• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.26 no.7
• /
• pp.798-804
• /
• 2006

In this study, we investigated students' responses to a discrepant event and an alternative hypothesis which had been presented in the conceptual change processes from the phlogiston theory to the oxygen theory, and compared them with scientists' responses. The data concerning scientists' responses to the discrepant event and the alternative hypothesis were gathered from the relevant literature on the history of science. Subjects were 148 eighth graders who possessed the target misconception about combustion through a preconception test. After having been presented with the discrepant event and the alternative hypothesis, students were asked to respond to the test of response to discrepant event. Although similar types of responses were obtained from both scientists and students, there was also a clear difference. Scientists tended to focus on explaining the problems of the discrepant event, whereas students tended to ignore and/or exclude the discrepant event in order to maintain their previous beliefs. Only a few students were also found to change their beliefs after having been presented with the alternative hypothesis.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.426-434
• /
• 2005

In this study, elementary school students' responses toward a discrepant event about a float-or-sink problem were investigated through semi-structured interviews. Initial participants were 61 fifth-grade students from two elementary schools. After excluding the students who did not possess the target misconception from the results of a preconception test and who were not willing to participate in an interview, 31 students (14 males and 17 females) were finally interviewed by two teacher-interviewers. During the interviews, students were first provided with a hands-on experiment which was the same as the situation in the preconception test, and then they were asked about believability of the discrepant event, inconsistency between the discrepant event and their existing conceptions, and belief change after experiencing the discrepant event. Interviews were audio- and video-taped, and then were transcribed by two interviewers. After analyzing the interview transcriptions, we found four types of students' responses; rejection, uncertainty, peripheral belief change, and belief change. We also found that belief change response type should be classified into three distinctive subtypes; belief decrease, ad-hoc belief change, and analytical-abductive belief change.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.51 no.1
• /
• pp.56-64
• /
• 2007

This study examined the influences of cognitive conflict and anxiety induced by a discrepant event and an alternative hypothesis, attention, and effort on conceptual change. Two hundred three students having misconceptions about density were selected from 462 seventh graders based on the results of a preconception test. Tests of cognitive responses and anxiety to a discrepant event were administered before and after presenting an alternative hypothesis. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) was then provided to students as a conceptual change intervention. Tests assessing attention and effort allocated to the CAI, and conceptual understanding were administered as posttests. Cognitive conflict induced by a discrepant event was found to increase after presenting an alternative hypothesis. Pre-cognitive conflict induced by only a discrepant event exerted a direct effect on post-cognitive conflict induced by a discrepant event and an alternative hypothesis. Post-cognitive conflict had a direct effect on conceptual change. Pre-anxiety decreased after presenting an alternative hypothesis. Pre-anxiety influenced post-anxiety, and this influenced on conceptual change via effort negatively. Attention had a direct effect as well as an indirect effect on conceptual change via effort. These results suggest that the strategy presenting both a discrepant event and an alternative hypothesis to students in concept learning could facilitate conceptual change by inducing more cognitive conflict or active participation of students through the decrease of anxiety than that presenting a discrepant event only.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.18-27
• /
• 2007

This study examined the influences of cognitive conflict and non-cognitive variables induced by a discrepant event on process of conceptual change, and the processes that a discrepant event lead to situational interest. Seventh graders participated in this study. A preconception test was administered to select students possessing misconceptions about density. The tests of cognitive response and situational interest to a discrepant event were administered. After learning with a CAl program, the tests assessing attention and effort allocated to the CAl, and conceptual understanding were also administered. A path analysis revealed that cognitive conflict induced by a discrepant event caused situational interest, which in turn increased attention and/or effort and thus, resulted in conceptual change. The results of the path analysis on the processes in which a discrepant event led to situational interest suggested that novelty may be a primary source of situational interest. Novelty influenced situational interest directly as well as through attention demand, exploration intention, and instant enjoyment. Moreover, novelty exerted a direct effect on challenge, which in turn had negative effects on instant enjoyment directly as well as through cognitive conflict, and thus, decreased situational interest. However, the path coefficients of the latter were relatively smaller than those of the former. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.26 no.6
• /
• pp.723-731
• /
• 2006

In this study, twenty-eight 7th graders were interviewed to explore their emotional responses and perceived teaching-learning strategies for effective conceptual change by the types of cognitive responses to a discrepant event. The results revealed that cognitive conflict was more induced by a discrepant event when its reliability and validity were emphasized. The students' cognitive responses to a discrepant event, the existence of alternative hypotheses, and their clearness influenced the patterns of emotional responses such as interest and anxiety. Many students perceived that emotional responses would have positive influences on concept learning processes. In the cases of the students exhibiting cognitive responses such as belief decrease, peripheral belief change, and belief change, opinions about teaching-learning strategies for effective conceptual change were different depending on whether they had alternative hypotheses or not. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.8
• /
• pp.779-785
• /
• 2008

In this study, we investigated the role of a discrepant event from both cognitive and motivational perspectives in learning the concept of combustion. A preconception test, a test of response to a discrepant event, and a situational interest questionnaire were administered to 433 eighth graders. After learning the concept of combustion, the tests of attention, effort, and conceptual understanding were administered as post-tests. The reponses of 208 students who had been found to possess the target misconception were analyzed. The percentages of rejection and exclusion responses were relatively high compared to the previous studies about density concept, whereas a proportion of belief change was low. The results of the path analysis indicated that situational interest after presenting an alternative hypothesis had a direct effect and an indirect effect via attention and effort on conceptual understanding. Situational interest induced by a discrepant event directly influenced cognitive conflict after presenting an alternative hypothesis.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.53 no.4
• /
• pp.445-452
• /
• 2009

In this study, the influences of the context of discrepant events on the conceptual change process using cognitive conflict strategy were investigated in terms of students' cognitive and motivational variables such as cognitive conflict, situational interest, attention, effort, conceptual understanding. A preconception test was administered to 536 seventh graders. A test of response to a discrepant event and a situational interest questionnaire were then administered. The context of discrepant events, either scientific or everyday, was randomly presented to the subjects. After learning the concept of density, the tests of attention, effort, and conceptual understanding were administered. The reponses of 194 students who had been found to possess the target misconception were analyzed. The results revealed that the scientific-context discrepant event induced higher cognitive conflict than everyday-context one. The context of discrepant events, however, did not show significant correlations with situational interest, attention, effort, and/or conceptual understanding. The result of path analysis indicated that the context of discrepant events both directly influenced cognitive conflict and indirectly influenced conceptual understanding via cognitive conflict.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.633-640
• /
• 2008

In this study, we investigated the possibility of using science laboratory reports in identifying students' ideas about discrepant events. A specially designed science laboratory report was developed in this study, and used to collect the information about students' responses toward discrepant events. A total of 839 laboratory reports on the solubility of gas, combustion, and the electrical conductivity of a solution were analyzed. Students' responses in the laboratory reports were classified into eight types; rejection, reinterpretation, exclusion, uncertainty, peripheral theory change, theory change, maintenance of scientific conception, and regressive theory change. In addition, reinterpretation and theory change were further classified into several subcategories. The characteristics of students' responses in this study were discussed in comparison with those of previous studies.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.52 no.5
• /
• pp.561-568
• /
• 2008

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.687-708
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between cognitive conflict and students' causal attributions and to find out what kinds of attributions affect successful resolution of cognitive conflict in learning physics. Twenty-nine college students who attended a base general physics course took an attribution test and a conceptual pretest related to action and reaction concept. Of these, twenty students who revealed alternative conceptions were selected. They were confronted with a discrepant demonstration and took part in the cognitive conflict level test, a posttest, and delayed posttest. Those students who experienced high levels of cognitive conflict were selected and interviewed to find out what kinds of attributions affect resolving the conflict. When confronted with the discrepant event, the students who attributed success outcomes to "effort" experienced higher levels of cognitive conflict than those to "task difficulty." However, those students who revealed high levels of cognitive conflict and attributed success outcomes to effort did not always produce conceptual change. They had different perspectives on effort and conducted different effort activities to resolve the cognitive conflict. In addition, these effort activities appeared to include their motivational beliefs, metacognitive and volitional strategies. The results of this study indicate that in order for the conflicts to lead to change, students need to have the perspective on effort implying the use of the self-regulated learning strategy and to conduct effort activities based on them. Beyond cold conceptual change, this article suggests that there is a management strategy of cognitive conflict in the classroom context.