Conceptual+Change

The theory of conceptual change seeks to explain how a student's conceptions are changed when new evidence is encountered and accepted. Students may use prior knowledge to aid in their understanding of the new evidence, a method coined assimilation. When an understanding cannot be reconciled via assimilation, a student must rearrange their understanding of more core concepts in order to resolve the new evidence, a method termed accommodation.
 * 1) Posner, G et al. (1982)

Several conditions are required to create conceptual change. First, students must become dissatisfied with their current conceptions to the extent that they are willing to reconsider their conceptions. The new concept must then be intelligible, plausible, and fruitful, meaning the learner understands it, it makes sense, and it can be used in some fashion. If these conditions are not met a learner is unlikely to give up his or her misconception. This idea regarding how conceptual change takes place is modeled after Kuhn's idea for how scientific knowledge advances. According to Kuhn, scientists generally operate under some commonly agreed upon theory, or paradigm. They generate theories in accordance with this paradigm and those theories guide experimentation and scientific advances. Eventually, though, a test or experiment will invalidate a theory, causing the scientists to either reject the results or reject the theory. When this happens, newer, better theories will emerge that might bring the overarching paradigm into question. Kuhn referred to this as radical science. Eventually the better paradigm will win out and become the new norm. Many cognitive theorists argue that the process of rejecting old ideas for new ones is similar to Kuhns notion of a paradigm shift. Thus, learning is defined as a kind of cognitive paradigm shift.

-Learning that changes an existing conception. -Goes beyond accumulating new facts or learning new skills; an existing conception is changed (assimilation) or replaced (accommodation), and then becomes the new framework that a student will use to solve problems and/or explain phenomena

Within the context of learning, Duit describes conceptual change as occurring when "pre-instructional conceptual structures of the learners [are] fundamentally restructured in order to allow understanding of the intended knowledge, that is, the acquisition of science concepts." (Duit 2003). In other words, teaching for conceptual change would require the instructor to do something like the following:

1) Identify student preconceptions 2) Evaluate preconceptions 3) Present a conceptual view that conflicts with the students current one 4) Scaffold conceptual restructuring

Initial conceptual change theory failed to incorporate affective mediators of conceptual change, a modification introduced by situativists (Pintrich, 1993). These mediators include the learner's goals, values (ie personal beliefs, career paths, etc.), self-efficacy (confidence), and control beliefs (ie to what extent the learner believes that he can learn or change his knowledge). In other words, conceptual change does not only depend on the conditions presented by Posner. Humans are emotional creatures who must feel the need to learn and believe in the possibility of learning.