MURAL - Maynooth University Research Archive Library



    Students’ analogical reasoning in novel situations: theory-like misconceptions or p-prims?


    Fotou, Nikolaos (2016) Students’ analogical reasoning in novel situations: theory-like misconceptions or p-prims? Physics Education, 51 (4). pp. 1-13. ISSN 0031-9120

    [img]
    Preview
    Download (422kB) | Preview


    Share your research

    Twitter Facebook LinkedIn GooglePlus Email more...



    Add this article to your Mendeley library


    Abstract

    Over the past 50 years there has been much research in the area of students’ misconceptions. Whilst this research has been useful in helping to inform the design of instructional approaches and curriculum development it has not provided much insight into how students reason when presented with a novel situation and, in particular, the knowledge they draw upon in an attempt to make predictions about that novel situation. This article reports on a study of Greek students, aged from 10 to 17 years old, who were asked to make predictions in novel situations and to then provide, without being told whether their predictions were correct or incorrect, explanations about their predictions. Indeed, their explanations in such novel situations have the potential to reveal how their ideas, as articulated as predictions, are formed as well as the sources they draw upon to make those predictions. We also consider in this article the extent to which student ideas can be seen either as theory-like misconceptions or, alternatively, as situated acts of construction involving the activation of fragmented pieces of knowledge referred to as phenomenological primitives (p-prims). Our findings suggest that in most cases students’ reasoning in novel situations can be better understood in terms of their use of p-prims and that teaching might be made more effective if teachers were more aware of the p-prims that students were likely to be using when presented with new situations in physics.

    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Students; analogical; novel situations; theory-like; misconceptions; p-prims;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Education
    Item ID: 8567
    Depositing User: Dr Nikolaos Fotou
    Date Deposited: 08 Aug 2017 09:44
    Journal or Publication Title: Physics Education
    Publisher: IOP Publishing
    Refereed: Yes
    URI:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

    Repository Staff Only(login required)

    View Item Item control page

    Downloads

    Downloads per month over past year

    Origin of downloads