Educational intervention based on "revolting" and the understanding of concepts: From the standpoint of Bakhtin's theory

Abstract

The present study investigated effects of educational intervention based on "revoicing" (O'Connor & Michaels, 1996), which is used to promote learners' discussions aimed at understanding, when they are learning scientific concepts. Following Bakhtin's theory, "understanding" was defined as interpreting the relation between a concept and everyday experience, as a result of discussions by the learners. . University students (N = 26) were divided into 13 pairs, and asked to produce an explanation of the relation between concepts and everyday experience, through discussions within each pair. If the students could not reach an understanding on their own, the experimenter provided revoicing intervention for the pair's discussions. The results revealed that revoicing intervention increased the number of transactive discussions (Berkowitz & Gibbs, 1983), which had the effect of establishing understanding. The number of metaphors from everyday experience that were used to explain the meaning of the concepts also increased. In summary, the revoicing intervention supported the participants in achieving an understanding of the concepts. It is possible that this intervention could have wide application in diverse educational practices.