Abstract
Students engaged in learning a large body of related knowledge often possess some incorrect naïve knowledge about the domain. These “misconceptions” must be removed and/or the correct conception must be built in order for students to achieve a deep understanding. This repair process is generally referred to as “conceptual change.” However, although conceptual change has been discussed for several decades within different research contexts, the literature nevertheless presents a somewhat blurry picture of what exactly misconceptions are, what constitutes conceptual change, and why conceptual change is difficult. In this chapter, we suggest that one should think of misconceptions as ontological miscategorizations of concepts. From this perspective, conceptual change can be viewed as a simple shift of a concept across lateral (as opposed to hierarchical) categories. We argue that this process is difficult if students lack awareness of when a shift is necessary and/or lack an alternative category to shift into. These ideas are explored using a detailed example (i.e. diffusion) from abroad class of science concepts (i.e. emergent processes) that are often robustly misunderstood by students.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Carey, S. (1991). Knowledge acquisition: Enrichment or conceptual change? In S. Carey & R. Gelman (Eds.), The epigenesis of mind (pp. 257–291). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Carey, S. (1985). Conceptual change in childhood. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Chi, M. T. H. (1992). Conceptual change within and across ontological categories: Examples from learning and discovery in science. In R. Giere (Ed.), Cognitive models of science: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, (pp. 129–186). University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN.
Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Creativity: Shifting across ontological categories flexibly. In T.B. Ward, S.M. Smith, R.A. Finke & J. Vaid (Eds.), Creative thought: An investigation of conceptual structures and processes. (pp. 209–234). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Chi, M. T. H. (2000a). Cognitive understanding levels. In: Encyclopedia of Psychology, Vol. 2, Kazdin, A.E. (Ed.). Pp 172–175, Oxford University Press.
Chi, M. T. H. (2000b). Self-explaining: The dual processes of generating inferences and repairing mental models. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances in Instructional Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Chi, M. T. H., de Leeuw, N., Chiu, M. H., & LaVancher, C. (1994). Eliciting self-explanation improves understanding. Cognitive Science, 18, 439–477.
Chi, M. T. H., Siler, S. A., Jeong, H., Yamauchi, T., & Hausmann, R. G. (In press). Learning from human tutoring. Cognitive Science.
De Leeuw, N. (1993). Students’ beliefs about the circulatory system: Are misconceptions universal? In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 389–393). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
De Leeuw, N., & Chi, M. T. H. (In preparation). Self-explanation, comprehension, and conceptual change. Chapter to appear in G.M. Sinatra and P.R. Pintrich (Eds.) Intentional Conceptual Change. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
diSessa (1993). Toward an epistemology of physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10, 101–104.
Ferrari, M., & Chi, M. T. H. (1998). The nature of naive explanations of natural selection. International Journal of Science Education, 20, 1231–1256.
Gelman, S. A. (1988). The development of induction within natural kind and artifact categories. Cognitive Psychology, 20, 65–95.
Gunstone, R.R., Champagne, A. B., & Klopfer, L. E. (1981). Instruction for Understanding: A case study. Australian Science Teachers Journal, 27, 27–32.
Hempel, C. (1966). Laws and their role in scientific explanation. Philosophy of Natural Science, Chapter 5, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hewson, P. W. (1981). A conceptual change approach to learning science. European Journal of Science Education, 3, 383–396.
Jeong, H. (1998). Knowledge co-construction during collaborative learning. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
Keil, F. (1979). Semantic and conceptual development: An ontological perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Marek, E. A., Cowan, C. C., & Cavallo, A. M. L. (1986). Students’ misconceptions about diffusion: How can they be eliminated? The American Biology Teacher, 567, 74–77.
McCloskey, M. (1983) Naive theories of motion. In D. Gentner & A.L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental Models (pp. 299–324). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Osborne, R. J. & Wittrock, M. C. (1983). Learning science: A generative process. Science Education, 67, 489–508.
Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science Education, 66, 211–27.
Slotta, J. D., Chi, M. T. H, & Joram, E. (1995). Assessing students’ misclassifications of physics concepts: An ontological basis for conceptual change. Cognition and Instruction, 13, 373–400.
Sommers, F. (1971). Structural ontology. Philosophia, 1, 21–42.
Thagard, P. (1990). Concepts and conceptual change. Syntheses, 82, 255–274.
Thagard, P. (1996). The concept of disease: Structure and change. Communication and Cognition, 29, 445–478.
Viennot, L. (1979). Spontaneous reasoning in elementary dynamics. European Journal of Science Education, 1, 205–21.
Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 535–585.
Wiser, M., & Carey, S. (1983). When heat and temperature were one. In D. Gentner & A. Stevens (Eds.), Mental models (pp. 267–297). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chi, M.T.H., Roscoe, R.D. (2002). The Processes and Challenges of Conceptual Change. In: Limón, M., Mason, L. (eds) Reconsidering Conceptual Change: Issues in Theory and Practice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47637-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47637-1_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-0494-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-306-47637-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive