hybrid conception – Science-Education-Research

Keith S. Taber

Sophia was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. In Y7, Sophia had told me that if molten iron was heated "some of it would evaporate but not all of it, 'cause it's not like water and it's more heavy". She thought only "a little" of the iron would evaporate to give iron vapour: The rest "really just stays as a liquid". [See 'Iron is too heavy to completely evaporate'.]

Just over a year later (in Y8) Sophia had been studying "that different erm substances have different freezing and melting and boiling points, and some aren't like a liquid at room temperatures, some are a solid and some are a gas and things like that".

Give me an example of something else that's a solid at room temperature?
Iron.
Do you think iron would have a melting point?
Yeah.
Yeah, and if I, what would I get if I, if I heated iron to its melting point?
It would become a liquid.
And why would it do that?
Because it's got so hot that particles – they have spread out or something?
So what do you think would happen if I heated the iron liquid?
It would stay a liquid.
No matter how much I heated it?
It might, I don't know if it would become a vapour.
Can you get iron vapour?
No, I don't think so.
You don't think so?
No.

So it seems that Sophia had shifted from accepting that iron would partially evaporate (when learning about the particle model of the different states), to considering that iron (probably) can not become a vapour. The notion of iron as a gas is not something we can readily imagine, and apparently did not seem very feasible. In part this might be because we think of iron the material (a metal, which cannot exist in in the vapour phase) rather than as a substance that can take different material forms.

It seems Sophia's prior knowledge of iron the material was working against her learning about iron the substance, an examples of a grounded learning impediment where prior knowledge impedes new learning.

In Y7 Sophia had seemed to have a hybrid conception where having been taught a general model of the states of matter and changes of state, she accepted the counter-intuitive idea that iron could evaporate, but thought that (unlike in the case of water) it could not completely evaporate . This might have been a 'stepping stone' between not accepting iron could be in the gaseous state and fitting it within the general model that all substances will when progressively heated first melt and then evaporate (or boil) as long as they did not decompose first.

However, it seems that a year later Sophia was actually more resistant to the idea that iron could exist as vapour and so now she thought molten iron would remain liquid no matter how much it was heated. If anything, she had reverted to a more intuitive understanding. This is not that strange: it has been shown that apparent conceptual gains which are counter to strongly held intuitions that are brought about by teaching episodes that are not regularly reinforced can drop away as the time since teaching increases. Conceptual change does not always involve shifts towards the scientific accounts.

[Sophia was in lower secondary school when I talked to her about this: but I was also told by a much older student that the idea of iron turning into a gas sounds weird.]

Some molten iron would evaporate but not all of it, 'cause it's not like water and it's more heavy

Keith S. Taber

Sophia was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. In her first interview near the start of Y7, Sophia told me that she had learnt "about the particles…all the things that make – the actual thing, make them a solid, and make them a gas and make them a liquid" (i.e. the states of matter). All solids had particles, including (as examples) ice and an iron clamp stand. There would be the same particles in the ice as the iron.

"because they are a solid, but they can change , 'cause if erm they melted they would be a liquid so they would have different particles in…Well they are still the same particles but they are just changing the way they act".

Sophia's suggestion that particles in ice and the iron were the same types of particles as both were solid seems to be 'carving nature' at the wrong joints – that is in this model the particles in ice and (solid) iron would be of one type, whilst those of water and liquid iron would be of another type (that is she had an alternative ontology). Sophia quickly corrected this, so it is not clear if this reflected some intuitive idea or was just 'a slip of tongue'.

According to Sophia the ice could be melted "with something that's hot, like a candle" but for the iron "you need more heat, 'cause it's more, it's a lot more stronger…because it's got more particles pushed together".

Sophia's explanation suggested a causal path (right-hand side) quite different from a canonical causal path (left-hand side)

Strictly the difference is more about the strength of the interactions between particles, than how many were pushed together – although strong bonding forces would tend (all other factors being equal) to lead to particles being bound more tightly and being closer. We might argue here that Sophia seemed to confuse cause and effect – that a higher density of particles was an effect of strong bonding, which would also mean more energy was needed to overcome that bonding. (However, we should also be aware that when students use 'because' (which formally implies causality) they sometimes mean little more than 'is associated with'.)

If the water obtained from melting ice was heated more "it will evaporate into the sky". However, if the molten iron was heated Sophia thought that "some of it would evaporate but not all of it, 'cause it's not like water and it's more heavy". She thought only "a little" of the iron would evaporate to give iron vapour:

"No, I think that water all of it goes, but other material, other liquids some of it will go, not all of it". The rest "if it's cold enough, it will go back into a solid, but if not it really just stays as a liquid".

Sophia's idea that no matter how much liquid iron was heated it would not completely evaporate so some would remain liquid, which seemed to be linked in her mind to its density, seems to be evidence of an alternative conception. Students may not expect that something as (apparently) inherently solid as iron could evaporate (everyday experience may act as a grounded learning impediment), and so may not readily accept that the basic model of the states of matter and changes of state (i.e., a heated liquid will evaporate or boil) can apply to something like iron. Sophia seemed to have formed a hybrid conception – applying the taught model, but with a modification reflecting the counter-intuitive notion that iron could become a vapour.

Conceptual change can be a slow progress, although hybrid conceptions may be 'stepping stones' towards more scientific understandings. However, when I spoke to Sophia in Y8 she did not seem to have progressed further. [See 'Liquid iron stays a liquid when heated'.]