Cakir M. (2008) Constructivist approaches to learning in science and their implications for science pedagogy: A literature review. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education 3(4): 193–206. https://cepa.info/3848
This paper draws attention to the literature in the areas of learning, specifically, constructivism, conceptual change and cognitive development. It emphasizes the contribution of such research to our understanding of the learning process. This literature provides guidelines for teachers, at all levels, in their attempt to have their students achieve learning with understanding. Research about the constructive nature of students’ learning processes, about students’ mental models, and students’ misconceptions have important implications for teachers who wish to model scientific reasoning in an effective fashion for their students. This paper aims to communicate this research to teachers, textbook authors, and college professors who involved in the preparation of science teachers. This paper is divided into two major parts. The first part concentrates on a critical review of the three most influential learning theories and constructivist view of learning and discusses the foundation upon which the constructivist theory of learning has been rooted. It seeks an answer to the question of “What are some guiding principles of constructivist thinking that we must keep in mind when we consider our role as science teachers?.” The second part of this paper moves toward describing the nature of students’ alternative conceptions, the ways of changing cognitive structure, and cognitive aspects of learning and teaching science.
Cakir M. (2008) Constructivist approaches to learning in science and their implications for science pedagogy: A literature review. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education Vol. 3. 3, July 2008, 193–206. https://cepa.info/3081
This paper draws attention to the literature in the areas of learning, specifically, constructivism, conceptual change and cognitive development. It emphasizes the contribution of such research to our understanding of the learning process. This literature provides guidelines for teachers, at all levels, in their attempt to have their students achieve learning with understanding. Research about the constructive nature of students’ learning processes, about students’ mental models, and students’ misconceptions have important implications for teachers who wish to model scientific reasoning in an effective fashion for their students. This paper aims to communicate this research to teachers, textbook authors, and college professors who involved in the preparation of science teachers. This paper is divided into two major parts. The first part concentrates on a critical review of the three most influential learning theories and constructivist view of learning and discusses the foundation upon which the constructivist theory of learning has been rooted. It seeks an answer to the question of “What are some guiding principles of constructivist thinking that we must keep in mind when we consider our role as science teachers?.” The second part of this paper moves toward describing the nature of students’ alternative conceptions, the ways of changing cognitive structure, and cognitive aspects of learning and teaching science.
Research into learners’ ideas about science suggests that students often have alternative conceptions about important science concepts. Because of this dissatisfaction, constructivism has been adopted as a theoretical framework by many teachers and researchers, and it has had a curricular influence in many countries. Constructivism is much more than an educational doctrine and we are aware that a ‘science war’ about the possibility of objectivity is in progress. ‘Constructivism’ cannot necessary be a package deal: it must be possible to accept educational suggestions deemed useful without buying all the epistemology or the metaphysical implications. The claim that cognitive agents understand the world by constructing mental representations of it can be a shared suggestion for changing science instruction. Many teachers are much more concerned in finding productive teaching methods than about philosophical questions as if knowledge must be considered an objective representation of the real world or not. We have to ponder if some ideas from the constructivist theory of instruction can help instructors to become better teachers. The pragmatic suggestions that come from the constructivist theory of instruction developed by von Glasersfeld, the leading proponent of radical constructivism, could be a good start in this search.
Gilbert J. K. & Swift D. J. (1985) Towards a Lakatosian analysis of the Piagetian and alternative conceptions research programs. Science Education 69(5): 681–696.
Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programs is summarized and discussed for Piagetian schools and alternative conceptions movement. Commonalities/differences between these two rival programs are presented along with fundamental assumptions, auxiliary hypotheses, and research policy. Suggests that research findings should not be merely translated from one program to the other.
Marín N. (1994) A comparative study of Piagetian and constructivist work on conceptions in science. International Journal of Science Education 16(1): 1–15.
The aim of the present article is to discover whether Piaget’s empirical work has been assimilated into subsequent studies, which are termed constructivist or as belonging to the ‘alternative conceptions movement’. To achieve this an extensive bibliographical review has been carried out of the ambit of both theories with reference to two topics: the notion of force and the particulate nature of matter. After completing a comparison it was observed that the majority of conceptions currently recognized were previously detected by Piaget. It is concluded, therefore, that Piaget’s empirical data have been eclipsed for motives which are unjustified.
Martins I. P. & Cachapuz A. (1993) Making the invisible visible: A constructivist approach to the experimental teaching of energy changes in chemical systems. In: Proceedings of the Third International Seminar on Misconceptions and Educational Strategies in Science and Mathematics. Cornell University, Ithaca, 1–4 August 1993. Misconceptions Trust, Ithaca NY: **MISSING PAGES**. https://cepa.info/7246
The subject “energy of chemical reactions” has been referred/reported as a theme in which the students demonstrate several difficulties of an adequate understanding (Johnstone, 1980; Finley, Stewart and Yarroch, 1982; Granville, 1985; Lawrenz, 1987; Shaibu, 1988). Some alternative conceptions in this area have been identified and are discribed (Cachapuz and Martins, 1987; Martins, 1989). For example, high school students may think that in some chemical reactions one of the reactants may play a more important role than the other(s), the so called “principal reactant” (PR) (Cachapuz and Martins, 1988). The idea of “principal reactant” is probably a specific case of a more general difficulty on the part of students in perceiving a chemical system in its entirety and it may be considered as a contemporary version of the duality between the sulphur and mercury principles used by 13th century Alchemists to explain natural phenomena. As referred by historians of science (Caron and Hutin, 1964) the sulphur principle would explain the active and warm properties of materials (hence the idea of “principal reactant”) whereas the mercury principle would explain passive and cold attributes.
There is, it appears, the appearance of truth, ‘verisimilitude, ’ and, over and against that, the reality of truth, truth itself. Or so it appears, but perhaps it is not true, or not any longer. Certainly, the certification of true truth and genuine knowledge in their classic senses – as, for example, the accurate affirmation or faithful representation of an altogether autonomous reality – has proved elusive. And, as we know, alternative conceptions of truth and knowledge – as, for example, the relatively coherent, relatively viable, and relatively stable products of various social and institutional practices – have been proposed in recent years … and have proved relatively coherent, viable, and stable. These alternative conceptions have emerged from a number of fields: philosophy, of course, especially along lines marked by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, but also other fields, such as biology and psychology, which have yielded important redescriptions of the interactive mechanisms of language, perception, and cognition, and, of particular interest here, the history and sociology of science, which, during the past two decades, have developed a pragmatist/rhetoricist approach to these questions often referred to as ‘constructivism. '
Taber K. S. (2020) Constructive Alternativism: George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory. In: Akpan B. & Kennedy T. J. (eds.) Science education in theory and practice. Springer, Cham: 373–388. https://cepa.info/7259
George Kelly’s professional focus was on supporting people who were struggling with the stresses of their lives. Finding that the Freudian ideas he had been offered as tools in his own professional training offered little in working towards change with many of his clients, Kelly developed his own approach based upon a constructivist perspective of learning (which he called constructive alternativism) centred on the core metaphor of person-as-scientist. People, like good scientists, should always be open to exploring new data and considering alternative explanations and conceptions, rather than becoming fixed in established ways of thinking. Kelly’s work developed into a recognised approach in psychology, and became very influential in at least one school of thought in science education. Kelly did not only offer a theory that could support clinical practice for therapists, but also offered a methodology for exploring a learner’s developing thinking. In his own educational work, he found that his approach offered insights into teachers’ classroom difficulties. This chapter considers the core ideas of Kelly’s theory in comparison with other constructivist perspectives employed in science education. The chapter also discusses how Kelly’s personal construct theory can inform classroom teaching and reflects on an approach that explicitly expects people to behave scientifically as a perspective on science teaching and learning.