Lucia Mason

On Warm Conceptual Change: The Interplay of Text, Epistemological Beliefs, and Topic Interest.

The aim of this study was to go further than considering only cognitive factors to extend the understanding of the complex, dynamic underlying knowledge revision processes. Fifth graders were assigned to 2 reading conditions. Participants in 1 condition read a refutational text about light, whereas participants in the other read a traditional text. Within each reading condition, students had more or less advanced beliefs about scientific knowledge (complex and evolving vs. simple and certain), as well as high or low topic interest. Overall findings from pretest to immediate and delayed posttests showed that knowledge revision was affected by several interactions among the variables examined. Students who attained the highest scores at both the immediate and delayed posttests were those who had read the refutational text and had high topic interest, as well as more advanced beliefs about scientific knowledge. In particular, the refutational text was more powerful in prompting a restructuring of alternative conceptions about 2 of the 3 light phenomena examined. In addition, students preferred the innovative text to the traditional textbook text.

Introduction: Bridging the Cognitive and Sociocultural Approaches in Research on Conceptual Change: Is it Feasible?

Since the late 1970s, traditional research on conceptual change, mainly in science domains, has been situated within the constructivist perspective on learning and instruction, which values the active and interpretative role of the learner. This research has been characterized mainly by a cognitive approach that focuses on analyzing personal mental representations (Murphy & Mason, 2006; Sinatra & Pintrich, 2003; Vosniadou, 1999). More recently, within the sociocultural approach to cognition, more emphasis has been placed on the situated, interactional process of learning, which includes learning the discourses and social practices of scientific communities. Although several positions can be found in the literature on cognition and understanding in the school context as reflecting the sociocultural approach— from the more to the less extreme—it is grounded on an epistemology and ontology that differ from those of the cognitive approach (Packer & Goicoechea, 2000). After a decade of debate on the potentials and limitations of each approach, a crucial question remains open: Are they so conflicting and incompatible that researchers should situate their work consistently within one or the other? Or can these approaches be complementary or even combined and integrated, at least to some extent, leading to further understanding of the intricacy and complexity of conceptual growth and change processes? In other words, is it theoretically feasible to consider a reconciliation of views focused on the internal processes of the mind or on the sociocultural genesis and appropriation of knowledge? The two approaches will be reviewed in the next sections. This review is intended to focus only on those aspects and concerns that are central to this special issue of Educational Psychologist, and not to examine all aspects and concerns in the extant research. Crucial aspects of the tension between the approaches, underlying the ongoing debate, are then introduced to explore the reasons that might lead to bridging, which are at the basis of the idea of this issue.

Writing to Learn, Writing to Transfer

This chapter is focused on writing to develop thinking and reasoning about complex phenomena in the elementary school. It introduces a study aimed at investigating whether writing as a learning tool could be used by students first for understanding in history and then for understanding in science by transferring a disposition toward writing as a meaningful activity in knowledge construction. Making writing a meaningful activity for students implies leading them to experience the different functions it can have in the learning process: not only to record information, but also to expose, reflect, discuss, argue, and communicate. Thirty-two fifth graders divided in two groups, experimental (writing) and control (non-writing), were involved in the implementation of a history curriculum unit on the discovery of America and of a science curriculum unit on the human circulatory system. The findings provide evidence that writing can be effectively introduced across the curriculum to support higher-order thinking processes in order to produce understanding. The experimental group students were able to transfer the attitude, which characterized their writing activity in history to the domain of science, reaching a deeper conceptual understanding in both disciplines, as well as more advanced metaconceptual awareness of their learning. It may be concluded that if knowledge construction and reconstruction in the classroom is sustained by activities requiring the deep engagement of students as intentional learners who solve knowledge problems, then such an engagement can be activated by writing as a tool for thinking and reasoning to transform knowledge.

Epistemic Metacognition in the Context of Information Searching on the Web

After Perry’s (1969) pioneering work, research on the psychology of epistemic beliefs, that is, personal beliefs about knowledge and knowing (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002), has flourished since the beginning of the 1990s. At least three major lines of investigation can be identified in the literature, the first of which deals with the development of epistemic thinking. According to developmental psychologists, it can be conceived as a cognitive structure comprising coherent and integrated representations, which characterize a level or stage of cognitive development. This cognitive structure has been described in relation to the ways of knowing (Belenky et al., 1986), epistemological reflection (Baxter Magolda, 1992), reflective judgment (King & Kitchener, 1994), relativistic thinking (Chandler et al., 1990), and argumentative reasoning (Kuhn, 1991). The second line of investigation on epistemic beliefs deals with the influence on learning processes. It has been documented that representations about knowledge and knowing affect reading comprehension (Schommer et al., 1992); metacomprehension (Ryan, 1984; Schommer, 1990); interpretation of controversial topics (Schommer, 1990; Kardash & Scholes, 1996; Mason & Boscolo, 2004); ill-defined problem-solving (Schraw et al., 1995); transfer of learning (Jacobson & Spiro, 1995); and conceptual change (Mason, 2002, 2003; Mason & Gava, 2007; Qian & Alvermann, 1995; Sinatra et al., 2003; Windschitl & Andre, 1998). The third line of investigation into epistemic beliefs concerns beliefs about specific areas of knowledge and knowing. As pointed out by Hofer (2006) in response to Muis et al. (2006), individuals’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing can be identified as general epistemic beliefs (e.g., Schommer, 1990), a disciplinary perspective on beliefs (e.g., Buehl et al., 2002) and as discipline-specific beliefs, such as mathematics (e.g., Muis, 2004) or science (e.g., Driver et al., 1996). Despite divergences in the terminology, focus, and methodology of research on beliefs about knowledge and knowing, a common aspect can be identified in the

An analysis of children's construction of new knowledge through their use of reasoning and arguing in classroom discussions

This descriptive paper presents findings from an analysis of fifth graders’ classroom discussions aimed at constructing shared knowledge on biological and ecological topics. A Vygotskian frame of reference was used that assumes reasoning in children is externalized through discussing and reasoning with others. This analysis of peer discourse‐reasoning was developed in a “social constructivist learning community” characterized by collaboration, public sharing, and revision of ideas. The argumentative operations and the epistemic operations activated by the students while reasoning and arguing have been illustrated in detail. These classroom discussions demonstrate how students build up new concepts by renegotiating and sharing meanings and ideas during lively, argumentative exchanges. These discussions also indicate the cognitive procedures activated to make sense of the new knowledge, that is, the main thinking actions needed to be engaged in a deep scientific understanding. The data suggest that collabor...

An Eye-Tracking Study of Learning From Science Text With Concrete and Abstract Illustrations

This study investigated the online process of reading and the offline learning from an illustrated science text. The authors examined the effects of using a concrete or abstract picture to illustrate a text and adopted eye-tracking methodology to trace text and picture processing. They randomly assigned 59 eleventh-grade students to 3 reading conditions: (a) text only; (b) text with a concrete illustration; and (c) text with an abstract illustration in a pretest, immediate, and delayed posttest design. Results showed that the text illustrated by either the concrete or the abstract picture led to better learning than did the text alone. Eye-fixation data revealed that the abstract illustration promoted more efficient processing of the text. Analyses of the gaze shifts between the 2 types of external representation indicated that the readers of the text with the abstract illustration made a greater effort to integrate verbal and pictorial information. Furthermore, relations between online and offline measures emerged.

Responses to Anomalous Data on Controversial Topics and Theory Change.

Abstract This qualitative study was concerned with the role of anomalous data on controversial topics in the process of theory change. Its main aim was to identify the types of reasons that eighth graders gave for accepting or refusing evidence conflicting with their held theory and to see whether those types of reasons fitted into the taxonomy of responses proposed by Chinn and Brewer (Journal of Research in Science Teaching 35 (1998) 623–654) . Two controversial topics were chosen: the extinction of the dinosaurs and the construction of the great pyramids in Giza, Egypt. The results showed that the 24 categories of reasons given by the participants, who were much younger than those involved in the study by Chinn and Brewer, fitted into their revised taxonomy, which consists of eight responses, with the exception of the response “ignoring”. Educational implications are drawn.

Epistemic evaluation and comprehension of web-source information on controversial science-related topics: Effects of a short-term instructional intervention

Abstract This study examines the effectiveness of a short-term instructional intervention in the school context. The aim was to provide students with essential declarative knowledge on what to consider when evaluating the authoritativeness of Web sources, and the accuracy of their information. It also provided the opportunity to apply this declarative knowledge in a basic inquiry task on the controversial topic of the possible harm caused by mobile phones. Participants were 134 ninth graders, randomly assigned to the instruction or no-instruction condition. In both conditions the same multiple Internet sources, varying for authoritativeness and stance, were given for the basic and transfer (about GM food) inquiry tasks. Findings reveal that learners in the instruction condition outperformed the others in both the inquiry task of the instructional context and, more importantly, in the transfer inquiry task. These learners showed more appropriate navigation behavior and greater source evaluation, as well as better surface and deeper comprehension of the accessed information on GM food. In addition, prior knowledge moderated the latter. Theoretical and practical significance of the study is outlined.

DEVELOPING EPISTEMOLOGICAL THINKING TO FOSTER CONCEPTUAL CHANGE IN DIFFERENT DOMAINS

This chapter focuses on the development of personal epistemologies as an essential condition for conceptual change. Starting from the distinction of the terms “knowledge” and “belief” in literature, it introduces first the epistemic level of cognition which affects learning. Key issues from cognitive development and educational psychology research on general representations about the nature of knowledge and knowing are then presented. Further, findings from research on beliefs in specific domains — science, maths and history — are described. Data from studies with students at different school levels illustrate how specific beliefs may act as resources or constrain conceptual change. This is followed by core arguments on the relationship between epistemological beliefs and knowledge revision. The chapter continues with three examples of effective instructional interventions in powerful learning environments on the refinement of students’ epistemological beliefs in the three domains already considered. Finally, some concluding remarks underline the importance of developing epistemological thinking, pose some open questions and provide suggestions for future research.

Role of anomalous data and epistemological beliefs in middle school students’ theory change about two controversial topics

The question of theory change is crucial in knowledge construction, particularly in the process of conceptual change. This study was designed to investigate two factors that, in addition to initial theory preference, may play a crucial role in the process of theory change, that is, students’ interpretation of anomalous data on two controversial topics (the dinosaur extinction and the construction of the Giza pyramids in Egypt) and their epistemological beliefs about the nature of knowledge. Canonical correlation analyses suggested for both topics an association, stronger for the dinosaur extinction topic, between (a) acceptance of anomalous data (rated both as valid and inconsistent with the held theory), initial theory preference, epistemological belief in Certain Knowledge and (b) theory change. Data obtained from structure coefficients in canonical correlation analyses indicate that acceptance of anomalous data significantly contributed the most to theory change whereas the epistemological belief contributed the least. Finally, educational implications are drawn.RésuméLa question du changement de théorie est cruciale dans la construction du savoir, spécialement dans le processus du changement qonceptuel. Cette recherche a été esquissée pour étudier deux facteurs qui, avec la préférence pour la théorie initiale, peuvent jouer un rôle crucial dans le processus du changement de la théorie, c’est-à-dire l’interpretation des étudiants des données anomales sur deux arguments controversés (l’extinction des dinosaures et la construction des Pyramides de Gizèh en Egypte) et leur croyances épistémologiques sur la nature de la connaissance. Les analyses canoniques de la correlation ont suggeré une association pour les deux arguments, entre (a) l’acceptation des données anomales (estimées en même temps valides et en désaccord avec la théorie initiale), les croyances épistémologiques dans le Savoir Certain et (b) le changement de théorie. La structure des corrélations canoniques indiquent que l’acceptation des données anomales a contribué le plus au changement de la théorie, alors que les croyances épistémologiques ont contribué le moins. Enfin, on tirera des consequences educatives.