What ideas do children hold about the naturl world? How do these ideas affect their learning
of science? When children begin secondary school they already have knowledge and ideas …

Abstract Representations such as formal notations and diagrams routinely figure in students'
learning of mathematics and science. However, in light of the extensive research on …

We conducted two studies of beliefs about laboratory and everyday thermal phenomena.
The first study identified concepts of heat energy and temperature held by adolescents …

This study shows two aspects: the predator–prey relations and the preconceptions held by
children (9–10 years old) on the construction of food chains. The subjects of the study were …

People often make erroneous predictions about the trajectories of moving objects.
McCloskey (1983a, 1983b) and others have suggested that many of these errors stem from …

La ciencia que se enseña en la escuela suele ser muy distinta de la ciencia real. También
de los conocimientos correspondientes empleados en la vida cotidiana. Partiendo de tan …

While augmenting the literature with data that further exhibit context-specific responding to
qualitative motion problems, Cooke and Breedin (1994) exhibit common theoretical and …

In contrast to Piaget's formulation of the development of causality, adults often generate
precausal reasoning in an attempt to understand natural phenomena. Such precausal …

The purpose of this study was to investigate how undergraduate students at the University of
Northern Iowa who had taken prior coursework on non-calculus general physics with a unit …

This study investigated the effectiveness of two instructional strategy components (visual
representation and ancillary information) which were derived from the expert/novice …