MASON INTRODUCTION Introduction: Bridging the Cognitive and Sociocultural Approaches in Research on Conceptual Change: Is it Feasible? Lucia Mason Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology University of Padua, Italy Since the late 1970s, traditional research on conceptual change, mainly in science domains, has been situated within the constructivist perspective on learning and instruction, which values the active and interpretative role of the learner. This research has been characterized mainly by a cognitive approach that focuses on analyzing personal mental repre- sentations (Murphy & Mason, 2006 Sinatra & Pintrich, 2003 Vosniadou, 1999). More recently, within the socio- cultural approach to cognition, more emphasis has been placed on the situated, interactional process of learning, which includes learning the discourses and social practices of scientific communities. Although several positions can be found in the literature on cognition and understanding in the school context as reflecting the sociocultural approach��� from the more to the less extreme���it is grounded on an epis- temology and ontology that differ from those of the cognitive approach (Packer & Goicoechea, 2000). After a decade of debate on the potentials and limitations of each approach, a crucial question remains open: Are they so conflicting and incompatible that researchers should situate their work con- sistently within one or the other? Or can these approaches be complementary or even combined and integrated, at least to some extent, leading to further understanding of the intricacy and complexity of conceptual growth and change processes? In other words, is it theoretically feasible to consider a recon- ciliation of views focused on the internal processes of the mind or on the sociocultural genesis and appropriation of knowledge? The two approaches will be reviewed in the next sections. This review is intended to focus only on those aspects and concerns that are central to this special issue of Educational Psychologist, and not to examine all aspects and concerns in the extant research. Crucial aspects of the tension between the approaches, underlying the ongoing debate, are then in- troduced to explore the reasons that might lead to bridging, which are at the basis of the idea of this issue. THE COGNITIVE APPROACH Individuals construct knowledge around their everyday expe- rience or informal learning, which are often alternative to the scientific knowledge taught in school. The shift from na��ve to accepted representations of phenomena and events has been the main focus of mainstream research on domain-specific knowledge restructuring. Two main traditions can be identi- fied in this area of research, the cognitive-developmental psychology tradition (e.g., Carey, 1985 Hatano & Inagaki, 2000 Vosniadou & Brewer, 1987) and the science education tradition (e.g., diSessa, 1983 Glynn & Duit, 1995 Mintzes, Wandersee, & Novak, 1998 Posner et al., 1982). Both tradi- tions have addressed the change in personal cognitive struc- tures, although to different extents. According to developmental psychologists, children���s cognitive development is the change in their conceptual structures concerning a domain (Carey, 1985). Increased do- main knowledge leads to restructuring and that results in more sophisticated representations. Schemata (Rumelhart, 1980), domain-specific theories (Carey, 1985 Wellman & Gelman, 1992), mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983 Vos- niadou & Brewer, 1992), and ontological categories (Chi, 1992) are all types of knowledge representation, found in cognitive or developmental psychology, and used to charac- terize the structure of personal conceptions. Different ex- planations for why conceptual change is often difficult to achieve have been proposed (Chi, Slotta, & de Leeuw, 1994 Vosniadou, 1994), however, they all indicate the im- portance of the cognitive structures underlying individuals��� conceptions. Comparisons between individual conceptions are used as a method of inquiry to examine changes in mental repre- sentations induced by instruction (pretests vs. posttests) or EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 42(1), 1���7 Copyright �� 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Correspondence should be addressed to Lucia Mason, Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia, 8, Padua, Italy 35131. E-mail: lucia.mason@unipd.it

produced spontaneously over time as children accumulate and broaden their experience in everyday situations. The science education tradition has also focused on the nature of intuitive knowledge and has examined the mecha- nisms and conditions underlying conceptual change in the classroom. However, a theoretical differentiation emerged: on the one hand, alternative conceptions or misconceptions were conceived as internally coherent and consistent explan- atory frameworks similar to theories, although na��ve (Posner, Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982). On the other hand, nov- ices��� representations were posited as ���knowledge in pieces,��� that is, fragmented knowledge that needs to attain internal coherence and systematicity (diSessa, 1983). From the constructivist perspective in science education, learning scientific concepts was considered to be a change in conceptual structures, as the successful integration of new in- formation implies knowledge restructuring (Duit, 1999). The metaphor that summarizes and vividly illustrates the cognitive approach to learning is the acquisition metaphor (Sfard, 1998, p. 5)���a term that refers to such entities as knowledge, concepts, conceptions, ideas, notions, and con- tents. The metaphor implies these constructs can be obtained or become one���s own. When knowledge or any other entity is acquired, it can be applied, shared with others, or transferred to another situation. A remarkable event in the literature on conceptual change was the classic 1993 article by Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle, who called for researchers to move beyond cold conceptual change to consider affective, motivational, and situational factors that may affect knowledge restructuring. The influ- ence of this article was profound. The models of conceptual change after the 1993 publication followed a ���warming trend��� (Sinatra, 2005). Their attention to noncognitive vari- ables led to taking into account how cognitive (e.g., prior knowledge, processing ability) and motivational (e.g., epistemic beliefs, interest, self-efficacy) factors interact with the characteristics of a message in a particular context (Dole & Sinatra, 1998 Gregoire, 2003). In addition, the most recent models of conceptual change are dual-process models as they assume that cognition ranges from automatic or algorithmic processing (i.e., low cognitive engagement) to intentional, self-directed processing (i.e., high metacognitive engagement) (Sinatra & Mason, in press). Calling for the inclusion of variables other than the cognitive as the focus of research on knowledge restructuring was an important step toward a wider and more comprehen- sive understanding of the processes underlying it. Other criticisms of traditional cognitive research came from scholars who pointed out that conceptual change should not be considered in terms of new conceptions replacing old ones. Rather it should be considered in more ���diffuse��� terms, that is, in terms of changes in ways of thinking about knowl- edge domains and differentiation among contexts of interpre- tation (Caravita e Halld��n, 1994 Halld��n, 1999). It was also underlined that the purpose of learning in domains such as science should be conceptualized as the construction of mul- tiple representations for use in appropriate contexts. It means that a student is able to use a certain conception in one con- text and another in a different situation (Pozo, Gomez, & Sanz, 1999 Spada, 1994). However, more radical criticism of traditional views of conceptual change has come from the sociocultural approach to learning and instruction. THE SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH According to the sociocultural approach, inspired by Vygotsky���s (1978) work, what is learned is specific to, and grounded in, the situation in which it is learned. The situative perspective views learning as a process of enculturation into a community, which is reflected in the various processes of participation in the community of discourse, practice, and thinking (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989 Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996 Kirshner & Whitson, 1997). If from the cognitive point of view, knowing means possessing, from the sociocultural perspective it means belonging, participating, and communicating. In other words, knowledge is not an en- tity in the head of an individual, which can be acquired, en- riched, or changed, but rather an activity that cannot be con- sidered separately from the context in which it takes place. Therefore, learners do not accumulate knowledge from the outside, but rather participate in activities that are distributed among the individuals, tools, and artifacts of a community. Issues from cognitive anthropology led situativist scholars to conceptualize learning as legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) or cognitive apprenticeship (Rogoff, 1990). As a method of inquiry, researchers from a situative per- spective conduct microlevel analyses of learners���interactions through their participation and communication over a period of time. The unit of analysis is not the individual, but the situ- ated collective activity constructed by individuals. In science learning, for instance, these analyses focus on explanations of construction as interactional achievements shaped by the sociocultural context of activity (Kaartinen & Kumpulainen, 2002). The alternative metaphor used to summarize and vividly illustrate the sociocultural approach is the participation met- aphor (Sfard, 1998, p. 6), whereby learning a subject domain is viewed as a process of becoming a member of a particular community. In other words, participation is ���taking part��� and ���being a part of.��� The implications of situativist learning have been drawn for all aspects of education but especially for mathematics (e.g., Cobb, Yachel, & Wood, 1992) and science education (e.g., Kelly & Green, 1998). Science learning, for instance, is viewed as implying a new way of seeing and talking by par- ticipating in a community of discourse and practice (Kaartinen & Kumpulainen, 2002). 2 MASON