Upper Secondary Students' Understanding of the Basic Physical Interactions in Analogous Atomic and Solar Systems
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Upper Secondary Students' Understanding of the Basic Physical Interactions in Analogous Atomic and Solar Systems Keith S. Taber
Published online: 26 September 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract Comparing the atom to a ‘tiny solar system’ is a common teaching analogy, and the extent to which learners saw the systems as analogous was investigated. English upper secondary students were asked parallel questions about the physical interactions between the components of a simple atomic system and a simple solar system to investigate how they understood the forces acting within the two systems. A sample of just over 100 across the 15–18 age range responded to a pencil-and-paper instrument that asked about four aspects of the two systems. It was found that for both systems, about four fifths of students expected forces to decrease with increasing distance; but that only a little over half expected there to be interactions between the minor constituents (electrons and planets). Most students failed to apply Newton's third law to either system. There was a considerable difference in the extent to which respondents were able to identify the type of force acting in the systems (nearly all for the solar system, but only a small proportion in the case of the atom). The findings are considered in terms of both the limitations of students' understanding of the basic physics and possible implications for the use of the teaching analogy. Keywords Teaching analogy . Analogical transfer . Conceptions of forces . Chemistry–physics interface . Implicit knowledge
Introduction A key aspect of teaching is ‘making the unfamiliar familiar’, that is helping learners to understand novel material by finding ways to link to their existing personal knowledge of the world (Ausubel 2000). Indeed, Piaget's (1972) model of development suggests that we must understand learning in terms of an iterative process that starts with the interaction between innate mental structures and the experienced world, leading to the modification of available mental structures which then allow qualitatively different experiences—which in turn allow further modifications of the mental structures, etc. Whilst the details of Piaget's scheme have K. S. Taber (*) Science Education Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK e-mail: [email protected]
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Res Sci Educ (2013) 43:1377–1406
faced extensive critical review (e.g. Sugarman 1987), this central ‘constructivist’ perspective on learning has been widely adopted in science education (Driver et al. 1994; Gilbert and Watts 1983) and continues to be reflected in research exploring teaching and learning in science (Taber 2009b). Indeed, Lakoff and Johnson (1980a, b) have argued for the centrality of metaphor in human thinking and language. They suggest that concepts used to refer to abstract ideas are understood by analogy with basic concepts which themselves relate to fundamental distinctions we can make about the environment. So, a basic discriminat
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