Roger Osborne

A technique for exploring students' views of the world

In a recent paper Shaw and Thomas (1979) suggest that to an external observer learning may appear to be the achievement of certain behavioural objectives. However, for the learner, learning is the revision of his or her own cognitive structure, that is a shift in the way he or she perceives and construes events and behaves in situations. This view of learning implies that an appreciation of the students view of the world, and the students meanings for words, needs to be fully appreciated if teaching is to be successful. Physics teachers need to be aware of the various concept understandings that pupils bring to physics classrooms and thereby appreciate the difficulties pupils may have with understanding physics concepts. It is our view that the information gained using an interview-about-instances method can contribute to this teacher awareness and in doing so can contribute to the improvement of physics teaching.

A Method for Investigating Concept Understanding in Science

Summaries English The authors report on an ‘Interview about instances’ technique for the investigation of students’ concept understanding in science. The potential and limitations of this technique has been explored in relation to the concepts ‘work’ and ‘electric current’ in 50 trial interviews involving students over the age range seven to 18 years. Some of the findings are reported here and suggestions made for further studies using the ‘Interview about instances’ technique.

Some aspects of the students' view of the world

(a) childrens science: probing childrens minds in terms of their view of the world, and their meanings for words they use. (b) childrens classroom experiences: probing childrens experiences in the science classroom, particularly where children are doing science. (c) childrens outlook on science: probing childrens outlook on science particularly the influence of affective, cultural, linguistic and sociological factors on this outlook.

LISP (Energy) — The framework

ConclusionsAlthough the formulated guiding principles may be too detailed, and are not readily accessible to teachers, the main features have proven to be of vital importance in our discussions with teachers. These are:(i)that establishing boundaries to systems undergoing change is a vital consideration.(ii)that real, and not infinitessimal, changes should be explored and carefully described. In this way the consideration is of observable phenomena rather than invisible constructs.