Learning Processes in Chemistry: Drawing upon Cognitive Resources to Learn about the Particulate Structure of Matter
One of Keith's publications is
Taber, K. S., & García Franco, A. (2010). Learning processes in chemistry: Drawing upon cognitive resources to learn about the particulate structure of matter. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(1), 99-142, https://doi.org/10.1080/10508400903452868
Co-written with Dr Alejandra Garcia Franco
Abstract
This article explores 11- to 16-year-old students' explanations for phenomena commonly studied in school chemistry from an inclusive cognitive resources or knowledge-in-pieces perspective that considers that student utterances may reflect the activation of knowledge elements at a range of levels of explicitness. We report five themes in student explanations that we consider to derive from implicit knowledge elements activated in cognition. Student thinking in chemistry has commonly been examined from a misconceptions or alternative conceptions/frameworks perspective, in which the focus has been on the status of learners' explicit conceptions. This approach has been valuable, but it fails to explain the origins or nature of the full range of alternative ideas reported. In physics education, the cognitive resources perspective has led to work to characterize implicit knowledge elements – described as phenomenological primitives (p-prims) – that provide learners with an intuitive sense of mechanism. School chemistry offers a complementary knowledge domain because of its focus on the nature of materials and its domination by theoretical models that explain observable phenomena in terms of emergent properties of complex ensembles of "quanticles" (molecules, ions, electrons, atoms, etc.) The themes reported in this study suggest a need to recognise primitive knowledge elements beyond those reported from physics education and suggest that some previously characterised p-prims may be better considered to derive from more broadly applicable intuitive knowledge elements.
Keywords:
- chemistry learning
- cognitive resources
- knowledge-in-pieces
- p-prims
- implicit knowledge
Contents:
- Introduction
- Learning Difficulties in Science
- The Knowledge-in-pieces Perspective
- Applying the knowledge-in-pieces perspective to physics learning
- Chemistry as a Context for Exploring Learning
- The properties of matter emerge from a complex system
- Applying the Knowledge-in-pieces Approach to Chemistry Learning
- Significance of the perspective to informing pedagogy
- Methodology
- Interviews
- The sample
- Data Analysis
- Findings
- Theme 1: Component gives Property
- Theme 2: Changes require Active Agents
- Theme 3: There is One Active Partner
- Theme 4: Substances (Naturally) React
- Theme 5: Things have a (Natural) Predetermined Configuration
- Exploring Students' Ideas in Chemistry from an Inclusive Cognitive Resources Perspective
- Discussion
- Informing Chemistry Teaching
- Intuitive Knowledge of the Nature of the Material World
- The Role of Agency
- Conclusion
