The ontology of physical events: a comparison of two groups

Abstract

The exploratory study concerns the way people understand the nature of events. A questionnaire was given to groups of 14‐16‐year‐old secondary students and primary teachers in Britain. They were asked to classify events as having or not having a number of ontological features. The features were chosen systematically using a systemic network categorizing features of events related to actions. A similar approach has previously been used for studying the understanding of entities in science. The result of the analysis in both cases is an ‘ontological space’ in which entities or events, and their features, can be related to a small number of interpretable dimensions. These dimensions can also be understood in relation to fundamental categories of thought about reality, following ideas from Piaget about the importance of actions in the construction of reality. The space obtained for events, the same for both groups, is a four‐dimensional space with dimensions: time‐like versus localized, action‐like versus event‐like, dynamic versus static and internal causation versus external causation. These dimensions are shown to be closely related to those previously found for entities. Differences between the groups exist in the way they use the dimensions in interpreting events.