Teaching strategies for inducing conceptual change in preconceptions about conservation of mass in water: Case study and interpretative analysis

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to induce acquisition of the concept of conservation of mass in substances being dissolved in water. A learning environment that related a reciprocal teaching strategy to a conceptual-change teaching strategy was designed for a 5th-grade science unit (12 hours) on "water solution phenomena", and taught to 1 class (37 students, average age 11.8 years). Cognitive and social approaches were used. The cognitive approach used a self-analogy model (microscopic model) in which students' visualization of water solution phenomena was a cognitive tool in the process of shifting from relation-based reasoning to model-based reasoning, so that the new scientific concept was accepted because it was demonstrated through intelligible and logically consistent input that explained anomalous data. The social approach involved using a theory chart that accumulated the participant-mutual process of theory building as a cognitive tool in the context of taking responsibility for the role of participant structure in the reciprocal teaching strategy, in which tactics of power were disputed over persuasive discourse. The results suggested that these processes induced conceptual change.