, I have to listen to this”. But maybe if you’re like another one of your classmates you’re like, ok, I’m going to be open to this, I’m going to listen to this, I’m going to consider their point of view.
Ego of students must be considered when challenging students’ prior conceptions. Valuing their knowledge seemed to be paramount in developing the open mindedness and buy in necessary in order for students to questions their pre-exiting knowledge. The threat from peer interactions seemed lessened and decreased the resistance to change of ideas.
Gary: Now for the questions, um, alright. How does what you already know about a topic influence what else you learn about that topic? Who wants to go first? All right, I’ll go first, alright. How does what you already know about a topic influence what else you learn about that topic. Well I think if you already know something about a topic, and then, like more stuff is added onto it, it can affect your ego. Like it can make you think that you know a lot more than you do, and that’s kind of what I realized through the interviews. That I really, in the beginning I though I knew a lot and by the end of the like genetics unit, um I realized I didn't really know anything very much. So I think that it really, once you learn more about a topic it really makes you learn, like realize how little you might have known in the beginning.
In the above passage, Gary felt that ego was at stake. That there is a pride issue, and that admitting you are wrong or surrendering your ideas is a result of defeat. However, when students in learning communities, come to a sense of consensus, it is not a defeat issue and hostile takeover like a war, but a treaty that is created with all parties’ best interest at stake.
Since students viewed knowledge as being either factual or fiction, there was little way to save face in the event that a student did not have the correct facts.
Sarafina: I kind of already realized it, but I didn't say anything. I just kept talking, then I would have had to admit that I was wrong.
I: so is that hard for you to do?
Sarafina: yeah, it is, I don’t like to admit that I am wrong.
This aversion to being wrong was compounded when the right answers are coming from a teacher. However, in a community of learners, there is less a feel of absolute right and wrong, and more of a negotiated meaning. Portia also resisted the oral explanations of an authority figure, even though the interaction was student initiated:
Portia: I was in some teacher’s class, she was explaining to us the problem, I didn't understand and went home and asked my did, he was explaining it to me, but I was just in my own world, I didn't listen to him.
I: so you weren't listening when he was explaining it?
Portia: no, but I was listening when the teacher was explaining it. I was just sure that I’m not going to understand it when he was explaining it.
I: so you had already made up your mind that your dad’s explanation wasn't going to help.
Portia: yeah
Learners unearth inconsistencies in their frameworks when they question themselves. Learners question themselves when they hear their own frameworks or those of their peers. This internal questioning does not occur as often when students hear teachers’ explanations. In a community of learners, knowledge results from group consensus instead of from an absolute source disseminated through the teacher, or other authority. Conceptual frameworks are constructed; therefore learners have value and input. This may account for why students are more likely to have their conceptual frameworks altered by members of their learning community—their peers—instead of their teachers.
It is apparent that the relationship with the informational source is also important. Students are more tolerant of sharing and receiving ideas from peers at similar developmental and conceptual stages.
Kuhn (1970) wrote that scientists work in various communities to create logical frameworks or paradigms. These frameworks can be contrarily constructed within various scientific disciplines. As a result, nuclear scientists and environmental scientist may view the same data differently as well as have difficulties in communicating these frameworks to each other since they operate from distinct reference points. Similarly, communities of learners develop conceptual frameworks based on their collective culture. This may offer an explanation as to why learners can sometimes facilitate conceptual change in their peers more effectively than teachers can.
The work of Vygotsky (1978) is characterized by three themes: 1) the best way to understand mind is to look at how it changes, 2) higher mental functions have their origins in social activity, and 3) development involves mental processes first occurring on the social level, between people, and then on the individual level, inside the child. Although not initially included in the theoretical framework of this study, Vygotsky’s ideas of social constructivism clearly emerge in the data. Throughout this study, conceptual change has been linked to community and to dialogue. Dialogue promotes conceptual change socially, between peers and between the learner and themselves.
Dialogue’s function in conceptual change
Vygotsky (1986) indicates that there are three stages in the development of speech: social or external speech, egocentric speech, and inner speech. The function of speech is first social, used to contact and interact with individuals in one’s environment. External speech allows individuals to communicate and relate to others. Typically, external speech arises as an attempt to manipulate the individuals in one’s environment. Mercer (2000) suggests that students exert a certain degree of control in the classroom by using or refraining from using language, and as a result, dialogue can be used to promote learning.
Egocentric speech links external speech and internal thought. "Egocentric speech is inner speech in its functions” (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 86). Learners typically use egocentric speech and other external aids to help them solve internal problems. This is the type of speech that students were encouraged to demonstrate as they participated in the pile sort, a kind of thinking out loud.
If external speech is transforming thoughts into outward words, then inner speech is transforming words into inward thoughts. According to Vygotsky, (1987) students transform the interpersonal process of explaining their frameworks into an intrapersonal conceptual construction. Vygotsky described this transformation as the process of internalization. Internalization is the long final process of thinking, with many learners not progressing beyond some level of external speech.
Articulation
Assertion seven: Articulation aids in learners identifying their own alternate conceptions.
There is a difference between how someone understands something that is entirely contained in their head, and understanding once they must verbally explain it to someone else. This goes beyond the mere use of words to make sense. Students think in words when they are explaining to themselves, however when those words must pass through the lips there is another gateway or checkpoint that is passed, and this often seems to have more stringent rubrics.
Learners must be aware of their own models before they can make adjustments to them. As students explain to their peers about their models, they must use verbal skills to make their models apparent, and in this way think through their models better than they did when they were totally internal. Additionally, hearing their models aloud makes them more likely to see errors in them if they exist. There are two effects at work here, putting ideas into words and listening to ideas in words. Students spontaneously caught errors when they verbalized their ideas, as well as when they heard their ideas repeated back to them.
Talking out loud challenges students to balance their mental checkbook and bring to surface discrepancies in their minds. This is apparent when Gary was queried with a genetics content question in the third interview:
I: ok, what percent of your genes come from your mom and what percent of them come from your dad?
Gary: huh, probably, I don’t know. Um, I don’t know, I have no earthly idea. Um, I want to say 50 and 50, but no. Maybe like 60 from my mom and 40 from my dad.
I: why do you say that and not 50/50?
Gary: I resemble my mom more but, I mean I’m pretty much, I’m alike to both of my parents, but I resemble my mom more.
I: so you think you have more, a higher percentage of your mom’s genes than your dad?
Gary: aww, let’s see, I don’t know, I’m going to think about this out loud now. Genes, genes, heredity (checks glossary). Ok, huh…I want to say that you get the same number from both parents, but I know that’s with chromosomes. But then maybe you do get the same number, but then you have to, yeah, ok, all right, I had another pop there, sort of.
I: tell me, tell me.
Gary: that was actually, oh man, much of the experience that we were talking about mixed together, because I thought when you first asked that question I was thinking of genes as like, genes as dominance and uh, as dominance and recessive, but that’s sort of like a trick question almost, like not really a trick but just a little bit. Because when you get same number of chromosomes from you mom and dad, that means you get the same number of genes from your mom and dad. But some of them might be dominant and some of them might be recessive over the other two, over the other, yeah the other chromosome.
I: let me ask you, did you know this before, or did you learn this just now?
Gary: hmm. That was probably a changed concept because I didn’t realize what I was talking about. Because sometimes you’ll be going over something in your head and it will make sense to you, but then you say it out loud and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Not only does Gary realize that his thinking is illogical once he articulates it, he actually develops his thinking as he articulates. Vygotsky (1987) wrote, “Thought is restructured as it is transformed into speech. It is not expressed but completed in the word.” (p.251) Language does not mirror the thought process, but constructs it.
Verbal processing is helpful in constructing meaningful frameworks. The mind, being the powerful instrument that it is will sometimes “fill in the blanks” unless it is held to a strict rubric.
Selena: um, like I was, ok, last night, I was writing a paper for ___ and I was like saying it in my head what I was going to write, but I messed up like 2 times and so when I said it out loud, I could write it better because I guess I heard myself and if I was doing it in my head, it was like I would skip a word because I thought I wrote it, and I would skip right over it if I was just writing.
Students can be engaged in internal or even external speech and still not achieve conceptual change. However, the chance of conceptual change is increased when learners pay attention to what they are saying, and actually think about the words in addition to using words to think.
I: so what happens before you get it that makes you get it? That doesn't happen when you don't get it?
Selena: I listen to myself, I listen to what I’m saying I look at what I’m doing.
I: do you not usually listen to what you’re saying?
Selena: I mean, I do but, it’s, I don't know, I don't know. I listen to myself, but if you’re really sitting there and you’re really thinking hard...
By listening to herself speaking, instead of simply speaking, Selena was analytically and actively having dialogue with herself, and making connections. This suggests that there is an auditory as well as oral component to conceptual change.
Gary: when you think something, well for me, it’s a lot different than when it comes out, um, like you may think it and in your head it may sound ok, um, but when you say it out loud, you kind of reprocess it again
Students begin to question their existing theories prior to changing their conceptual framework. Renee sites as the source of her confusion—questioning her framework—some questions I asked her about cats earlier on in the interview. Dialogue can provide the stimulus needed to prompt students to question their own theories. This was apparent in the interview with Renee on page 87. Questions that Renee was asked during the interview caused her to question her ideas about genetics inheritance.
In addition to asking questions about their existing theories, dialogue give rise to students, explaining, interpreting and negotiating knowledge.
Mahala: no, um, I think it would have to take for someone to tell me. Sometimes it would have to take for someone to tell me, but then, like, once again, when I talk to myself, if I’m trying to explain it to myself or trying to tell it to other people, then I kind of realize I am wrong…
At the commencement of the interview process, students were not very aware of their metacognitive processes. Students had difficulties describing how they thought, or those processes that occurred as they attempted to construct meaning. Students reported little about their metacognitive processes except that they used repetition to aid in understanding. Students reported that they do not think in words.
I: what did you think of? What thought came into your mind when you were trying to figure out where that orange cat came from?
Selena: I don’t know, I just I wasn’t thinking in words or stuff, I was trying to get it but couldn’t figure it out.
I: so did you compare it to anything that you had previous experience with?
Selena: well, you know how tabbies, they both have the same pattern, well the dad, they had the same pattern as the tabby but just a different color, so that probably came from his dad, the coat
Perhaps this is precisely why students seem to persist in their alternate conceptions when they ruminate on them solely in their minds, whereas inconsistencies in their alternate conceptions come to light once they verbalize their frameworks.
Vocalization triggers ideas and information that is already present in a student’s mind, but somehow, otherwise get lost.
I: ok. So, what do you think about explaining it to someone else helps you to realize that it wasn’t the way you thought it was?
Portia: it just reminds me of what is right and wrong.
I: ok. It reminds you of what is right and wrong. So how come you don’t think you knew what was right and wrong before you said it out loud? Even if it was just like one minute before. You know, one minute you said it wrong, but the very next minute, you got it right.
Portia: it was just in some corner of my head and I just didn't get it at that time. And when I say stuff, it just came out.
Articulation also helps to connect concepts for students
Selena: um, well sometimes when I was explaining it, like I’d say something and I didn’t know it before, I was explaining it and I knew it, I just never thought of it. Like when I’m explaining to somebody else or something, I guess, it just, it seems like I understand it better. Because I’m talking to somebody and I’m looking at it and I’m trying to help them so, I try to help them as much as I can.
I: so, you said things that you didn’t know?
Selena: that I did know
I: you did know them, but when you said them…
Selena: it was, it was, I knew it, but I’d just never thought of it
I: how could you know something without thinking of it?
Selena: I’m trying to think how to put it. I can’t say it, like, I knew it, but I just never, um, connected it.
Learners do not see the value in articulating their conceptual frameworks. Students see their explanations of their frameworks as being more rhetorical than valuable, as fulfillment of a requirement rather than a fruitful endeavor. However, it is clear that having learners explain their conceptual framework is a valuable exercise is learning and conceptual change.
Arguing
Assertion eight: Arguing aids in the revisitation, investigation and reconstruction of conceptual frameworks.
Mercer (2000) defines argue as “…a reasoned debate between people, an extended conversation focusing on a specific theme which aims to establish ‘the truth’ about some contentious issue.” (p. 96) This is a term and phenomenon that is not normally included in students’ descriptions of their interactions with teachers. Mercer also calls this exploratory talk, where concepts are critically but constructively considered among peers. Sarafina reported that she was able to revisit her conceptual frameworks and acquire conceptual change after “arguing” with her classmates (p. 125).
Portia also mentioned arguing as a way that helped her to learn.
I: ok, do you remember learning anything or having some “a-has!” when you were in your groups and reviewing after the test?
Portia: yes, I made so many mistakes that I remembered what was wrong
I: ok, do you think you would have done as well working by yourself, or did it help to work in a group with other people?
Portia: it helped to work in a group with other people because you got to discuss it good more, and understand it more
I: how did discussing it with other people help you to understand it more
Portia: like arguing about it, you didn’t know about it, but then it gave you examples and made you understand about it
I: who gave you examples?
Portia: the people I was working with
It is interesting that the word arguing is used so often in the above passages. When the word argument was used in this study, it seemed as though students were talking about a verbal exchange of ideas. This exchange is a novel experience for learners who subscribe to the transmission model of learning. During an argument, or exchange, both parties have valuable information to share. Input from both sources is provided and evaluated in order to arrive at an understanding of truth. Through this radical constructivist viewpoint, learners can construct meaning in one accord. However, when the teacher is seen as the holder of the knowledge, instead of the co-constructor of the knowledge, it is difficult for this type of conceptual change causing dialogue to occur.
Gary brought this matter up in a different way. He articulated that some teachers are authoritative in their responses, giving “just because” answers instead of discussing the details behind their conceptual framework.
I: ok, so, which helped you most in meeting your goal, because there were a lot of things that you saw, so which of the things that you saw helped you the best?
Gary: probably, in the GenScope program, when we uh, went over our tests, and we got the answers there and we had our tests there and um, with the explanations there, that probably helped me the most because they give you examples and they give you a good legitimate reason why, and they go in detail with it.
I: is that something that you’re not used to getting? “A good legitimate reason why, with details”?
Gary: uh, I’m not really used to getting it, no.
I: do you feel that your teachers give you that?
Gary: uh. Some. Some give me good legitimate answers and then others, just say “this is the answer, because it is”
There is a perceived difference between dialogue among students and students and dialogue among students and teachers. Students perceive dialogue between themselves as teacher as being one way, with very little true interchange of ideas. If students do not feel as though they are expected to formulate, have and share their own scientific conceptions, they are not as diligent accessing them, exploring them and refining them. When teachers do not discuss content and concepts with their students, they short-circuit the learning process. They perpetuate the learning transmission model, and encourage students to be passive participants in the learning process.
Data Collection Instruments
The New Worm pre and posttest gains, pre and posttest concepts maps and pile sorting were data collection instruments used in this study. However, these data collection instruments did not indicate substantial insight into how students navigate their knowledge and conceptual change.
Gains in pre and posttest
Part of the selection process of primary informants in this study, was to occur after the comparison of gains in the NewWorm pre and posttest. Although pre-test data was available prior to the second interview, posttest data did not become available until almost the end of the data collection process. Subsequent analysis revealed that four of the five primary informants did experience moderate to high positive gains in their NewWorm scores. One informant, Sarafina, demonstrated negative gains or loss in her NewWorm pre and posttest scores.
At first glance, this appears to support my negative case analysis. Sarafina was the only one of the informants who did not seem to have conversations with her self. Sarafina was the only one of the informants who seemed resistant to change her conceptual framework based on information from a teacher because the teacher was an authority figure. She was also the only informant who did not seem to have experiences of recognizing when her concepts were inconsistent without external intervention (from her peers since she was resistant to accept it from her teachers).
Examination of class NewWorm scores (Hickey et. al. 2003), showed that a number of students actually showed score declines, indicating lack of motivation or time to complete this fairly lengthy assessment. Because the most difficult items at the end of the test are the ones that provide the highest scale scores, students who run out of time can be severely penalized on the test. As a caveat, it should be pointed out that the primary content teachers was absent on the day when the posttest was administered. This led to administrative difficulties, with an unknown number of students reportedly unable or unwilling to complete the assessment in the allotted time.
Concept Maps
In the concept-mapping portion of the interview, students were asked to describe how they decided to construct their second concept map. Students were then asked to compare and contrast their initial concept map created prior to genetics instruction, to their final concept map after genetics instruction. My expectations were that this activity would give me the clearest insight into how students handled new information. However, I was disappointed at how little I indeed learned about conceptual change while discussing students’ concept maps with them. Gary said this of the concept maps:
Gary: ok, I’m going to be totally honest.
I: ok
Gary: dead honest. When I was doing that concept map, I was trying to get it finished, so when I did that and I put in a whole bunch of cell words and stuff like that, then I wasn’t, I wasn’t like really angry about it. I didn’t have any conflict about it because I was like, I was just trying to get it done. Like get as much words as I could so I could get the best grade.
I: so at that point it wasn’t about learning it was just about completion.
Gary: yeah. Well…well a concept map really isn’t about learning is it? I mean, a concept map to me is more demonstrating what you know, so it really wasn’t about learning, it was more about completion.
Pile Sort
The pile sort was intended not only to sort genetics concepts, but also to sort occasions when students assimilated or accommodated new knowledge. However, students did not initially distinguish between addition of information and rearranging information so it was difficult to delineate between the two occurrences. Students demonstrated varying degrees of what they considered as new, changed and unchanged concepts during the unit on genetics. Gary looked at his placement of a prior word in deciding where to place a new word. This demonstrated connections and linkage between concepts in his head, and relativity of placement and thought.
Gary: Recessive. Well I will have to put this in my other category, because I knew what it meant inside of a, like I knew how to label it and describe it inside of a genotype, but inside of a phenotype, I wasn’t sure how to say “oh, well that phenotype is recessive and this is why” so that is unchanged, yeah unchanged and new mixed together. Homozygous, homozygous is definitely unchanged. Wait, no, oh wait. Let’s see, homozygous, homozygous…genotype is unchanged, oh man I’m forgetting stuff, but can it be homozygous instead of phenotype, uh, well, I think it’s going to stay there. Heterozygous this one will have to go in the other category of unchanged and new concepts also, because heterozygous like, uh, it was unchanged in it’s genotype, but when I thought about it as it’s phenotype, then it was changed, and I made up the word “heterozygousism” I made a word up inside of genetics so I felt that I had done my part.
This occurrence of linking new knowledge with prior knowledge best occurred in conditions where there was dialogue, particularly if that dialogue was with a peer instead of a teacher.
Summary of Assertions
This study sought to answer the following research questions:
1. How do students in the process of changing their naïve science theories to accepted science theories describe their journey from prior knowledge to current conception?
2. What are the methods that students utilize to bridge the gap between alternate and consensual science conceptions to effect conceptual change?
From the information contained in the results, eight major assertions were drawn from the research questions. These assertions are summarized in Table 4. Assertions two, three, five and six address the first research question describing students’ journey of conceptual change. Assertion two indicates that students perceive learning as an addition of information, with little regard as to how it fits with pre-existing information. This accounts for the higher frequency of assimilation than accommodation occurring in science classrooms
Assertion three attests that students are more open to consider challenges to their frameworks from their peers than from their teachers. This would account for one reason why cooperative learning groups have been successful in classrooms, as well as why alternate conceptions persist, even after direction instruction.
Assertion five illustrates the importance of particular social interactions in the conceptual change process. A community of learners makes learners more accountable for challenging and correcting their conceptual frameworks. Accountability has long been a motivator in a variety of scenarios. In the conceptual change process, the community of
Table 4
Assertions
|Trend |Domain |Theme |Assertion |
|How prior knowledge |Helping learners make |Learner initiated |1. Students see their role in learning as primarily repeating |
|is gained |meaning | |information that they have been given until it becomes an |
| | | |automatic response |
| | |Externally | |
| | |initiated | |
| |Genetics knowledge |Learner initiated |2. Students perceive learning as an addition of information with |
| |origins | |little regard as to how it fits with pre-existing information |
| | |Externally |6. Students do not have confidence in their ability to construct |
| | |initiated |scientifically valuable knowledge |
|How prior knowledge |Revealing alternate |Learner initiated |7. Articulation aids in learners identifying their own alternate |
|is challenged and |conceptions | |conceptions |
|changed | | | |
| | |Externally |3. Students are more open to consider challenges to their |
| | |initiated |frameworks by their peers than their teachers |
|How new knowledge is |Impetus for genetics |Learner initiated | |
|gained through |conceptual change | | |
|conceptual change | | | |
| | |Externally | |
| | |initiated | |
| |Aiding conceptual change|Learner initiated |4. Students are motivated to become active participants in |
| | | |restructuring their frameworks, when they are collaboratively |
| | | |constructing knowledge with their peers. |
| | |Externally |5. A community of learners makes learners more accountable for |
| | |initiated |challenging and correcting their conceptual frameworks. |
| | | |8. Arguing aids in the revisitation, investigation and |
| | | |reconstruction of conceptual frameworks. |
Note: Eight major assertions were drawn from this study. These assertions were grouped by the domains that arose during the three phases of data collection and analysis.
learners shifts the responsibility of learning to the learner, making learning more active than passive.
Assertion six contends that students do not have confidence in their ability to construct scientifically valuable knowledge. This in part explains the passivity with which some students approach the learning process. It also aids in perpetuating the transmission model of knowledge, where students are content to accept prepackaged information without integrating it into their current frameworks.
Assertions one, four seven and eight refer to the second research question describing strategies that students employ to attain conceptual change. In assertion one, students see their role in learning as primarily repeating information that they have been given until it becomes an automatic response. As a result, students use reading, writing and oral repetition to aid them in conceptual change. The results of this study indicate that verbal repetition is the most useful of the three.
Assertion four affirms that students are motivated to become active participants in restructuring their frameworks, when they are collaboratively constructing knowledge with their peers. Students seek out the opinions and input of their peers to help them make sense of a concept, even though they seek validation of the authenticity of that concept from their teachers.
Assertion seven avows that articulation of learners’ conceptual frameworks, aids in learners identifying their own alternate conceptions. Dialogue is significant in the conceptual change process. Dialogue includes external speech as learners reasons to themselves as well as social speech with members of their learning community as well as teachers or other individuals.
Assertion eight declares that arguing is instrumental to conceptual change. Arguing aids in the revisitation, investigation and reconstruction of conceptual frameworks. Arguing provides learners an opportunity to review their frameworks, critique their own frameworks as well as their peers, and mend or amend areas that are irresolute.
Pedagogical Implications
As stated in chapters one and three, my primary motivation for conducting this study was praxis. Praxis focuses on the application of theory to result in social change or reform. The findings of this study yielded several pedagogical implications that I will discuss in consonance with the eight assertions. A summary of these pedagogical implications can be found in Table 5.
Assertion One
Students see their role in learning, as primarily repeating information that they have been given until it becomes an automatic response. Although repetition has been shown in this study, to lead to conceptual change, more often it ends in rote memorization, which is not truly conceptual change. Educators are encouraged to educate themselves and students about constructivist theories of learning. To embrace the concept that knowledge is not simply a noun that can be traded and possessed, but also a process that must be performed. Open ended inquiry labs and research projects based on student interests can help to emphasize the dynamic nature of science and learning.
Table 5
Pedagogical Implications
|Trend |Assertion |Pedagogical Strategies |
|How prior knowledge |1. Students see their role in learning as primarily |Educate students on constructivist theories of |
|is gained |repeating information that they have been given until it |learning |
| |becomes an automatic response | |
| |2. Students perceive learning as an addition of |Inquire into students’ prior knowledge and have |
| |information with little regard as to how it fits with |them draw parallels between their current and |
| |pre-existing information |consensual science conceptions |
| |6. Students do not have confidence in their ability to |Educate students on the nature of science and |
| |construct scientifically valuable knowledge |scientific inquiry |
|How prior knowledge |7. Articulation aids in learners identifying their own |Students should verbally explain their |
|is challenged and |alternate conceptions |understandings to teachers, peers and parents. |
|changed | | |
| |3. Students are more open to consider challenges to their|Establish cooperative learning groups |
| |frameworks by their peers than their teachers | |
|How new knowledge is |4. Students are motivated to become active participants |Establish cooperative learning and assessment |
|gained through |in restructuring their frameworks, when they are |groups |
|conceptual change |collaboratively constructing knowledge with their peers. | |
| |5. A community of learners makes learners more |Establish cooperative learning and assessment |
| |accountable for challenging and correcting their |groups |
| |conceptual frameworks. | |
| |8. Arguing aids in the revisitation, investigation and |Encourage student debate of ideas and content. |
| |reconstruction of conceptual frameworks. | |
Note: Opportunities for praxis are highlighted in this table. Each of the eight assertions is paired with pedagogical suggestions that may enhance conceptual change.
Assertion two
Students perceive learning as an addition of information, with little regard as to how it fits with their prior knowledge. Educators should not only probe students’ prior knowledge, but should encourage students to share their prior knowledge and why their believe it to be accurate. This invitation of students’ ideas by the teacher fosters the valuing of students’ ideas and thinking practices. Educators are encouraged to inquire into students’ prior knowledge and have them draw parallels between their current and consensual science conceptions. Using analogies can demonstrate to students the usefulness of comparing seemingly unrelated topics.
Assertion three
Students are more open to consider challenges to their frameworks by their peers than their teachers. Sinatra & Pintrich (2003) assert that that often, conceptual change does not occur even when the conditions leading to it exist. Learners may recognize the conflict between their existing knowledge and science conception, but learner characteristics such as motivation and affective resistance can prevent the acquisition of change. Once characteristic of adolescents in general is to resist and in some cases operate contrary to adult intervention. This is no different in the classroom. However, having students engage in dialogue peer groups, should increase motivation and decrease affective resistance. In learning the community, the value the knowledge of individual learners increases since learners negotiate meaning. Cooperative grouping is helpful in this vein.
Educators should move to include themselves in the community of learners that arises in the classroom. The perspective should be ‘let’s learn this together and from each other’ instead of ‘let go what you know and learn from me’. That learners and teachers should be on equal footing as much as possible, exchanging explanations and sharing ideas. A discussion format instead of lecture format may be helpful in this area, as is peer teaching where students choose topics of interest, research them, and report back to the class in their new area of expertise.
Assertion four
Motivation to become active participants in restructuring their frameworks is increased when students collaboratively construct knowledge with their peers. Harris (1995) proposes that one of the most powerful sources of social influence on children in from their peer groups. Educators may have a greater influence on conceptual change, by focusing more on peer groups within a class, instead of individual students. Establishing cooperative learning groups and assessments or project may assist in this instance. Educators should create opportunities where students can explain their frameworks to their peers for feedback and critique.
Assertion five
Assertion five is similar to assertions three and four in that it deals with the community of learners. A community of learners prompts learners to be more accountable for challenging and correcting their conceptual frameworks. Cooperative learning and assessment groups can aid in learner accountability in ways that paper and pencil assessments cannot.
Assertion six
Students do not have confidence in their ability to construct scientifically valuable knowledge. This may be due to the perception that student prior knowledge is not valuable in the realm of science conception. Hewson (1988) suggests that educators be extremely sensitive to students’ perspectives as educators negotiate conceptual change in students’ prior knowledge. This can be accomplished by inquiring into student perspectives, asking students to share their perspectives, and pointing out what well known scientists had conceptions similar to students’ own. Bransford et al. (1999) suggest that centers of learning should encourage risk free environments, where students feel save enough to reveal their preconceptions and progress towards conceptual change. As suggested by the National Science Education Standards (1996) students should understand the nature of science and scientific inquiry, and that science and learning are dynamic, not static enterprises.
Assertion seven
Dialogue was a key component to conceptual change in the results of this study. Not only did articulation aid learners in identifying their own alternate conceptions, it also facilitated the thinking process and students’ modification of alternate concepts.
Educators should encourage students to verbally explain their understandings to teachers, peers and parents. This exercise should increase the likelihood of conceptual change as well as strengthen students’ cognitive processes.
Assertion eight
Arguing involves a verbal exchange of beliefs and ideas. Arguing aids in the reexamination, investigation and reconstruction of students’ conceptual frameworks.
Educators should encourage one on one, small group and class discussions. Opportunities for thoughtful and structured debate should be orchestrated. Good teaching has always been good teaching. Hopefully the results of this study have helped to elucidate why certain practices are effective means of furthering the conceptual change process and will indeed further conceptual change for learners all over the world.
Further Research
Scholars are starting to build a rich understanding of how dialogue promotes learning, but more research is needed to understand why it promotes learning. Students in this study talked about opinions and values, and those of teachers are valued differently than those of peers. It is possible that this has something to do with readiness in giving up ones’ own ideas. This is a possible idea for further research, the effect of valuing of students’ ideas on students’ rate of conceptual change. Research into how changes in the aforementioned pedagogical strategies affect conceptual change would be helpful. Finally, an instrument that could reliably measure quantity and quality of conceptual change would be helpful in all of the preceding prospective endeavors.
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Appendix A: Interview and Focus Questions
First Interview Questions
1. Tell me about this picture. (See Figure 2)
2. (Can you tell me more about that? What do you mean by that? Could you say that again, or in a different way?)
3. Could these puppies belong to this parent? How could you tell for sure?
4. Could these puppies be related to each other but have a different parent? Why do you think that?
5. What have you learned about how things are passed on from parents to children? (What was it? How did you learn it? How was it taught to you? Did you learn about it in school? From watching videos like on the Discovery channel? From conversations with your family or friends?)
6. When do you remember coming to conclusions about how things are passed on from parent to children?
7. Do you have/ have you had any pets/had friends who had pets? Did the pets every have babies? Tell me about the babies. (Did the babies look like each other? Did the babies look like both parents? How do you think that happened/things get passed on?)
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Figure 2
Genetics Puppies
8. Tell me a story about a time when you found out that something you believe to be true turned out not to be true. (about how things get passed on if possible) How did you come to change your mind about that topic?
9. How would you describe your knowledge of how traits are passed on from parents to children? Tell me more about that
10. How interested are you in inheritance of traits?
11. How important do you think this topic is?
12. How well do you want to understand this topic?
13. How well do you think you can understand this topic?
14. How important do you think it is that you understand this topic? (beyond this classroom, beyond school)
Second Interview Questions
1. Did you get an opportunity to read our transcript from last time?
2. What did you think as you read it?
3. Have you changed your mind about any of the things that you said?
4. Do you remember how well you said you wanted to understand genetics?
5. Did you meet your goal? Why/why not?
6. How did it happen?
7. What helped in most in meeting your goal?
8. What did you need more of, or what did you need that wasn’t provided that would have helped you to reach your goal?
9. Do you understand better now anything that you didn’t quite understand then?
10. How and when did that happen?
11. Would you say that you learned more vocabulary for concepts that you already had in your head, or did you learn totally new concepts?
12. Can children have traits in their genes and that parent’s don’t have in their genes?
13. Can children show traits that parent’s don’t show?
14. Who’s genes do you think you have more of?
15. This is the concept map that you made before our unit on genetics. Tell me about it.
16. What has changed in your understanding between your genetics knowledge now and your genetics understanding when you constructed this map?
17. When did these changes occur specifically?
18. Here is your last concept map, tell me about it.
19. Tell me how you decided what to change in your second concept map
20. Why/how did you decide to/decide not to construct a totally new map instead of adding to your pre-existing map?
21. Have you learned anything else about genetics since you made this map? Since our last interview? Why do you think that is? Do you think it is possible to learn about things like genetics outside the classroom?
22. Tell me about the experience when you went over your tests. Did you learn more from sharing your answers of from hearing the answers of your peers.
23. We had a researcher from UGA in our class this year. How did it make you feel being videotaped? How did it make you feel having your tape shown back to the class (they may have to speculate because in the end we really did not show very much). Did it help you at all, and if so, how?
Third Interview Questions
1. Did you have an opportunity to read our transcript from last time?
2. What did you think as you read it?
3. Have you changed your mind about any of the things that you said?
4. Do you have any more insights about your experience learning genetics and about how your ideas changed during the unit lesson?
5. Has anything “popped” in your mind since our last conversation? In science or any other class or any other experience.
6. Do you think there is a difference between “changing your mind” and changing your understanding”?
7. Which method of studying/learning do you find most helpful in helping you to understand something you are having difficulty understanding? (reading, talking to yourself, explaining it to someone else, having a teacher explain it to you, having a peer explain it to you)
8. Which method do you find least helpful…
9. Which method confuses you the most…
10. Have you ever found out that you were wrong about something because you had to explain your answer to somebody else, and then you realized that your own answer didn’t make any sense?
11. Please sort these concepts into 3 groups, ideas that you have not changed your mind about since learning about genetics, ideas that you have changed your mind about since learning about genetics and ideas that were totally new to you.
Focus Group 1 Questions
1. How does what you already know about a topic influence what else you learn about that topic?
2. What genetics ideas that you have had, have changed the most over the past 4 months?
3. What was the leading factor/cause in you changing your mind and why do you think that is?
4. How would you get something that you were trying to learn, that was not initially making sense to you, to finally pop in your head?
5. What makes you realize that something that you think you already know, is actually wrong? Give an example.
6. How is explaining an answer to yourself different than explaining an answer to someone else?
7. Under what circumstances do you connect something you learn with something you already know?
8. How is learning different when the information that you learn is added/more in-depth to what you already know and when the information that you learn contradicts/is different than what you already know? (What do you do differently to learn each type of information?)
9. How do you treat differently brand new information, than information that you are somewhat familiar with, than information that you feel you already know?
10. Have you been more aware of your thought processes and learning processes since these series of interviews?
Focus Group 2 Questions
1. Under what conditions are you most likely to correct a mistake you have made, particularly an error in something you thought?
2. Are you more likely to have your ideas changed by your friends or by your teachers? Why do you think this is so?
3. How often do you link new information with knowledge that you already have? Give an example of a time when you did this. (preferably from our unit on genetics)
4. What triggers the comparison of present events/knowledge, to past events/knowledge?
5. How important is what you already know in learning something new?
6. How did the knowledge in your head get there? Did you build it or did someone else put it there? Give an example to substantiate your claim.
7. What is easier to learn, a totally new concept, or a concept that you already know a little bit about? Why do you think that? Give an example.
Appendix B: New Worm Assessment
203
Appendix C: Concept Maps
Selena’s Pre Concept Map
17 Terms 8.5 points
17 hierarchical connections 8.5 points
5 cross connections 5 points
Total points 22 points
217
Selena’s Post Concept Map
30 Terms 15 points
30 hierarchical connections 15 points
3 cross connections 3 points
Total points 33 points
Appendix D: Biolog Questions
1/14/03
Explain what is mean when it is said that a trait “skips a generation”.
Explain the statement “you inherited your grandpa’s eyes”.
1/21/03
How do you think traits such as facial characteristics, body structures, eye color and height transfer from parents to offspring?
Do you think you can have your father’s nose and your mother’s hair? Why?
How have your ideas about how characteristics are inherited have changed over the past 3 weeks?
1/30/03
What questions do you have about the classroom application of inheritance of traits?
What questions do you have about the world applications of inheritance of traits?
2/5/03
How have your thoughts and ideas about genetics and inheritance changed since last semester? What made them change?
219
2/18/03
What ideas that you had about how traits are inherited were changed as a result of studying genetics in this class?
What ideas that you had about how traits are inherited did not change as a result of studying genetics in this class?
What new ideas do you have about how traits are inherited as a result of studying genetics in the class?
Appendix E: Reflection Essay Questions
What would you describe as the most difficult part of learning something new, and how do you as a learner get beyond that difficulty?
What ideas that you have had about how traits are inherited have changed during this school year? Describe how any ideas you had about how traits were inherited changed over this school year.
What have you learned about how you learn during this school year?
How can you use this information to help you better understand topics you initially have difficulty understanding in the future?
221
Appendix F: Consent Forms
Learner's Strategies for Navigating Conceptual Change in a High School Genetics Unit
Georgia State University
Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology
Student Consent Form
Dear Students,
You are invited to participate in a research study of how learners navigate conceptual change in a high school genetics unit. The purpose of this study is to find out how students’ ideas about inheritance change over a unit on genetics. This research is needed to better understand how students change their science understanding after formal instruction in the classroom. In particular we are studying ways of improving student learning in genetics—a science topic that has traditionally been challenging for students to master.
There are no specific risks associated with participating in this research. Choosing to participate or not participate in this study will have no effects on student academic grades, conduct grades or otherwise. If you consent to participate in this study you may be chosen to be interviewed and participate in a focus group with other participants. Your consent to participate in this study does not guarantee that you will be chosen as an interviewee. During the interviews, participant students will be asked to view and comment on assignments that they have completed as part of their normal instruction in genetics. Students will be asked to talk about what they were thinking during the unit on genetics. Students will also be involved in one focus group, where the participants talk about their genetics learning experience together. Audio tapes and transcripts will be made of the interviews and focus group so that students can verify what they communicated to the researcher. Audio tapes will also be made of classroom lectures and discussion to help students recall various lessons during interviews. A videotape will be made of the teacher lecturing to also aid in students recalling various lessons during interviews. No students will appear in the videotaped lessons. Students who are selected to participate in and complete the initial and subsequent interviews and focus group will be given a $20 music store gift certificate for their participation. The 3-5 interviews and focus group will be conducted either during lunch, study hall or after school in order to not interfere with students’ schoolwork. Each interview and focus group is expected to last approximately one hour.
The findings of this study will be summarized and reported in group form. Students will not be identified personally. Information you give will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law, and no connection between an individual's identity and the
222
information collected will be made. Audio tapes will be kept for 5 years and transcripts indefinitely unless you request in writing that they be destroyed. Audio tapes and transcripts will not be used for any other purpose without additional consent.
If you have any questions or concerns about this project, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can contact Annette Parrott at 770-879-3956, or
annette@. For general information on the rights of human subjects in research you may also contact the Institutional Review Board at Georgia State University at 404-651-4350.
You may refuse to participate, or if you participate you may stop at any time. If you decide to refuse or stop, you will not be penalized or lose any benefits to which you are entitled. Your participation or lack of participation in this study will have no effect on your academic record, either positive or negative. Whether or not a student volunteers will have no effect on any of the services the student receives at school.
We hope that all students will agree to and be allowed to participate in this exciting project. Please read the following statements carefully, and indicate if you are willing to participate. The student should then return the permission forms to his or her teacher.
Sincerely,
Annette M. Parrott
Doctoral Student
Georgia State University
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I consent to participating in this study
______________________________ ____________________________________
(Student’s Name) (Student’s Signature/Date)
I do not consent to participating in this study
______________________________ ____________________________________
(Student’s Name) (Student’s Signature/Date)
Learner's Strategies for Navigating Conceptual Change in a High School Genetics Unit
Georgia State University
Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology
Parent Consent Form
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Your child is invited to participate in a research study of how learners navigate conceptual change in a high school genetics unit. The purpose of this study is to find out how students’ ideas about inheritance change over a unit on genetics. This research is needed to better understand how students change their science understanding after formal instruction in the classroom. In particular we are studying ways of improving student learning in genetics—a science topic that has traditionally been challenging for students to master.
There are no specific risks associated with participating in this research. Choosing to participate or not participate in this study will have no effects on student academic grades, conduct grades or otherwise. If you consent to participate in this study you may be chosen to be interviewed and participate in a focus group with other participants. Your consent to participate in this study does not guarantee that you will be chosen as an interviewee. During the interviews, participant students will be asked to view and comment on assignments that they have completed as part of their normal instruction in genetics. Students will be asked to talk about what they were thinking during the unit on genetics. Students will also be involved in one focus group, where the participants talk about their genetics learning experience together. Audio tapes and transcripts will be made of the interviews and focus group so that students can verify what they communicated to the researcher. Audio tapes will also be made of classroom lectures and discussion to help students recall various lessons during interviews. A videotape will be made of the teacher lecturing to also aid in students recalling various lessons during interviews. No students will appear in the videotaped lessons. Students who are selected to participate in and complete the initial and subsequent interviews and focus group will be given a $20 music store gift certificate for their participation. The 3-5 interviews and focus group will be conducted either during lunch, study hall or after school in order to not interfere with students’ schoolwork. Each interview and focus group is expected to last approximately one hour.
The findings of this study will be summarized and reported in group form. Students will not be identified personally. Information you give will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law, and no connection between an individual's identity and the information collected will be made. Audio tapes will be kept for 5 years and transcripts indefinitely unless you request in writing that they be destroyed. Audio tapes and transcripts will not be used for any other purpose without additional consent.
If you have any questions or concerns about this project, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can contact Annette Parrott at 770-879-3956, or annette@. For general information on the rights of human subjects in research you may also contact the Institutional Review Board at Georgia State University at 404-651-4350.
You may refuse to participate, or if you participate you may stop at any time. If you decide to refuse or stop, you will not be penalized or lose any benefits to which you are entitled. Your participation or lack of participation in this study will have no effect on your academic record, either positive or negative. Whether or not a student volunteers will have no effect on any of the services the student receives at school.
We hope that all students will agree to and be allowed to participate in this exciting project. Please read the following statements carefully, and indicate if you are willing to participate. The student should then return the permission forms to his or her teacher.
Sincerely,
Annette M. Parrott
Doctoral Student
Georgia State University
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I consent to my child participating in this study
______________________________ ____________________________________
(Guardian’s Name) (Guardian’s Signature/Date)
I do not consent to my child participating in this study
______________________________ ____________________________________
(Guardian’s Name) (Guardian’s Signature/Date)
Appendix G: Genetics Glossary
Allele( a particular version of a gene at a location in a chromosome.
Characteristics( a feature that can be inherited.
Chromosome( a coiled red-shaped structure made of DNA and protein. The DNA, contains a linear arrangement of genes. It is visible with a microscope when the nucleus/cell divides.
Co-dominance( the phenotypic expression of both of the two alleles in a heterozygote. IN humans, the blood type AB results from co-dominance between two alleles called IA and IB
Dihybrid cross( a cross involving tow pairs of different traits.
DNA( deoxyribonucleic acid. The genetic material of most organisms.
Dominance( the phenotypic express of only one of the two alleles in a heterozygote. The correct term is complete dominance. The alleles that is expressed is called dominant. The allele that is not expressed is called recessive.
Gametes( male (sperm or pollen) and femail (eggs) sex cells. They are usually the products of meiosis and are haploid.
Gene( a hereditary unit. A segment of the DNA that makes up a chromosome.
Genotype( the genetic make-up of an organism. Their entire collection of alleles
Haploid( having one copy of a set of chromosomes
226
Heredity( the transmission of traits from parents to their offspring.
Heterozygous( when there are two different alleles for a gene.
Homozygous( when there are two of the same alleles for a gene.
Incomplete dominance( when the heterozygous phenotype is intermediate to the homozygous phenotype.
Monohybrid cross( a cross involving a single pair of traits.
Mutation( any change in the DNA
Pedigree( a chart showing how traits are passed from generation to generation
Phenotype( the external or detectable appearance of an organism. In humans, hair color is external and blood type is detectable.
Punnett Square( a method used to establish the possibilities and probabilities of the results of a genetic cross.
-----------------------
Themes and domains used to inform assertions and direct writing
Categories distributed into larger domains
Data coded into multiple categories within themes
Focus Groups & Reflective Essay
Phase 3
3rd Interview & transcription
Themes continue to permeate data
2nd Interview & transcription
[pic]
Phase 2
Recurrent themes emerge: self, teacher, relationships, multimedia
Pre-test, post test, bio-logs, artifacts, 1st interview, concept maps
Identification of prior genetics knowledge
Identification of areas to explore in subsequent interviews
Phase 1
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