Students' use of cultural metaphors and their scientific understandings related to heating
✍ Scribed by Fred Lubben; Tom Netshisaulu; Bob Campbell
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 89 KB
- Volume
- 83
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0097-0352
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This study explores African students' use of cultural metaphoric reasoning in classifying everyday situations as hot or cold, as is part of Sotho cultural tradition. It documents the extent to which such metaphoric reasoning is related to the use of science (mis)conceptions of heating. Written probes were used to document cultural metaphoric reasoning and science misconceptions of students entering a university science program. The same instruments were used as postprobes after a 4-week teaching intervention using experimental cognitive conflict strategies for various standard misconceptions on heating. The findings show that almost a third of the sample used metaphoric reasoning consistently. This group was, as expected, significantly dominated by Sotho speakers. Initially, a large percentage of students explained the particulate effect of heating in terms of melting, shrinking, or breaking up of atoms. Most students identified specific materials as good insulators against coldness or against heat. Heat transfer was frequently explained in terms of absorption, diffusion, or reflection rather than conduction. There were no significant differences in the type and frequencies of these alternative concepts held by cultural metaphoric and noncultural metaphoric reasoners before the intervention.