Elementary School Children's Explanations of Day and Night An Interpretation Based on an Inferential Approach to Representations
Por:
Gallegos-Cazares, Leticia, Flores-Camacho, Fernando, Calderon-Canales, Elena
Publicada:
1 feb 2022
Ahead of Print:
1 abr 2021
Categoría:
Education
Resumen:
Most students have interacted with scientific representations that are
used as teaching resources in schools. Often these external
representations present challenges for understanding. By utilizing a
framework based on an inferential, epistemic approach to scientific
representations, we have analyzed students' representational
constructions of the day/night process. This study identified the ways
students build their representations or models based on their
interpretations of school representations. The study participants were
151 students from a semi-urban primary school. Data were obtained
through questionnaires and interviews. Analysis utilized the inferential
approach to identify intentionality, interpretation, denotation,
reasoning, and coordination rules in students' constructions. The
results showed that only a few students were able to integrate school
representations coherently as intended, and most of these students were
in the upper grades. Even when students in the middle grades constructed
reasoning processes, they did so use other elements of interpretation
and denotation that are not equivalent to those in the school
representations. We also found that most children failed to establish
any discernible process that would indicate whether they used elements
from the school model to infer explanations for the day/night process;
that is, they had fragmented elements of representations that prevented
them from making valid inferences. Finally, the approach described in
this paper is useful for identifying difficulties that students face
when dealing with scientific school representations since it offers
elements for reconsidering the usual external representations that are
used to teach science.
Filiaciones:
Gallegos-Cazares, Leticia:
Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico
Flores-Camacho, Fernando:
Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico
Calderon-Canales, Elena:
Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico
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