What Kind of Things Are Concepts?

…is a chapter in one of my books:

Taber, K. S. (2019). The Nature of the Chemical Concept: Constructing chemical knowledge in teaching and learning. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Abstract: This chapter sets out an account of what we mean by concepts. It is argued that: concepts act as categories; concepts are abstractions from experience; concepts are mental entities; concepts are tools used in thinking; concepts are only apparent when activated; and, concepts act as nodes in a conceptual network. These characteristics are explored and examples given. The distinction between the sometimes very labile nature of a person's concepts-in-action, and the relatively stable underlying structures underpinning the activation of concepts is highlighted given that research both shows that student conceptions often seem inconsistent, and that it may be difficult to facilitate desired conceptual change.

Contents:

  • 2.1 Making Sense of Curie and and and and and Meitner
  • 2.1.1 Concepts and Conceptions
  • 2.2 How to Best Understand Concepts
  • 2.2.1  Concepts as Categories
  • 2.2.2  The Abstract Nature of Concepts
  • 2.2.3  Concepts Are Mental Entities
  • 2.2.4  Concepts Are Tools Used in Thinking
  • 2.3 Representing and Exploring Conceptual Structures
  • 2.3.1  Representing Conceptual Structures
  • 2.3.2  The Natural Attitude – Talking, and Thinking, Like Mind Readers
  • References

Concepts

The idea of 'concepts' is very important in education, and science teachers are expected to teach 'science' concepts. 'Conceptual development' and 'conceptual change' are important to teaching and learning, and have attracted much research attention. But what is a concept? There are different views on how to best understand the nature of concepts.

In this chapter I set out what I understand by concepts (and the related term 'conceptions') for the purposes of the book.

It is argued that "we can best understand concepts in terms of a number of basic features:

Each of these points is addressed in some detail in the chapter with examples.

Concepts support discrimination

Being able to discriminate means being abler to tell different types of things (events, etc.) apart. (That is discrimination is not a bad thing in itself – it is essential to functioning in the world!)

Consider someone watching sport on television If asked what they are watching they might say a foot ball match (perhaps because of the presence of a large ball that was clearly a focus for the players, and beyond that a rugby football match (perhaps because of the shape of the ball), and beyond that a rugby league football match (perhaps because of the number of players on the field, or because the players had to hand over the ball to the other team every so often despite not having lost possession). Clearly here the person has (nested) concepts of football, rugby football, and rugby league code football.

Put simply,

"Concepts act as categories in that they are the basis of discriminations we make. When we have a particular concept, then we know when that concept applies, or somewhat applies. If we have a concept of {acid}, or {classroom}, or {gifted learner}, then we can make judgements about whether something is an acid; is a classroom; or is a gifted learner."

Taber, 2019, p.20.

This does not mean that other people will always agree with our discriminations (the student who confidently holds up a boiling tube and proclaims 'this is a test tube' has a concept of test tube, even if it is not fully aligned with the teacher's concept). It is also not necessary we can always make confident discriminations. A student who considers iron, but not sulphur, a metal has a concept of metal even if they are unsure how to apply it to mercury or silicon. Part of the role of a teacher is to help students develop their concepts so they increasingly make canonical discriminations with them.

Without a concept, there is no basis for discriminating,

"If a student has no concept of what is meant by the label 'metalloid', then should a teacher ask them whether something was a metalloid, the best they can do is guess – so perhaps a metalloid is an android fabricated from metal: a metal robot in human form?"

Taber, 2019, p.20.

So, "Concepts are used in making discriminations when we make sense of experiences, and so are the basis of how we categorise, as we perceive the world". (p.22)

Concepts are not out there in the world

I take the position that

"that concepts are mental entities. Concepts do not exist in the physical world (even if they refer to things that do) – but we make sense of our experiences, of what does seem to exist (things, processes) by conceptualising them. That is, we form mental representations".

Taber, 2019, p.21.

This is linked to the idea that (at least in my view) knowledge does not exist in books and lectures and computer simulations and so forth, but only in human minds. I discussed this idea in some depth in a previous book, Modelling Learners and Learning in Science Education: Developing representations of concepts, conceptual structure and conceptual change to inform teaching and research. 

Knowledge can be represented in writing, and talk, and videos and so forth, but these representations have to be interpreted by the listener/reader to form their own knowledge. (When this goes well, the audience forms knowledge closely matched to that of the person producing the representations – as teachers know, however, this cannot be automatically assumed!)

Mapping concepts

As concepts are mental entities, we cannot directly image them. However,

"Another important quality of concepts is that they tend not to exist in isolation, but rather are related to other concepts. … So the concept is not the tag it may be given (a label such as 'oxidation'), but the full range of meanings due to its associations within the wider web or net of concepts."

Taber, 2019, p.21.

This suggests that concepts maps may offer a useful way of thinking about concepts and conceptual structure.

Figure 2.2 from Taber, 2019,Schematic representing the hypothetical activation of a net of concepts when reasoning about the potential of sodium as a coolant in a nuclear power station.

We may imagine conceptual structure as a network of nodes with links. The content of a concept is the full set of associations for the pertinent node. Not all those associations will be actively engaged when a concept is drawn upon in some specific context.

A person's personal concept can be quite complex, and indeed idiosyncratic – especially when we consider that the nodes linked to any one node also indirectly link that node to further nodes…

"Another issue that a representation such as Figure 2.2 raises is how, if each node has potential associations to others, and activation of one node may lead to activating some of these links, there is potential for activation to spread through the network…. This also raises the question of what has been called a conceptual inductive effect…"

Taber, 2019, p.36.

This book is part of the RSC Advances in Chemistry Education series.

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