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Development of Pupils’ Competences to Identify Obstacles during Research-based Science Teaching

By Michael Skoumios and Vassilia Hatzinikita.

Published by The International Journal of Learning

Pupil’s conceptions appear to be particularly resistant to modification during teaching interventions. One approach to this difficulty that has been developed in Science Education focuses teaching and learning on the elaboration of pupils’ obstacles, which form a kind of ‘hard core’ to their conceptions (Peterfalvi, 1997; 2001). Effective didactic elaboration of obstacles to pupils development of scientific conceptions includes an initial ‘destabilisation’ phase’, followed by ‘conceptual reconstruction’ and ‘identification’ phases. The final phase aims to develop student competence in identifying the manifestations of the conceptual obstacles so that they can avoid them in future. The present paper reports a study of the development of pupils’ obstacle identification competence at upper primary school level (aged 11-12) through research-based teaching sequences focused on teaching elaboration of the obstacles of heat and temperature. These sequences involved student completion of a series of post-cognitive activities, suitable for developing their competence in identification of the obstacles. The qualitative analysis of the oral and written speech of the pupils during the teaching sequences showed that most pupils are able to develop the competence to identify the obstacles. In particular, the pupils proceeded to (i) a ‘reflective detachment’ from their original conceptions, (ii) a ‘displacement’ from the local to the transverse level of obstacles (i.e., displacement of formulations referring to certain objects –‘local level’– to formulations including more general conceptions and references to general ways of thinking –‘transverse level’–) and (iii) a ‘movement’ from expressing judgments using terms like ‘right/wrong’ to formulations referring to dynamic and functional aspects of the obstacles (i.e., judgments and explanations about the occurrence of wrong answers).

The International Journal of Learning, Volume 14, Issue 9, pp.237-248. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 699.137KB).

Dr. Michael Skoumios

Researcher, School of Humanities, Hellenic Open University, Rhodes, GREECE

Prof. Vassilia Hatzinikita

Academic Coordinator of the Master in Education, School of Humanities, Hellenic Open University, Athens, GREECE