What is conceptual analysis?
Conceptual analysis is the process of exploring the conceptual structure of a topic or lesson/lecture content – that is, identifying the relevant concepts and how they are related together.
Why is conceptual analysis relevant to teachers?
Conceptual analysis is a valuable tool for planning teaching. This applies both when planning the presentation of specific material as part of one lesson/lecture, or when planning a sequence of lessons, or a complete scheme of work for a course or programme.
Concepts are abstractions, but some are much more closely linked to everyday experience that others. The concept of a Bunsen burner is abstract because it refers to an idea that reflects a very great many actual objects in the world, and may also related to various representations of them. The concept of element is more abstract as it does not refer to simple objects but to particular samples of materials that fit certain criteria. (You can recognise a Bunsen burner by direct observation. You cannot generally identify is a sample of material counts as an element so directly.) The law of conservation of energy is very abstract as it refers to relationships between other abstract concepts – and not directly to any particular objects or materials.
Read more about the nature of scientific concepts
In general, we learn about more abstract concepts only in terms of concepts we have already mastered. This can be seen as a key premise of the constructivist perspective on learning.
Read about constructivism as a perspective on teaching and learning
For teaching to make sense to learners it is important we introduce ideas in a sensible sequence that help them build up their knowledge.
Prerequisite knowledge
The term prerequisite knowledge refers to what already needs to be known before we learn something new. Sometimes this may seem obvious:
- We would not try to teach about the temperature dependence of resistance – before teaching the concept of resistance;
- We would not try to teach about isotopes before teaching about elements and atoms;
- We would not try to teach about heterolytic bond fission, before teaching about the concept of the chemical bond;
- We would not try to teach about organelles before teaching the cell concept;
- We would not teach about bacteriophages 1 to someone who have never heard of bacteria;
- …
In teaching we usually know what learners in a class should have previously studied (and learnt), but it is often sensible to engage in some diagnostic assessment to check.
Logical teaching sequences
Whilst it may often seem obvious, at least when we stop to think about it, what prerequisite knowledge is needed to learn some new concept or topic, a common cause of teaching going wrong is the teacher only realising that students are missing some important prior leaning when they are explaining some material that relies upon it. The examples above may be obvious, as the concepts are directly linked, but concepts often 'nest' in hierarchies, such that a new new concept indirectly links upon something that is not so immediately obvious.
This is where conceptual analysis is needed. It may sound complicated, but it is just about considering 'what would someone need to know before they could learn this' (and then 'okay, so what would someone need to know before they learn about that', etc.) to see that if they need to understand X to understand Y, an to understand Y to understand Z then we are not trying to teach Z when no one has taught them X.
A good way of carrying out conceptual analysis is using diagrams -indeed though concept mapping – as in the example below.
Example: What do they need to know to understand mass spectrometry?
An example I am using in a forthcoming book relates to the mass spectrometer.
"As one example, consider that a curricular objective was for learners to understand about how a mass spectrometer could be used to determine the istopic composition of a sample of an element.
We can immediately see that for students to make good sense of this we would need to already have acquired a creditable…element concept and a creditable isotope concept. …
If they are to make good sense of what is happening inside the spectrometer the learners need to already understand a basic model of atomic structure, and appreciate the difference between atoms and ions, and know what 'ionisation' means…Then there is the possibility of something seeming counterintuitive: neutral atoms are bombarded with negative electrons and become…positive ions.
…to make much sense of the apparatus it is important to appreciate that charged particles are accelerated in an electric field, and that charged particles will be deflected if they are moving through, and crossing (i.e., not moving parallel to), a magnetic field. They also need to know that although the electric field will accelerate the ions in the field direction (towards the negatively charged cathode), ions that are moving perpendicular to a magnetic field will be deflected through an arc, with curvature that depends on both the field strength and the mass of the ion."
This is quite a complex example (chosen deliberately for that reason) and the figure below shows how this might be mapped out schematically.
The analysis informs the teacher who can ask:
- what prerequisite knowledge will be needed to teach this topic
- do I need to check that students have learnt this prerequisite knowledge
- would it be useful to use a starter activity (a 'scaffolding PlaNK'?) to help learners to bring the key prior learning to mind before my presentation? *
- what is a logical order for introducing the new material?
- given the complexity of the new ideas, should they be divided up and presented in several instalments?
* Perhaps something like this:
Read about tools for scaffolding learning
Work cited:
- Ackermann, H.-W. (2011). Phage or phages. Bacteriophage, 1(1), 52-53. https://doi.org/10.4161/bact.1.1.14354
Note:
1 The plural always used to be 'bacteriophages', although more recently some authors use 'bacteriophage' for either the singular or plural case. Like Ackermann (2011) I think it is useful to retain the distinction.
The topic will be treated in more detail in a book being prepared for the RSC Advances in Chemistry Education series.
