The Use of Multiple Perspectives of Conceptual Change to Investigate Students’ Mental Models of Gas Particles

Abstract

For the past few decades, research into students' conceptions about scientific phenomena has accumulated tremendous findings, especially in the area of students' knowledge regarding particles. However, additional research is still needed regarding the best way to introduce the particulate nature of matter at different grade levels as well as how to effectively correct students' alternative conceptions about particles. A number of conceptual change theories have been proposed (e.g., Chi, 2008; diSessa 2008; Vosniadou 2008). In this chapter, we draw from studies conducted in Taiwan about the nature and behavior of gases in order to discuss, via the use of the Research And InstructioN-Based/Oriented Work (RAINBOW; Chiu (2007b, 2008), Chiu & Lin (2008) approach, why certain science concepts are simply more difficult to learn than others. The RAINBOW approach includes developmental, ontological, epistemological, evolutionary, affective/social, instructional, and integrative perspectives in explaining learning and teaching of the sciences for promoting conceptual learning and change. Taiwanese students' conceptions about the nature and behavior of gas particles are analyzed and discussed from the RAINBOW perspective. This chapter also utilizes empirical data to interpret how the RAINBOW perspective extends our knowledge about science learning, how and why conceptual change may or may not occur, and what mental representations of a scientific phenomenon in the domain of gas particles are influenced by and then retained via the use of modeling activities in the science classroom.