The Research Of Conceptual Change Instruction In Middle School Chemistry

The Research of science learning has shown that students come into science class with various views. These views, especially these conceptions that are inconsistent with scientific conceptions will affect students' understanding of scientific conceptions. Therefore, the problem of conceptual change, namely how to implement the change from pre-conceptions to scientific conceptions has been an important issue in educational psychology. Plenty of achievements have been made all over the world, but our nation has been lack of systematical and in-depth research on the conceptual change theory. So, we choose conceptual change as our research subject to explore a series of problems carrying conceptual change teaching out in chemistry learning.The research includes four major parts: the achievements made in conceptual change, theoretical background of conceptual change, the methods for testing alternative conceptions and the analysis on chemical alternative conceptions, conceptual change teaching strategies in chemistry learning and suggestions.The core of conceptual change theory is Conceptual Change Model(CCM) that was proposed by Posner and colleagues in 1982.They pointed out that four conditions needed to be present for conceptual change to occur: (a) There must be dissatisfaction with existing conceptions; (b) A new conception must be intelligible; (c) A new conception must appear initially plausible; (d) A new conception should suggest the possibility of a fruitful research program. Along with the deeper research on influential factors, many researchers have modified this model, designed conceptual change teaching patterns and effective teaching strategies. The empirical studies have proved that implementing CCM into instructional practice could promote students' conceptual change in science learning.Conceptual change theory is based on philosophy of science and constructivism, which insists that learners actively construct their understanding on the basis of their experiences.The starting point of conceptual change is the students' alternative conceptions. We introduce and analyze the common methods used to detect chemical alternative conceptions and give some instances. Then, wesummarize the conclusions of some aspects that covered particulate nature of matter, solution, atoms and molecules, chemical equations, chemical change and chemical equilibrium etc. Moreover, we discuss the sources and features of these alternative conceptions. Though without investigation, we think they mainly root in common experience, ordinary language, social environment, instruction and inconsonant analogy etc., and contact tightly with students' living experiences and are stable, robust and persistent.On the basis of analyzing chemical alternative conceptions, we introduce some teaching strategies used to promote conceptual change in chemistry instruction, including analogy strategy, cognitive apprenticeship, co-operating learning and project-based learning. According to these strategies, we propose some suggestions.In the end, we preview prospect for future research along with analyzing the problems existing in the thesis.