Showing papers in "School Science and Mathematics in 1991"

Children's Ideas About Matter

Abstract: In recent years, many studies have investigated students’ ideas and reasoning in science (e.g., Driver & Erickson, 1983; Gilbert & Watts, 1983; Posner, Strick, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982). These studies found that students’ preconceptions were quite different from those generally accepted in science, and that they were interfering with, and quite resistant to, teaching. These conceptions are being constructed through a process of interaction between the child’s cognitive system and his/her physical, social, and cultural environment. It is thought that our knowledge about these intuitive preconceptions and how they develop with age, culture, and instruction may be helfpul in designing better teaching methods. The research reported here deals with first through seventh grade students’ conceptions of matter, prior to and following instruction. meanings of the word matter in the Hebrew language are clay, material, substance, material for thought, and, in more literary contexts, pile and severity. In general, everyday concepts are less precise and more ambiguous than scientific or schoolbased ones. Several authors (e.g., Bell & Freyberg, 1985) indicate that many words which express scientific concepts have different meanings in everyday language. They claim that this fact may be one of the sources of children’s misconceptions because children have to map the words they hear into concepts. It is expected that young children’s conception of matter would initiate with the everyday meaning of the word. This conception should shift with age and/or instruction toward the science curriculum meaning.