Jack A. Rowell

Equilibration, conflict and instruction: A new class‐oriented perspective

Attention is directed to equilibration‐based instructional studies all of which parallel natural development in that they require the concurrent construction of both strategic and metastrategic knowledge (Kuhn and Phelps 1982, Kuhn 1983). The need for this concurrence is questioned, and theoretical arguments developed for an equilibration‐based alternative instructional strategy separating the two. It is argued that this latter strategy may provide an answer to the problematic retention of invalid ideas. A pilot study is reported providing tentative support for this viewpoint.

Images of Science: an Empirical Study.

Summaries English In relatively recent years, philosophical discussion of the nature of science and scientific progress has been envigorated successively by Poppers critical rationalism and by Kuhns more radical view of ‘paradigms‐separated‐by‐revolutions’. The brief report given here describes a limited empirical look at the extent to which those conflicting ideas have penetrated the South Australian educational system as evidenced by the responses to a questionnaire provided by 300 staff and students from two South Australian Universities. A two‐stage analysis of these data indicates a majority view of science reflecting a hybrid of Popperian ideas with earlier, more ‘traditional’ ones. Little consensus occurred in relation to the Kuhnian view, though factor analysis suggests the position is known, or is at least meaningful, to some respondents. Comment is made on science teaching which takes note of these results.

Changing misconceptions: a challenge to science educators

In this paper we examine misconceptions as personal explanatory knowledge judged by experts in the field to be in error. To those who have constructed them, misconceptions are not recognizable as different from any other explanatory knowledge: they are formed by the same process, take part in the generation of new knowledge and consequently are difficult to replace. As with construction, replacement involves the processes of equilibration. To date, educational strategies promoting equilibration in the classroom have attempted this through co‐operative debate, using the teacher as chairman and agent provocateur. Here, we briefly discuss the epistemological status of an alternative to co‐operative debate that is more teacher centred, and report on a comparative empirical test of the educational potential of the two strategies.

Piagetian epistemology: Equilibration and the teaching of science

That Piagetian epistemology has the dynamics of knowledge growth as its core consideration predetermines a need to consider it as potentially applicable to teaching. This paper addresses that need by first outlining the Piagetian theory of equilibration and then applying it to the construction of methods of teaching science.

Equilibration: Developing the Hard Core of the Piagetian Research Program

The argument is developed that the status of the concept equilibration is clarified by considering Piagetian theory as a research program in the sense elaborated by Lakatos in 1974.

Controlling Variables: testing a programme for teaching a general solution strategy

Abstract Detail is provided of a theoretically based teaching programme designed to induce students to construct a mental scheme in which experimental design and natural experiments (Kuhn & Brannock, 1977) are understood as facets of the same problem, and which incorporates a general solution procedure applicable to both. A pre‐test‐post‐test‐delayed post‐test controlled examination of the efficacy of the programme is described using grade 8 students as subjects. The results show a highly significant post‐test achievement increase by the experimental group over the control, which is retained in the delayed post‐test. Evidence is also presented indicating a probable decrease in performance decalage between planned and natural experiments by the experimental grade 8 group.

First Year University Physics: Who Succeeds?.

Abstract The question of the wastage of talent is addressed in relation to first year physics at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Using data for the 1989 intake, three hypotheses are examined: that a relationship exists between school achievement and success in first year university physics; that tertiary success is a function of the motivation and metacognitive strategies of the learners; and that a weighted combination of indicators will allow significant discrimination between levels of tertiary success/failure. A fourth hypothesis raises the question of the generalisabil‐ity of results to the identification of potential wastage in future years, and a test is reported using the 1990 intake. The results support generalisability. Intervention strategies are proposed with the potential for decreasing wastage.

All Other Things Equal: A Study of Science Graduates Solving Control of Variables Problems.

Abstract The responses of science graduates to control of variables problems were investigated using problems in two content areas, biological (plant) and physical (pendulum), and two formats, experimental planning and interpretation of given data. While the pendulum planning problem and the interpretation problem in the plant context were relatively well answered, the pendulum interpretation problem and the plant planning problem proved to be particularly demanding. Inappropriate strategies which utilised prior and, with respect to these problems, irrelevant knowledge of plants and pendulums, and also a restricted understanding of ‘control’ in biological experiments, were adopted by many subjects. Possible reasons for the adoption of these strategies are discussed, together with some educational implications.

Prepared to teach

In a recent series of articles in this journal, McNamara and Desforges (1978; Desforges & McNamara, 1977, 1979) have presented a case for excluding any formal consideration of psychological theories from the education of prospective teachers, replacing it by an academic concern for the craft knowledge (practical competence) and procedures of practising teachers. It is argued here that their approach is beset by a number of important, unanalysed problems of practice and theory. For example, there are problems associated with generating a new understanding of craft knowledge, and there are associated problems with the criterion that this knowledge should ‘work’. It is concluded that the arguments of McNamara and Desforges do not depose psychology from teacher education and that, as currently articulated, their approach has many major obstacles to overcome before it can provide an effective substitute.

Mental Models of Text and Film: A Multidimensional Scaling Analysis.

Abstract Following a brief review of research using multidimensional scaling as a measure of literary perception, it is proposed that the technique provides one possible route to an illumination of Bransford & Johnsons (1973) idea that when people understand a text they create a model within which events described in the text might reasonably occur. Two hypotheses are proposed and tested. First, that models are constructed, in memory, of the inter‐relationships and cross‐relationships of character attributions made in accordance with those themes understood in reading a piece of work of novel length. Secondly, that similar models are constructed from viewing a feature length film. Orwells (1945) Animal Farm, the book and the film (Halas & Bachelor, 1955), were selected as content because of their known distinctive structures. Results support both hypotheses. They also support the earlier work of Bisanz (Bisanz, La Porte, Vesonder & Voss, 1978) concerning the validity of multidimensional scaling for repr...