Studying Students' Learning Processes Used during Physics Teaching Sequence about Gas with Networks of Ideas and Their Domain of Applicability

Abstract

In literature, several processes have been suggested to describe conceptual changes being undertaken. However, a few parts of studies analyse in great detail which students' learning processes are involved in physics classes during teaching, and how they are used. Following a socio-constructivist approach using tools coming from discourse analysis, we suggest studying three processes of students' learning: (1) establishing links between ideas, (2) increasing the domain of applicability of ideas, or (3) decreasing the domain of applicability of ideas. Our database consists of video data and written worksheets of two students at the upper-secondary school level (Grade 10 [15-year-old students]) during a one-month teaching sequence about gas. Based on semiotic resources contained in oral and written language, we reconstruct in great detail all the ideas about gas expressed by both students during the entire teaching sequence. Our analysis deals with (1) how learning processes are identified based on the ideas expressed by students, and (2) how the three learning processes are used by the two students during teaching. Our results show that during the teaching sequence: (1) the emergence of the networks of three ideas is supported by networks of two ideas expressed previously by students; (2) both students express more networks of two ideas than networks of three ideas; (3) the process ‘increasing the domain of applicability’ of an idea or a network of ideas is very often involved; and (4) the process ‘decreasing the domain of applicability’ of an idea or network of ideas is rarely used by them.

Keywords:

• Student
• Conceptual development
• Physics education
• Video analysis
• Students' learning processes
• Expressed ideas

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the members of the team GESTEPRO at the University of Provence for their critical comments and feedback about this study.

Notes

The teaching sequence is available at URL http://pegase.inrp.fr

The software can be downloaded from URL: http://www.univ-tlse2.fr/ltc/kronos/

The following transcription conventions are used:

• ((laughs))—transcriber's comments are enclosed in double parentheses;

• , (comma)—indicates a small pause about 0.5 s;

• (1.0)—time in 10th of a second;

• ((Anne reads)) the molecules—underlined text indicate when different actions are simultaneous, for e.g. Anne is reading and she is simultaneously saying ‘the molecules’;

• [ ] (square brackets)—indicate gesture or manipulation;

• – (n-dash)—indicates that an utterance or word stopped short before a completion was evident;

• ? (question mark)—each word that could not be identified is indicated by a question mark in parentheses;

• : (colon)—indicates a lengthening of a phoneme by about 0.1 s;

• ↑ indicates upward jump in pitch.