Model construction, critique, and revision in magnetism: The importance of integrating conscious and intuitive knowledge

Cheng, Meng-Fei; Brown, David E.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/5120 Copy

Description

Title

Model construction, critique, and revision in magnetism: The importance of integrating conscious and intuitive knowledge

Author(s)

• Cheng, Meng-Fei
• Brown, David E.

Issue Date

2007-04

Keyword(s)

• Model construction
• Conceptual change
• Conceptual resource
• Meta-conceptual awareness

Abstract

In this study we explore the spontaneous explanatory models children construct, critique, and revise in the context of tasks in which children need to predict, observe, and explain phenomena involving magnetism. Our findings indicate that several of the children were able to construct explanatory models. However, of the six children interviewed (three third graders and three sixth graders), only one was consistently able to critique and revise her models to arrive at a consistent, coherent, and sophisticated explanatory model. This research indicates that instruction should help students to become meta-conceptually aware in order to critique and revise explanatory models drawing on both intuitive and conscious knowledge.

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/5120

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