Investigating A Grade 11 Student's Evolving Conceptions of Heat and Temperature

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 36, NO. 1, PP.
55–87 (1999)
Investigating a Grade 11 Student’s Evolving Conceptions

of Heat and Temperature
Allan G. Harrison,1 Diane J. Grayson,2 David F. Treagust1

1Science and Mathematics Education Centre, Curtin University of Technology,
GPO Box U1987 Perth 6845, Western Australia
2MASTEC, Private Bag X9521, Pietersburg, 0700, South Africa
Received 22 January 1997; revised 6 October 1997; accepted 23 February 1998
Abstract: Many students enter physics courses with highly intuitive conceptions of nonobservable
phenomena such as heat and temperature. The conceptions of heat and temperature are usually poorly dif-
ferentiated and heat is often confused with internal energy. This article focuses on one student’s cognitive
and affective changes which occurred during the Grade 11 topic of heat and temperature. The instruction
used an inquiry approach coupled with concept substitution strategies aimed at restructuring alternative
conceptions identified using pretests. A constructivist perspective drove both the teaching and research,
and Ausubel’s theory of meaningful learning augmented the interpretive framework. The qualitative data
comprising transcripts of all classroom discussions, student portfolios containing all of each student’s writ-
ten work, and teacher/researcher observations and reflections were collected and interpreted to generate a
case study for one student named Ken. Ken’s initial conceptual framework was undifferentiated with re-
spect to heat and temperature. The course activities and concomitant use of concept substitution helped
him differentiate these concepts and integrate them in a more scientifically acceptable way. A degree of af-
fective and epistemological change was also identified as the course progressed. In-depth examination of
the student’s prior, formative, and final conceptions showed that during this unit, the student progressive-
ly accepted greater responsibility for his learning, was willing to take cognitive risks, and became more
critical and rigorous in both written and verbal problem solving. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res
Sci Teach 36: 55–87, 1999
The diverse intuitive views of the world that children bring to physics instruction are well
documented in the science educational literature (Driver, Squires, Rushworth, & Wood-Robin-
son, 1994; Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985; McDermott, 1993; Osborne & Freyberg, 1985;
Pfundt & Duit, 1994), and an extensive body of theoretical and classroom research has been de-
voted to developing conceptual change learning models that address these views (Duit, Gold-
berg, & Niedderer, 1992; Hewson, 1981, 1982; Nussbaum & Novick, 1982; Posner, Strike,
Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982). Some high-achieving students complete physics courses with many
of their intuitive conceptions intact (Champagne, Gunstone, & Klopfer, 1985; Yager, 1991), im-
plying that their intuitive conceptions are not changed by the received instruction and that
Correspondence to: A.G. Harrison
© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/99/010055-33

56 HARRISON, GRAYSON, AND TREAGUST
progress in synthesizing an effective model of conceptual change teaching has been slower than
expected. Discrepant events that highlight the differences between students’ and scientists’ con-
ceptions were thought to stimulate children to relinquish their ideas in favor of scientists’ sci-
ence (e.g., Cosgrove & Osborne, 1985). However, students may simply allow the new science
to coexist alongside their intuitive views (Scott, 1992), rote learn the science concepts for the
duration of the topic and return to their intuitive views after the test, or explain away the obvi-
ous differences. Alternatively, recent research argues that conceptual change learning is often an
incremental process (Duschl & Gitomer, 1991) that may be driven by a range of hot, irrational,
social, and motivational forces (Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993) as well as the rational change
espoused by Posner et al. (1982). Similarly, Solomon (1987) claimed that social factors signif-
icantly influence classroom learning and knowledge construction, and progress in reforming
children’s intuitive conceptions appears to be most successful when the social milieu of the
classroom becomes a platform for the construction of the desired science concepts (Hennessey,
1993).
Theoretical Framework for Changing Student Conceptions

Constructivist perspectives of knowledge development (Tobin, 1993) offer an explanation
for the origin and persistence of alternative and synthetic student conceptions (Strike & Posner,
1992; Vosniadou, 1994). Student intuitive conceptions that are grounded in everyday experi-
ences seem to be especially resistant to change (Driver, 1989; Osborne & Freyberg, 1985).
Growth in the understanding of the nature and origin of alternative student conceptions has been
accompanied by pedagogies that attempt to redress the mismatch between children’s science and
scientists’ science by using conceptual change learning models (e.g., Hewson, 1981, 1982; Pos-
ner et al., 1982). Early conceptual change teaching approaches recommended generating dis-
satisfaction in the student with his or her alternative conception followed by enhancing the sta-
tus of the desired scientific conception (Cosgrove & Osborne, 1985). Conversely, Hewson and
Hewson (1981, 1982, 1984, 1992, 1996) prioritized raising the status of the new conception at
the expense of the old conception, arguing that conceptual change should occur when prefer-
ence for the new conception causes the student to become dissatisfied with the prior conception.
In summarizing the literature, we conclude that there are at least two conceptual change levels:
easy and difficult. Some of the more popular conceptual change models are listed in Table 1.
As shown in the table, most writers visualize conceptual development or knowledge re-
structuring as occurring at two or more levels. The first level, weak restructuring, involves the
addition of new facts and the generation of new relations between existing concepts. Assimila-
tion and conceptual capture are examples of weak restructuring, and this type of conceptual
change is less dramatic and more common because students simply capture or add new infor-
mation to their previous conceptions.
Much of what students do is learning things they didn’t know by making connections to
what they already know; this is not a problem when their present views can be reconciled
with what they learn. (Hewson & Hewson, 1992, p. 61)
The second level is radical (or strong) restructuring, involving changes to core concepts,
conceptual structure, and the phenomena that can be explained by the new theory (Vosniadou
& Brewer, 1987). Indeed, Chi, Slotta, and de Leeuw (1994) described radical restructuring of
conceptions in ontological terms meaning that students change the way they view a phenome-
non; for example, heat changes from a material fluid to a flow of energy. Thagard (1992) also
Table 1
Types of conceptual change proposed by various authors
Author Information Addition Easy Conceptual Change Difficult Conceptual Change
Kuhn (1962) Normal science Revolutionary science

Lakatos (1970) Soft core changes Hard-core changes
Posner et al. (1982); Strike & Assimilation Accommodation
Posner (1992)
Hewson (1981, 1982) Conceptual capture Conceptual exchange
Carey (1986) Simple accretion Weak restructuring Strong restructuring
Vosniadou (1994) Simple accretion Weak restructuring Radical restructuring
Chi, Slotta, & de Leeuw (1994) Implied accretion Branch jumping Tree swapping
(added information) (new classification) (ontological change)
Duschl & Gitomer (1991); Incremental or evolutionary development of new conceptions
CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Laudan (1984)
Thagard (1992) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Adding an instance Continuum Tree switching
57
described the strongest conceptual change in ontology-like terms, but suggested that there is a
continuum of conceptual changes which range from adding a new instance of a conception
(weak) right through to ontological change (strong). Examples of this level of conceptual change
are accommodation and conceptual exchange. At this level of conceptual change, the status of
one conception can rise only at the expense of the competing conception—that is, the two con-
ceptions are incommensurable (Hewson & Hewson, 1984). The more intelligible, plausible, and
fruitful conception succeeds, at least for the time being, because conceptual status is fluid. In-
deed, Posner et al. (1982) predicted that some students will regress to their prior conceptions if
there is a reversal of the status changes. Finally, the notion that prior conceptions become ex-
tinct is untenable because all students remember, to some degree, their previous ideas.
While theories describing the cognitive processes involved in conceptual change have been
well articulated, what actually happens in the classroom is less clear. For example, Driver and
Erickson (1983) pointed out that students’ “conceptual frameworks” may not necessarily change
in the expected manner during instruction even though a sound teaching method is employed
(Linn & Songer, 1991). Moreover, Solomon (1987) showed that learning is influenced by the
social context, which mediates the changes that take place during instruction. Pintrich et al.
(1993) challenged the notion that conceptual change is a cold, rational process (Strike & Pos-
ner, 1992), by arguing that a wide range of hot, irrational, social, and motivational factors me-
diate knowledge restructuring in everyday classrooms.
Student conceptual development therefore consists of a variable mix of introduction of new
facts and concepts; weak restructuring of existing conceptions, and strong restructuring of ex-
isting conceptions. Working from this theoretical base, and bearing in mind the importance to
students in the classroom of motivation, interest and social factors, concept substitution
(Grayson, 1994, 1996) appeared to offer potential for restructuring students’ conceptions of heat
and temperature in our Grade 11 physics course. Rather than aiming for across-the-board dis-
satisfaction with inappropriate conceptions, concept substitution involves probing each student’s
ideas to expose the current understanding of the topic to be learned. During instruction, the sci-
entifically acceptable aspects of the student’s alternative conception(s) are identified and rein-
forced so that the student realizes that these ideas are correct. Hashweh (1986) recommended
that teachers should “show students that their preconceptions are not wrong but limited . . . that
their preconceptions . . . are indeed special cases of the post-conceptions and could be derived
from these preconceptions” (pp. 245–246). In this way, the students’ correct ideas function in a
way that is analogous to Clement, Brown, and Zietsman’s (1989) anchoring conceptions. The
correct aspects of the alternative conception are used as anchors in re-forming the incorrect as-
pects of the alternative conception. This process also appears to use the key elements of
Ausubel’s “meaningful learning” theory (Novak, 1984). We therefore believed that Ausubel’s
theory of meaningful learning was particularly useful for interpreting changes in student con-
ceptions that occur during constructivist learning episodes. “The central idea in Ausubel’s the-
ory is that of meaningful learning, which he defines as ‘nonarbitrary, substantive, nonverbatim
incorporation of new knowledge into cognitive structure’” (Novak, 1984, p. 608). Nonarbitrary
incorporation of new knowledge means that the new knowledge is related to prior knowledge
and the learner makes a conscious, deliberate effort to harmonize the two. Ausubel recognized
that each student’s “cognitive structure is unique, and hence subsumption of new knowledge
produces a cognitive interaction product that is dependent both on what concepts or miscon-
ceptions the learner already has and the material presented” (Novak, 1984, p. 608). In mean-
ingful learning contexts, pretests and formative discussions that expose and regularly revisit stu-
dents’ prior conceptions in light of current conceptions are effective ways to monitor and mentor
cognitive growth (Hashweh, 1986). These techniques also serve to identify inappropriate inter-
CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT 59
action products, or synthetic models (Vosniadou, 1994), that may arise when past and present
conceptions interact (Strike & Posner, 1992).
In the context of the present study, which focused on student conceptions of heat and tem-
perature, Ausubel’s notion of progressive differentiation of concepts was especially useful be-
cause most students treat heat and temperature as if they were the same (Wiser & Carey, 1983);
heat capacity and specific heat are confused and heat transfer mechanisms are poorly differenti-
ated. Not only must students differentiate these concepts, they must learn to reconcile each in an
integrative way so that once they recognize how heat and temperature differ, they then need to
understand how they are related. Students also need to develop the ability to use the two con-
cepts in a mutually constructive manner to make sense of thermal interactions. For example, stu-
dents need to understand not only that temperature differences account for why heat is lost and
gained, but also how to work out how much heat flows and what effect it has—namely, causing
temperature or phase changes in the interacting objects. In addition to subsuming new concepts
into their conceptual frameworks, Ausubel observed that students often engage in superordinate
learning where, as a consequence of conceptual differentiation, they generate new relationships
between their old and new knowledge. The use of concept mapping is particularly useful for con-
solidating new hierarchies and new connections between propositions and concepts. Ausubel also
proposed the use of advance organisers as a pedagogical strategy. This device, often an analogy,
is more general and more inclusive than usual learning episodes and is employed to point for-
ward to new knowledge and may be “perceived by the learner to act as a cognitive bridge be-
tween what he or she already knows and what is to be learned” (Novak, 1984, p. 608).
Carey’s (1991) work, also with basic science concepts, found that children consistently fail
to distinguish between entities such as mass and density. To make sense of scientist’s science,
she argued that students need to differentiate incompatible concepts (e.g., mass/density,
heat/temperature) and coalesce separate concepts that belong together (e.g., humans are ani-
mals). There seem to be strong similarities between Ausubel’s and Carey’s differentiations and
between integrative reconciliation and coalescence; however, Ausubel’s theory of meaningful
learning is more comprehensive and seemed more useful in this study. As elements of a theory
of learning then, subsumption, progressive differentiation, integrative reconciliation, superordi-
nate learning, and advance organizers all contribute to meaningful learning which is the an-
tithesis of rote learning. Separately and together, these elements justify many of the strategies
used in this unit of instruction, and these elements will be revisited as and where they apply.
The learning theories espoused by Hewson and Hewson (1992), Strike and Posner (1992),
Novak (1984), and Duschl and Gitomer (1991) all emphasize the centrality of the student con-
sciously examining his or her understandings and knowledge structures. These constructivist
perspectives were seen to be important in this study. Because student alternative conceptions of
heat and temperature are highly resistant to change, strategies which cause the students to re-
peatedly examine their beliefs offered the best opportunity for restructuring understanding. The
theories of conceptual change and meaningful learning described above therefore offered the re-
searchers a sound base for interpreting the learning events that occurred in the classroom.
Methodology
In this new, independent school, where the first author taught, senior classes in science are
small. A class of five Grade 11 boys were taught heat and temperature using the Physics by in-
quiry materials (McDermott, 1996) during 40 45-min periods over 8 weeks, and these materi-
als satisfied the Secondary Education Authority’s (1993) syllabus. The aim of this qualitative re-
search was to produce a longitudinal case study capable of describing the learning process that
favored a change from intuitive student conceptions to the desired scientific view of heat and
temperature. The first author taught the class with assistance from the second author, who act-
ed as discussant and critical-friend, and the third author provided theoretical support. The learn-
ing environment was purposefully restructured to allow the students to proceed at their own pace
and to socially negotiate the learning outcomes during regular small-group and whole-class dis-
cussions. Conversion of the previously teacher-centered classroom into a student-centered one
required the teacher to reconceptualize his role; this process is described by Grayson, Harrison,
and Treagust (1995).
Before commencing the topic, each student was pretested (Figure 1) to establish his pri-
or conceptions of heat and temperature, and again halfway through the unit. The student-cen-
Heat Predictions
This is not a test. It will not affect your marks in any way. It will be most helpful to this
study if you would write as much as you can for each question.
Name Date
1. In your own words explain what you think heat is. Try to say where your ideas come
from.
2. Suppose that you have two cubes of the same size, one made of wood and one made
of metal. Both have been sitting in the room for some time. How do you think the tem-
perature of the two cubes compare? Explain your answer.
[Students were supplied with 1 cm wooden and steel cubes]
3. Suppose the oven is turned to 60°C and the following things were put in the oven and
left there for a few hours: some flour, a bowl of water, and some nails. After a few
hours, how will the temperatures of the substances compare with each other? Explain
your answer.
4. Suppose I have two bricks made from the same kind of clay, but one is large and the
other is small. Suppose I put them both in an oven at 120°C for a few hours. At the
end of a few hours, how will the temperatures of the two bricks compare?
[An oven containing the two bricks at 120°C was visible during this period.]
5. Suppose I have a pot of boiling water on the stove. If I turn the stove up to a higher
setting, what will happen to the temperature of the boiling water?
[This experiment was set up on an electric hotplate and was visible on a nearby bench.]
The answer space for each question was half a page.
Figure 1. The pretest administered at the commencement of the heat and temperature
topic.
tered learning required the students to perform investigations in groups, write descriptive and
explanatory answers to each investigation or problem, and discuss these individually and in
groups with the teacher and the discussant. At least one period in five was devoted to class
discussions of the students’ current conceptions and frequent reference was made to their
pretest predictions. All formal, and many informal discussions during this unit were record-
ed and transcribed verbatim. After 4 weeks and at the end of 8 weeks, the students were asked
to draw concept maps of their understanding of heat and temperature. A portfolio was com-
piled for each student containing pretests, every written answer, each discussion, all tests and
examination papers, plus anecdotal comments (about discussions and questions that could not
be audiotaped).
Concept substitution (Grayson, 1994, 1996) involved eliciting from each student his con-
ception of the concept being investigated. In almost every instance, some aspects of the con-
ceptions were scientifically acceptable; these aspects were identified by the discussant in class
as appropriate for the students. The discussion then focused on identifying the ways in which
the inappropriate aspects of the student conceptions needed to be modified to become compat-
ible with the correct anchoring components of the students’ knowledge. In most instances, sub-
sequent student investigations and problems applied this modified understanding. Resilient al-
ternative conceptions were regularly revisited throughout the course in both discussions and
in-class problems.
Choosing a Student for the Case Study
Each student portfolio was analyzed to extract the data that were qualitatively interpreted
(Erickson, 1986; Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Patton, 1990) and used to write individual case stud-
ies (Merriam, 1988) documenting each student’s learning of heat and temperature. The evolv-
ing conceptions that emerged during the topic are described as they related to one student whom
we called Ken. Ken’s case study was chosen because his prior conceptions were clearly stated
verbally and in writing. Two other students, Des and John, were equally capable and sponta-
neously voiced their opinions.
Ken regularly volunteered his opinions, willingly discussed his reasons for his views dur-
ing class discussions, and changed his conceptions during the course of instruction. While Ken’s
conceptual development is the primary focus of this article, the other four students were actively
engaged in the classroom discussions, and their comments are included where appropriate. The
choice of Ken’s case for this article was made well after the teaching concluded, all students
were taught and studied as equitably as possible, and all were aware of the in-class observations
and recording of their comments and ideas. Each student’s written work was collected and treat-
ed equally by the teacher and researchers.
Pretest and Initial Activities
The Heat and Temperature topic commenced with a pencil and paper pretest (Figure 1).
Each student was supplied with a pair of 1-cm cubes (wood and iron) and all the experiments
discussed in the pretest were set up on adjacent benches for the students to observe and exam-
ine if they so wished. The five students were given the whole period to think privately about
and answer the five pretest questions. The following day, an entire period was devoted to an in-
depth discussion of the pretest questions.
Results and Interpretations

The study focused on the conceptions that emerged during the pretest and discussion and
reports Ken’s subsequent conceptual development.
Initial State: Preinstructional Conceptions

During the heat and temperature pretest, Ken described heat this way:
Heat is a sort of energy which [is] created by burning things. . . . Heat is easily conduct-
ed by some substance (i.e., metal) while not as easily conducted by others (i.e., nonmetal).
My ideas are just common knowledge.
The pretests revealed that each student’s conceptual framework contained some scientific
propositions plus a variety of children’s science propositions (Gilbert, Osborne, & Fensham,
1982; Osborne & Freyberg, 1985). Ken was no exception; during the pretest discussion with the
teacher and Des (with whom Ken often worked), he reiterated his belief that the iron and wood-
en cubes respond differently to changes in the temperature of their surroundings.
Ken: I think that the metal cube changes . . . as the room temperature changes; like
the wood would stay just one temperature, the same temperature; the other one
changes. Like if you put that in the sun [indicating the metal], it would get hot.
Teacher: Okay, but what about the wooden one?
Ken: Just stay the same.
Teacher: It’d stay the same?
Ken: Ah, it’d change . . . just a bit.
Des: That’s because the wood in here . . . the metal in here it absorbs that heat from
your hand so it makes . . . it makes you think that it’s actually cold.
Ken: But if you had it in the sun, it’s getting hot so . . .
Des: So because the metal’s absorbed the heat from the sun and now it’s transferring
it into your hand, but the wood, the wood doesn’t absorb heat because it’s a
good insulator, it doesn’t give off heat, it doesn’t take in the heat, so they are
both the same temperature in different temperatures.
Teacher: What do you think, Ken?
Ken: I think it changes no matter what.
Despite the incompleteness of his argument (different conductivities), Des held a more sci-
entific conception than Ken. Ken seemed to adopt teleological reasoning when he stated that ob-
jects react to thermal environmental changes based on the object’s macroscopic properties, func-
tion, or use, and imposed events rather than in accordance with the principles of thermal
interaction (Erickson & Tiberghien, 1985). Even when faced with sound contrary reasons from
Des, Ken was adamant, apparently satisfied with his explanation. Ken’s thinking was guided by
the iron cube feeling colder than the wood and by how he expected objects to respond when
heated. For instance, the third pretest question talked about some flour, nails, and a beaker of
water left in an oven at 60⬚C for a few hours. Ken wrote, “The nails would be the hottest, then
the water, and least, the flour. Because the nails trapped heat, the water would be boiling by
then, but the flour is just about 60⬚C.” He was quite sure that the water would boil in an oven
at 60⬚C, because the following day he openly argued this position.
Ken: I don’t think they would be just the same because by then the water would be
boiling and . . .
Des: At 60⬚? It’s only 60⬚.

Joe: Water boils at 100⬚.
Ken: I think it will be boiling in there.
Teacher: That’s Okay, I’m just interested in what you think. If you don’t agree with Ken,
that’s your prerogative.
John: They’d all be 60⬚. . . They would all become 60⬚ after about 20 min or so and
the water would then become 60⬚ after an hour or something.
Teacher: . . .But you still think, Ken, that the water would be hotter?
Ken: Yes.
Ken knew that water boils at 100⬚C because he strongly defended this concept when dis-
cussing Pretest Question 5. It is therefore intriguing why he so adamantly asserted that the wa-
ter would boil in an oven at only 60⬚C. The context may be important. Remembering that he
said that the nails would be hotter, it may be concluded that Ken thought the nails’ temperature
exceeded 100⬚C. In everyday experiences with ovens, metal objects are very hot and will burn
you, water boils or evaporates, and cereal foods such as flour are reasonably safe to handle. Ken
probably ascribed greater importance to the oven (“is hot”) rather than the temperature (“is
60⬚C”). If the oven’s properties and function dominated, then this supports the teleological no-
tion and illustrates the degree to which prior knowledge and experiences interfere with science
learning.
Ken was not the only student to display idiosyncratic ideas about how objects behave dur-
ing thermal interactions. During the pretest, only Des appeared to hold a reasonably scientific
idea of heat and temperature and thermal interactions. Pretest Question 4 discussed the behav-
ior of two different-sized but otherwise identical bricks which had been left in an oven at 120⬚C.
The large brick was about 5 kg, and the smaller one, about 0.5 kg. In this instance, Ken was
able to balance the differences in mass and surface area and deduced that after a few hours, the
two bricks would be at the same temperature (120⬚C). He initially predicted that the small brick
would be hotter than the large brick (pretest and subsequent discussion) but changed his pre-
diction to say that the small brick would just heat up faster than the large brick because of its
superior surface area to volume ratio.
Pretest Question 5 asked whether there would be a change in water temperature if the rate
of heating of a pot of boiling water were increased. Ken correctly predicted that although the
temperature would not change, the rate of boiling would increase. Conversely, John asserted that
the temperature of the boiling water would rise to the temperature of the hotplate.
Promoting Concept Differentiation Using Concept Substitution

During the pretest and discussion, it became evident that at best Ken possessed a rudimen-
tary conception of heat and temperature, and like the other students, from time to time he de-
scribed temperature as a measure of the amount of heat in an object. At this stage of his science
learning, Ken simply saw heat as a form of energy.
One week later, the difference between heat and temperature became the subject of a
lengthy discussion led by the second author. The intervening in-class activities asked the stu-
dents to examine a variety of substances at different temperatures using their senses and ther-
mometers to synthesize an operational definition for temperature. The first part of the discus-
sion concentrated on clarifying that definition and distinguishing temperature from the rate of
heat transfer (what you feel). Note that in the excerpt of the discussion given below, Ken is
silent.
Disc: Now I heard another idea come up here that you could feel it [an object] to get the
temperature. Is that true?
Des: No, you could . . .
Tim: Estimate it.
Joe: Estimate the temperature.
Disc: Would feeling something—if I feel this paper and this metal clip, they feel differ-
ent. Does that means they’re at a different temperature?
Joe: No, not necessarily.
Disc: Why not?
Tim: Because they’re both at room temperature.
Joe: Because one’s a better conductor of heat than the other.
Disc: Okay, why are they feeling different?
Des: The metal’s taken more heat away from your hand, so your hand feels cool because
it’s . . .
Joe: Absorbed. . . . [Several students spoke at once] The paper does, but not as much.
Disc: Okay. So does that mean it’s okay to measure temperature with my hands?
All: No.
Disc: No, because it gives very misleading results and makes me think that things that
are at the same temperature are different because they feel different. Okay, so
you’ve just clarified for me that they’re different, not because the temperature’s dif-
ferent but because they’re transferring heat from my hand at different rates. So feel
is a bad way of judging temperature; it can only be measured by sticking a ther-
mometer in something and reading the number off the thermometer.
The next part of the discussion focused on clarifying the distinction between heat and tem-
perature. At this point, Ken began to participate.
Disc: Now that we’ve clarified temperature, what is heat? Is it the same thing?
Des: No.
Tim: It’s a source of energy.
Joe: Temperature is how you measure . . . heat.
Ken: It is what causes the temperature to change.
When asked to go on, Ken was unable to extend this idea and disengaged from the con-
versation. At this juncture, concept substitution was employed by the discussant. Each student
had volunteered his current understanding of heat and temperature, and it was evident that these
two concepts were still poorly differentiated (Novak, 1984). The focus for concept substitution
was the questions “What is heat?” and “What is the importance of temperature in thermal in-
teractions?” The discourse took this form:
Disc: Heat, in fact: We can only talk about something being transferred, can’t actually
talk about an object as having heat, they have temperature, and we can measure that
with a thermometer, but they don’t have heat. Heat is something; we can’t say ex-
actly what it is, but it is something that is transferred. Now, under what conditions
will heat be transferred to another object?
John: When they have a different temperature.
Disc: And that process of transfer, we give that process a name; does anyone know what
that name is?
Joe: Conduction.
Disc: That’s certainly one of the ways that heat can be transferred, but more generally
when two objects interact because they are at different temperatures, and they ex-
change heat, its general term is . . .
Des: Radiation.
Disc: We call this a thermal interaction. Whenever heat is transferred between two ob-
jects that are at different temperatures, that process is called thermal interaction.
Now, if you have two objects in contact with each other at different temperatures,
will that thermal interaction continue forever?
John: No, only till they get to an eventual temperature . . . equilibrium.
Disc: They reach the same temperature or reach thermal equilibrium. . . .
Even though substantial scientific ideas emerged during this and previous discussions, the
students did not adequately respond to the cue, “they exchange heat, its general term is?” There-
fore, the discussant had to volunteer the concept “thermal interaction.” The discussant concep-
tually substituted “thermal interaction” for all forms of heat transfer mentioned by the students.
The discussion continued with the discussant and the students restating and reinforcing their
understanding of these ideas. The scientific definition of heat was developed as an interaction
product between the students’ ideas and the discussant’s conception. Heat was progressively dif-
ferentiated as energy that is something being transferred, in contrast to temperature which was
a measure of the intensity of the object’s internal energy. “What you feel” was related to the rate
of heat transfer to or from your hand. Thermal interaction was introduced as a superordinate
heading (Novak, 1984) for all forms of heat transfer, and when John introduced the equilibrium
concept, the discussant was able to expand this into thermal equilibrium by building on the stu-
dents’ prior and current knowledge.
The pretest question about the nails, water, and flour left in the oven at 60⬚C was then used
as a context for applying the differentiated concepts of heat and temperature and the new con-
cepts of thermal interactions and thermal equilibrium. Ken had previously asserted that the wa-
ter would be boiling and the nails even hotter. The next excerpt depicts his struggle to recon-
cile his preconception of temperature as how hot an object feels with the recently learned
distinction between what you feel (rate of heat transfer) and temperature. His conceptions are
in a state of transition: He has not yet fully relinquished his preconception; yet he has begun to
accept the new conception. He contradicts himself as he vacillates between reasoning based on
the old and new conceptions.
Disc: If I take these things out of the oven, surely that flour is not going to feel as hot as
the nails.
Ken: But if you leave it in room temperature, they wouldn’t feel the same, either . . . so,
because our feeling’s not accurate . . . they do have the same temperature.
Disc: So, it’s important to sort out the notion of what you feel and what you read on the
thermometer. Is it possible for any of these objects to be hotter than 60⬚?
Ken: Might be . . .
Disc: Might be? How would that happen?
Ken: Because when we boil the water, although the hotplate is the same temperature, up
there it reaches 100⬚ and then rises a bit. . . . I don’t know, just thinking.
Ken’s conception was changing, but it had not yet reached the scientific conception, and he
again expressed his uncertainty in the next exchange by ending a confused attempt at applying
thermal equilibrium with “dunno.” The discussion concerning the nails, water, and flour in the
oven concluded like this:
Des: They must be all the same temperature . . . about 60⬚.

Disc: About?
Des: At the temperature which they were about.
Disc: Is it about 60⬚ or is it 60⬚?

Des: Depends on what temperature the oven’s at.
Disc: The oven is at 60⬚.
Des: Then the objects would all be at 60⬚.
Ken: I don’t know.
Disc: Unconvinced? What is it you’re uncertain about?
Ken: Because we haven’t done the experiments, and . . . when you say the objects are
colder, couldn’t that cool the oven down?
Ken’s “I don’t know” in the face of Des’s explanation supports the claim that Ken needed
to internalize concepts to his satisfaction before he would openly support or use an idea. His de-
sire for experimental evidence recurred throughout the course, and Ken periodically devised his
own investigations or suggested useful ways to test hypotheses. The final comment in which he
reversed the action (“cool the oven down”) suggests that he was accommodating the concept of
thermal interaction because he was trying to conceptualize equilibrium as a two-way process.
Imagining that the increase in temperature of “the [colder] objects” affects the oven’s tempera-
ture signals the beginning of quite sophisticated reasoning.
These are the cues that skilled and alert teachers use to extend and consolidate key concepts.
Meaningful learning does not stop at the differentiation of, for example, heat and temperature; it
pursues superordinate learning (here, thermal interactions and thermal equilibrium) and makes use
of reconciliatory integration situations where the conceptions are brought together to solve abstract
or difficult problems. Teachers are often tempted to effect lesson closure once the desired concept
emerges. Dykstra, Monarch, and Boyle (1992) insisted that keeping the discussion open is essen-
tial if real conceptual gains are to be made, and Hashweh (1986) recommended making explicit
to the students how and where they have changed their conceptions.
In the discussion concerning the two bricks (Pretest Question 4), Joe invented a pizza anal-
ogy to explain why a small object heats up faster than a large object when the same amount of
heat is absorbed. In his analogy, he pointed out that a small piece of pizza heats up much faster
than a large piece of pizza in a microwave oven. The class was coming to recognize that when
equal quantities of heat are absorbed by an object, the temperature increase is dependent upon
the mass (and specific heat) of the object. The concept of heat capacity was beginning to emerge
along with a realization that heat quantities and temperatures are measures of two different pa-
rameters—separate but related. Because the two bricks had very different masses (5 and 0.5 kg),
they would need to absorb proportionately different amounts of heat to raise their temperatures
to 120⬚C.
Ken’s ability to think through the concept and then apply his understanding was evident lat-
er in this period. Two students openly admitted that their pretest predictions about the bricks
were incorrect, and the whole class acknowledged the appropriateness of thermal interactions
consisting of heat flow due to temperature differences as an explanation for the two bricks reach-
ing the same temperatures but at different rates. Ken reflected on these ideas using a different
approach:
Ken: It is, like, we have, like, that if the bigger brick was hotter, the small one was cool-
er, and if the big one lost, say, 12 calories, and the small one gained it, so the [big]
brick lost only 1 . . . 1⬚, but can the small one gain more than 1 [⬚C]?
Disc: Yes, that’s right, exactly right, because if the small one is gaining the same amount
of heat, but there is less mass, then each gram will be gaining more heat than each
gram of the big one lost; so yes, the smaller one will experience a bigger temper-
ature change. Did you just have a revelation?
Joe: Sort of . . . it’s funny.

Disc: What is?
Des: Nothing . . . I understand it now.
Disc: Can you say what you understood that you didn’t understand before?
Des: I did understand it, but it wasn’t very clear.
The striking issue here is that Des was always the one who appeared to understand. All his
comments were substantially correct scientifically; yet it emerged that while he was saying all
the right things, by his own admission, he “wasn’t very clear.”
The preceding excerpts show how detailed class discussions and use of concept substitu-
tion lead to progressive differentiation among the students’ concepts of heat, temperature, and
rate of heat transfer. The new concepts of thermal interaction and thermal equilibrium were
added to the students’ repertoire of thermal concepts. Prior to this discussion, the students lacked
a logical consolidation of the acceptable parts of their knowledge into a format corresponding
to the expected scientific concepts—this was the role for concept substitution. Concept substi-
tution (Grayson, 1996) is more than just telling the students what is right or wrong. It involves
the students; they reveal their conceptions, and during discussion the appropriate ideas are re-
inforced and the correct term and/or part concepts are substituted for inappropriate terms and/or
part concepts. In Ausubel’s terms, the conceptualization of “thermal interaction” and “thermal
equilibrium” is superordinate learning because the students were organizing their thinking by
adding a new, more meaningful, hierarchical level.
The addition of thermal interaction to the students’ conceptual repertoire probably occurred
through a process such as conceptual capture (Hewson, 1981) or assimilation (Posner et al.,
1982), because this new information did not clash with the students’ prior conceptions. In this
sense, their learning proceeded without difficulty. On the other hand, Ken’s vacillation between
his initial conception of equating temperature with how hot an object feels and the new con-
ception of temperature as something quite distinct from what you feel suggests that what is need-
ed for conceptual change in this situation is accommodation or conceptual exchange, a process
which occurs less readily because of the greater changes in cognitive structure and commitment
demanded of the student.
Another point worth noting is how long it took for the students to reach the levels of un-
derstanding demonstrated in the excerpts. How many students in science classes share Des’s
dilemma of thinking they understand, yet finding out later that they really did not? How many
Kens are there who, after six periods of intensive laboratory work and directed discussion, are
only just starting to accommodate nonobservable concepts that many teachers present didacti-
cally in ⬍ 1 h of formal teaching? If this study demonstrates nothing else, it shows that in teach-
ing for understanding, there are many conceptual barriers to surmount and that reducing con-
tent can release the time required to address alternative conceptions. When students need to
change their conceptions from a material form to a process form (Chi et al., 1994), time de-
mands can be quite considerable.
Continued Differentiation of Concepts
The investigations through Periods 5 –8 involved the students in mixing equal and differ-
ent masses of water at different temperatures to determine the equilibrium temperature. The in-
structional materials worked through the principle that “the heat lost by the hot object is equal
to the heat gained by the cold object but the temperature change of the hot object is usually not
the same as the temperature change of the cold object” (McDermott, 1996). In answering a ques-
tion about heat lost and the heat gained during a thermal interaction between 4 g of hot water
and 3 g of cold water, Ken made this statement:
Each gram changes 3 calories in temperature . . . each gram changes 4 calories in tem-
perature. [Exercise 2.3]
Ken incorrectly used calories (units of heat) when he should have used degrees (units of
temperature). However, when asked to describe for homework the thermal interaction occurring
when the two masses of water were mixed, his explanation revealed a sound understanding of
specific heat an understanding that the quantity of heat gained, measured in calories, causes the
temperature to rise, and vice versa (Ken’s written description of this thermal interaction was at
least 200 words long). The quality of his written explanation supports a claim that he recog-
nized the difference between the quantity of heat transferred and the effect of the transferred
heat on the temperature of the objects losing and gaining heat. Ken’s erroneous statement high-
lights the difficulty students have in adopting scientific understanding and its associated lan-
guage. Language difficulties, both in deciphering and then in using scientific terms consistent-
ly, have been well documented (Bell & Freyberg, 1985; Gilbert et al., 1982; Sutton, 1992). The
frequent discussions employed in this class may have helped the students refine both their sci-
entific language and conceptions.
In subsequent thermal interaction problems, Ken demonstrated a growing competence in the
use of the concepts of heat, temperature, heat capacity, specific heat, thermal interaction, and ther-
mal equilibrium. Nevertheless, Ken’s differentiation of heat and temperature was by no means
complete or stable by Period 10. A lengthy discussion with Ken, Joe, and Tim (Experiment 3.1)
shows Ken (and, to a lesser extent, Joe and Tim) grappling with the problem of thermal interac-
tions. A piece of brass of known mass and at 100⬚C was placed in a known mass of water whose
initial and final temperatures were measured. The challenge was to determine the heat capacity
of the brass. The three students were experiencing problems with the data when the following
exchange took place (this discussion was very long; only the relevant parts are cited):
Ken: The heat lost by the brass divided by the temperature of the brass gives the heat
capacity.
Teacher: Okay, how did you work out the heat lost by the brass?
Ken: Seventy-three divided by . . . I mean, 73 [temperature change] times 134.17
[mass].
Teacher: [Description of the experimental process] How do you work out how much heat
the brass lost?
Joe: With the thermometer . . .
Ken: We found its temperature change of the brass right [Yes] and we times that by
...
Teacher: I’m asking a more fundamental question. How do you know how much heat the
brass lost?
Joe: By using the thermometer.
Teacher: The thermometer measures heat?
Joe: Yep.
Ken: No.
Joe/Ken: Temperature.
Teacher: What’s the difference between heat and temperature?
Joe: Oh, not this question again!
Teacher: Well it’s important to work it out, Joe; there’s a need to have this very clear in
your mind.
Ken: For the brass, then the final temperature is 27, so the change is 30 . . .73⬚, so for
that much of the brass to change into that, it must have lost this much calories
[writing].
Teacher: How do you work out the number of calories?
Ken: Times that by that [indicates heat capacity of brass times temperature change].
Teacher: But you don’t know the heat capacity of brass. . . . Now which of the two sub-
stances do you know the amount of heat involved?
Joe: The water.
Teacher: Okay, so how do you know how much heat was transferred?
Joe: From the water.
Teacher: Okay, by the water. This was all I was trying to get you back to. The only thing
we have as a standard to work with is water . . . a calorie is defined as what?
Joe: One degree per 100 g of water at 100⬚ . . . no?
Ken: Is the temperature change of 1 g of water something like that?
Teacher: What is a calorie? What does 1 calorie do to 1 g of water?
Joe: Increases it.
Ken: Increase or decrease it 1⬚. Oh, so that’s how we got it . . . so if it changed by
5⬚, we’ve got 100 mL, so that’s 100 g.
Joe: Gives you 500 calories.
Teacher: Where do we get this heat from?
Ken: The water . . . is the heat lost by the brass.
Teacher: Right.
Ken: Oh, we can find out [brass’s] heat capacity by taking that and dividing by that
[What?] brass by the temperature change; I mean, the heat lost by [the brass]
by the temperature change [Right]. That block is 134.17 g, so we divide that
into . . . 134.17 and that’s the specific heat. . . . But it’s not equal to that at the
back [table of specific heats in the book].
Teacher: How much is it different; how much do you get?
Ken: 0.0499.
Joe: And they say 0.09.
Ken: That’s not accurate, then.
Teacher: [Discussion about sources of error] As Ken says, it’s the idea that’s important
. . . happy now?
Joe/Ken: Mmmm.
This exchange identified a number of weaknesses in the understanding of several students

and an attitudinal problem for Joe. Ken made sense of the thermal interaction once he realized
that the quantity of heat gained by the water gave him the quantity of heat lost by the brass. He
immediately related this quantity of heat to the brass’s heat capacity times the temperature
change and quickly computed the heat capacity of the brass. The fact that he then transformed
the heat capacity into specific heat and went straight on to exclaim, “but it’s not equal to that at
the back [table of specific heats]” supports the claim that he was progressively differentiating
and integratively reconciling this set of concepts (Novak, 1984). The excerpt above illustrates
a prevalent problem in student learning of science. Students develop techniques for solving
quantitative problems but regularly lack the requisite understanding (or experience or language)
to explain the underlying science. An outcome of Thagard’s (1992) work on conceptual revolu-
tions is that an important criterion for determining understanding is the ability to produce a co-
herent explanation for the phenomenon that integrates each piece of confirmatory and discon-
firmatory evidence with the relevant hypotheses and theories. If students are to develop mature
scientific conceptions, Thagard’s research indicates that students need a full range of experi-
ences and applications to consolidate the changed conceptions. By this stage, Ken was begin-
ning to produce coherent arguments explaining the physics; as an added benefit, he used the ex-
planation to perform the necessary calculations and interpret them. Hewitt (1987) asserted that
if students understand the physics, success with calculations will follow naturally. This notion
was supported by Ken’s behavior.
However, it took several more periods before Ken’s understanding of heat and temperature
as distinct concepts stabilized. By the 12th period, Ken was discussing thermal interactions and
proportional reasoning (Exercise 4.2) with the teacher when the following exchange about the
thermal interaction between two objects took place:
Ken: T1 represents the amount of heat lost by the first object and T2 shows the heat
for the second one . . . I think T1 ⫽ T2 . . .
Teacher: So you see T as a measure of heat?
Ken: I think so.
Teacher: What does T stand for?
Ken: It’s temperature . . . how much the temperature’s changed.
Teacher: Is temperature telling you how much heat has been exchanged?
Ken: No . . . that’s not right. Heat’s measured in calories and temperature’s measured
in degrees Celcius.
Teacher: Okay, so what should you have written down here [proportions on the page]?
Ken: I’m not sure.
Teacher: Let’s go back to 3.1 [discussion of 3.1] . . . so, how can we use K1 and ⌬T1 and
K2 and ⌬T2?
Ken: Oh, if you multiply them together you get calories, because K is in calories per
degree Celcius and ⌬T is in degrees Celcius . . . the product gives you calories.
Teacher: Well, will that help you figure it out now?
Ken: Yes, I understand . . . K1 ⫻ ⌬T1 ⫽ K2 ⫻ ⌬T2.
Teacher: Can you finish this now?
Ken: Yes.
Even though he seemed confident that he understood these concepts, at the end of the pe-
riod, Ken said, “I still think Exercise 4.2 is confusing. I need you to talk to me about it.” Oth-
er responses from Ken indicate that by this stage he had developed a sound working knowledge
of heat capacities and had no difficulty distinguishing this concept from specific heat. It is im-
portant to recognize that he was still occasionally using temperature as a measure of heat trans-
ferred. This inability to consistently differentiate heat (in calorie or joule) from temperature (de-
grees Celcius) was not limited to Ken. Des was the one student who consistently used the correct
terms both in written and spoken work. Joe and Tim used the terms randomly and, when asked
what they meant, had difficulty explaining the difference between heat and temperature. John’s
performance was very similar to Ken. One example of his discourse supports this claim:
John: If you’ve got the amount of heat that’s needed to heat up the water, that’s the
heat the steel [washers] lost. . . . I divide that, the number of calories by the heat.
Teacher: Divide by what . . . think about it John.
John: Divide the calories by the temperature?
Further Challenges in Differentiating Concepts

Over the next two periods, Ken became more sure of his reasoning on heat and tempera-
ture as further experiments and exercises challenged his understanding and provided him with
the opportunity to apply his revised conceptions. Section 5 (Proportional Reasoning with Heat
and Temperature) contained a set of problems that asked the students to determine the equilib-
rium temperatures for various thermal interactions. Nowhere in this course were students pro-
vided with the standard algebraic expressions for thermal interactions. All relationships used by
the students were derived by them during their activities and the subsequent discussions. By Pe-
riod 13, Ken was using proportional reasoning in a sufficiently systematic way to support a claim
that he satisfactorily understood the fundamental heat and temperature concepts.
Section 4 of the Heat and Temperature module was the subject of another extended dis-
cussion led by the discussant (Periods 13 and 14). The discussion commenced with a review of
Exercise 2.6. It is interesting to note that whereas at the beginning of the study Ken was very
reticent in class discussions, as the study progressed and his understanding deepened so his con-
fidence increased and he became not only willing but eager to contribute to the discussions. In
the excerpt below, he was first to offer a response.
Disc: The reason I want to go over this is, looking at your responses, it was clear that
you were not very clear about the type of response that was expected. Okay. Most
of the responses we received were just single numbers. Now, a single number does-
n’t tell us anything about how you’ve thought about it and how you got that num-
ber. Let’s look at 2.6, and it says, suppose we have 4 g of hot water and 3 g of cold
water. Twelve calories of heat is transferred from the hot water to the cold water.
Okay, Question 1, how much heat does each gram of hot water lose?
Ken: So, if the whole 4 g of, um, hot water loses 12 calories, then each gram of hot wa-
ter will have lost 3.
Disc: How much does the temperature of each gram of hot water change? What’s the rea-
soning there?
Des: When each gram cools by 3 calories, the temperature of each gram will go down
by 3⬚C.
Disc: Okay. That’s true, but you missed out one step in the reasoning.
John: Because 1 calorie for 1 g of water equals 1⬚C.
Disc: Okay. Right . . . each time 1 g loses 1 calorie, there will be 1⬚C of temperature
change. Okay, so it’s important not to miss steps in reasoning. How much does the
entire sample of hot water change?
Ken: 3⬚C.
Des: Because each gram will lose 3⬚C of, it goes down 3⬚C. Therefore, each of the to-
tal sample will go down by 3⬚C.
Ken: Because you don’t add . . .
John: You don’t add them up.
Des: It has to be at thermal equilibrium.
Disc: How much does each gram of cold water gain? What’s the reasoning there?
Ken: If the whole sample gained 12 calories, each gram must have gained 4 calories.
Disc: How much does the temperature of the cold water change?
John: By 4⬚C because 1 calorie per gram of water equals 1⬚C.
Disc: [Summarizes the whole process step by step] Okay, so reason it out a little more
clearly.
Ken: Ah, because they, like, because each gram is uniform and it has 3⬚C or 4⬚C each,
so the whole sample would change by 4⬚C.
This portion of the discussion focused on the reasoning process employed by the students,
because students are infrequently asked to explain their conceptions and how they constructed
these conceptions. Once the propositions and operations used by each student in forming his
conceptions are revealed, remediation of flawed conceptions can take place. The excerpt above
indicates a sound grasp of the relationship between the amount of heat transferred and the tem-
perature change that results. Student understanding that temperature is not an additive quantity
is also displayed.
The next part of this discussion consisted of a review of Experiment 3.4 dealing with the
addition of hot steel washers to a fixed mass of water, to probe the students’ conceptions of ther-
mal interactions and heat capacity. Ken still occasionally described heat as an intensive attribute
of the object that lost or gained heat.
Disc: Can someone summarize what happened in the experiment? What you did and what
happened?
John: We heated up a washer and put that into the water, and the temperature changed
for the water . . . by a certain amount, and each extra washer we added on, the tem-
perature change of the water was . . . slightly more.
Ken: So, the water gets more warmer plus the mass of the washers is getting heavier.
Disc: Okay . . . What’s the point of the experiment? What did you learn?
Ken: I think we’ve learned a bit about the effect of the mass of the hot object. Because
it has more calories in the whole . . . because, let’s say each washer has five calo-
ries. Then, if we have five washers, then we have 25 calories.
Disc: What do you mean, has 5 calories?
Des: It transfers 5 calories.
Ken: So that it has more.
Des: Total heat to pass on to the cold water so the cold water increases in temperature
by a higher amount.
Disc: Okay, and there’s a physics term we use for that potential to transfer more heat.
John: Heat capacity.
Disc: That’s right, heat capacity. So, the heat capacity is an indication of how much heat
it takes to change the temperature of an object 1⬚C. And heat capacity, you found
out, depends on mass. Does it depend on anything else, do you think?
Ken: Specific heat.
Disc: What other property do you think it might depend upon? It’s not in the handout;
just think about it.
Ken: The substance.
Disc: Right, that’s exactly right. So, if K is the heat capacity, K over m is the specific
heat. Physically, what does it mean?
Ken: It means that heat capacity can vary; specific heat stays the same.
Disc: Stays the same provided . . .
Ken: It’s 1 g per . . . I mean, for that substance.
Des: Specific heat is the number of calories needed to change 1 g of a substance 1⬚C.
John: They’d only have a different heat capacity if they had a different mass.
In the last exchange, the discussant again employed concept substitution, which relies upon
eliciting from the students their present conceptions and identifying and preserving the elements
of the students’ conceptions that are correct. This was what the discussant aimed at by asking,
“What do you mean has 5 calories?” By asking the question, the discussant elicited Des’ com-
ment, “it transfer 5 calories,” thus providing the link to the correct concept: Heat is energy in
transit. This provided Ken and the other students with opportunities to restructure their concep-
tion of heat, differentiating heat as energy in transit from internal energy.
The discussion next focused on the students’ understanding of specific heat. They were
asked to look up the specific heats of water (1.00 cal/g ⬚C) and aluminium (0.221 cal/g ⬚C) in
tables given in their notes. The excerpt below illustrates the growing understanding the students
are demonstrating of the concepts of heat, temperature, and rate of heat transfer. Specific heat
is now part of their conceptual repertoire.
Disc: Let’s suppose we had 1 g of aluminium and 1 g of water and we supplied the same
amount of heat to each one. What would you say about the temperature changes
they’d experience?
Des: Aluminium will be about five times higher.
Disc: Why? How do you know that?
John: It takes less heat to change it [Yes] for the same mass.
Disc: Right, that’s what specific heat is telling us, that, um, lower specific heat means
you need less heat to cause the temperature of a gram to change by a degree. Okay,
and looking at the question the other way around, suppose that you start with 1 g
of water and 1 g of aluminium at the same temperature and you want to raise them
to the same temperature at the end. How would the amounts of heat compare that
you’d have to supply?
Ken: You need more heat to, um, change the water than to change the aluminium.
[Why?] Because we only need one fifth the amount of water to change [Des: calo-
ries] to change the aluminium to that temperature.
Disc: Amount of heat [Ken: Yes, amount of heat].
The next problem concerned two pieces of iron (mass ratios 1:3) heated in identical Bun-
sen flames for the same time period. Ken’s response demonstrated a high level of competence
in applying the concepts of thermal interaction and heat capacity.
I put down, if it was a small amount of time, then the small block would be hotter be-
cause it has a lower heat capacity, and the other one, the bigger one, it would be three
times cooler because it has a three times bigger heat capacity.
This response encouraged the authors to believe that the applied teaching/learning approach
was stimulating a high level of conceptual thought. “Please explain” questions rather than nu-
merical problems promoted answers of this kind, answers that were more sophisticated than the
first author had encountered in his previous Grade 11 physics classes.
Ken’s comment was taken up by John and the discussant who reinforced these ideas, and
concluded the discussion with an effective comment.
John: They’re [the two blocks are] getting the same amount of heat.
Disc: Getting the same amount of heat, and so Ken’s argument is absolutely sound. If
they’re getting the same amount of heat, the small block has one third the heat ca-
pacity and so it will increase in temperature three times as much. Can you see how
powerful this reasoning is? No equations, but you can reason out exactly what’s
going on.
The excerpts of class discussions given above are typical of most of the discussions,
whether individual, group, or whole class. During these discussions, the students were rarely
told that their answers were wrong, because inevitably each explanation contained some scien-
tifically correct elements. Scientifically correct propositions, however, were quickly identified
and reinforced as evidenced throughout these transcripts. Concept substitution, which was em-
ployed wherever appropriate, relies upon eliciting from the students their present conceptions
and identifying and preserving the elements of the students’ conceptions that are correct. This
approach substitutes the relevant parts of the desired science concept or the desired science term
for those parts of the students’ conception(s) that are deficient. The discussant avoided taking a
right/wrong position by drawing the substitution concept from the students.
The students came to look forward to the discussions led by the second author and on sev-
eral occasions asked, “When are we having the next discussion with [the discussant]?” Even
though the discussions often highlighted the students’ alternative conceptions, the discussions
were always friendly and many vigorous exchanges took place. We would assert that the stu-
dents did not, after their experiences, find the discussions threatening. Rather, they found the
discussions intellectually satisfying learning experiences.
The changes in Ken’s conceptualization of thermal concepts are striking. In the original
pretest, Ken’s answers to questions concerning objects in ovens (bricks, flour, water, and nails)
showed that he held a teleological conception of heat interactions based upon the object’s prop-
erties and everyday use. By this stage in the study, Ken was able to combine the relevant con-
ceptions in a coherent manner. This outcome can be explained by proposing that Ken had sub-
sumed the concepts that were added during the discussions and that he had made a conscious
effort to make sense of his prior conceptions, his experiences, and the teacher’s and discussant’s
remarks. The changes to Ken’s conceptual framework are best explained in terms of Hewson
and Hewson’s (1992) conceptual exchange criteria. The status of his prior conceptions declined
while the status of the scientific conception rose; this status change might be attributed to his
progressive differentiation, superordinate learning, and integrative reconciliation of the relevant
concepts (Novak, 1984). In particular, superordinate learning involves the reorganization of con-
ceptions and the generation of new and/or better hierarchies. The presented evidence suggests
that Ken now possessed a reasonably well-defined set of conceptions that were arranged in a
scientifically appropriate hierarchy. This enabled him to systematically and coherently apply his
reconciled conceptions to specific problems.
Reflecting on Prior Conceptions
We believed that providing the students with opportunities to review their understandings
would stimulate metacognitive thinking (Gunstone, 1995). Recall Joe’s exclamation in Experi-
ment 3.1: “Oh, not this question again!” A little later in that discussion (not previously docu-
mented), the transcript describes Joe “Sighing loudly as if exasperated” when revisiting the dif-
ferences between heat and temperature. Joe was very intelligent but poorly motivated, and his
palpable refusal to reflect on his conceptions correlates with his poor progress in differentiating
these terms. John, Des, and Ken were willing to reexamine their ideas, and it can be claimed
that this was an important factor in producing conceptual exchanges (Hewson, 1981, 1982).
The discussions were deliberately structured so as to encourage students to reflect on how
their ideas had changed and why, as illustrated by the excerpt below in which the discussion
picked up on a question from the previous week about a small and a large brick left in a 120⬚C
oven all day.
Disc: What would happen if each brick was the placed in a separate bucket containing
the same amount of water at the same temperature?
Ken: The bucket with the bigger brick will be, I mean the water will [be] hotter than . . .
because the bigger brick has a higher heat capacity and will release more heat to,
um, as it goes down . . . the smaller brick has lower heat capacity so it releases less
heat . . . to reach thermal equilibrium.
Disc: Does anyone want to add to what Ken has said? Does everyone agree?
Des: Yes.
Disc: Everyone didn’t agree about this problem last week!
Ken: What did we say then?
Tim: We said, um . . . we were all confused. We said that, um . . . the water that con-
tained the big brick in it would heat up, um, slower.
Des: That’s not what you said last week!
Disc: Can you remember how you were thinking when you said they might get to the
same temperature?
Tim: Because last week we were discussing about how, um, thermal equilibrium, um,
transfers something like that and, um, because that’s what made me think that they
might be in an equilibrium temperature . . . because they started with the same tem-
perature.
Disc: And now what do you think the problem with that reasoning is?
Tim: Because, um, before we didn’t take the mass into consideration, so now we take
the mass into consideration there will be a difference in the water.
Students find it difficult to reflect on their past ideas, especially when the ideas are transient
or only poorly formulated. Des’s conceptions were the most scientific, and he, along with the
discussant, had a clearer recollection of the in-class comments and their compatibility with the
science concept of thermal interactions and equilibrium. An interesting change in student be-
havior emerged at this stage. Ken was always willing to chance his ideas in the class forum, but
Tim also became less reluctant to talk about his weak conceptions. It is proposed that the fre-
quent nonjudgmental discussions effectively encouraged students to state their case with a less-
ened fear of being wrong. Joe, and John to a lesser extent, were conspicuous by their silence
during this exchange. This may relate to their reluctance to be seen to be wrong.
Stability of New Conceptions and Ways of Reasoning

Following several periods of activities and problems, thermal equilibrium concepts became
the focus of an intensive discussion. Near the end of Section 5, extra problems were reviewed,
the first being Problem 5.2:
An object with a heat capacity of 100 cal/⬚C at 20⬚C is placed in 40 g of water at 100⬚C.
After equilibrium is reached, the object is removed from the hot water and placed in 200
g of water at 0⬚C. What is the final temperature of the object? Explain your reasoning.
This problem generated considerable debate as to the meaning of the question with respect
to the state of the water at 100⬚C and at 0⬚C and to possible sources of heat loss during trans-
fer. The student’s increasing care in defining the context may be attributed to our demand that
students describe all the reasoning steps used in their explanations. In various ways John, Des,
and Ken developed a habit of questioning the context, and both investigators noted the addition
of “what-if” questions to Ken’s classroom learning behavior. John led the discussion by offer-
ing a solution to problem 5.2. It turned out that John and Des (who also worked together) had
determined the equilibrium temperature by an iterative process in which they transferred small
packets of heat (the method used in their handouts). Ken suggested a different solution.
Ken: I found the equilibrium temperature in another way.

Disc: How did you do it?
Ken: I, um, found the temperature change for each of them and then . . .
Disc: How did you know the temperature change for each?
Ken: Because, like, first I found the, um, heat capacity for the hot water, is 40 calories
per degree Celcius and then, um . . . the cold object, the 20⬚ object, it had a heat
capacity of 100, so it’s 2.5 times bigger than the hot water, so for the two to reach
equilibrium, the hot water has to change 2.5 time bigger . . . to reach . . . equilibri-
um so then I can find T1, I mean the temperature change of that . . .
Disc: That’s a marvellous method.
Ken: And you substitute in . . .
Disc: A marvellous method . . . does everyone follow what Ken’s saying?
Des: No.
John: I tried to understand it last time he told me . . .
Disc: Ken, can you do this on the board? Because it’s a wonderful approach.
Ken: Yeah. I can’t explain it. it’s easy to understand but I can’t explain it.
Disc: Try writing it up on the board, and we’ll, um, we’ll talk you through it.
Ken willingly went out to the white board and wrote out his solution while talking
through his explanation with the class (Figure 2). His elegant solution to the problem and his
success in solving other problems of this type attest to the conceptual growth that he had ex-
perienced over 20 periods of study. In addition, Ken’s approach to learning was characterized
by greater intellectual honesty than any other student in the class. He consistently took risks
by expressing his ideas irrespective of the status quo, and he was unwilling to agree with ei-
ther his peers or the teacher unless he could internalize the concept and fruitfully use it to
solve his problems.
After the previously documented events, the students were given a 20-min quiz to review
their ideas about heat and temperature containing the following questions:
Figure 2. Ken’s explanation to the class of his method of mixtures reasoning.

Two students are in the supermarket. One student takes a tin of fish off the shelf and a
packet of biscuits. Say which, if either, of the students is correct and why:
Student 1: The tin of fish feels colder than the packet of biscuits. It has a lower tempera-
ture.
Student 2: No, you are wrong. Both the fish and the biscuits have been sitting on the shelf
for quite some time, so they must both have the same temperature.
In contrast to his pretest answers in which he asserted that different objects can have dif-
ferent temperatures in the same thermal environment, Ken was forthright and precise in ex-
plaining that the can of fish and the packet of biscuits are at the same temperature. The differ-
ence in feel is attributable to their different thermal conductivities. This quiz was administered
3 weeks after the pretest and at least 2 weeks after the detailed work on temperature. The sta-
bility of Ken’s conceptions supports the claim that he had exchanged his intuitive conception of
temperature for the scientific view.
Following the quiz, the students were asked to construct their first concept map for heat and
temperature. During the periods prior to and during the last discussion, the class had investi-
gated and discussed Section 6, which addressed phase changes as an alternative consequence to
temperature change when an object gains or loses heat. The concept map (Figure 3) therefore
includes phase change entries.
The entries on Ken’s concept map can be summarised as a set of simple propositions:
Figure 3. Ken’s concept map illustrating his conceptual development.

1. Heat is measure in calories.

2. Heat changes temperature through thermal interaction to achieve thermal equilibrium.
3. Temperature is measured by a thermometer in the units of degrees Celcius.
4. Thermal equilibrium is the result of the total heat transferred.
5. Total heat transferred is determined by the heat capacity and the temperature change.
6. Heat capacity is the product of the specific heat and the mass.
7. Specific heat varies for each substance.
8. Temperature change is determined by the initial and the final temperatures.
9. Thermal interaction may cause phase change.
10. The phase change is determined by the magnitude of the latent heat.
The structure of this concept map is quite linear, and even though Ken included several side
branches, few of the branches have interbranch connections. Another shortcoming in the con-
cept map was the absence of the dichotomy: “heat gain or loss produces either a change in tem-
perature or a change in phase but never both at the same time.” Nevertheless, the 10 proposi-
tions describe a satisfactory conceptual framework for this stage of the course (20 periods).
Significantly, by the end of 40 periods, Ken’s concept map had grown from 17 entries (Figure
2) to 31 entries in the final map. Both the number of entries and the extent of the connections
increased and the final map was much more of a web than the initial map.
The 25th period was composed of a 1-h test during which the students were allowed to use
their books and notes. John, Ken, and Des chose to answer the questions with little or no re-
course to their notes or the heat and temperature booklet. Less successful students such as Tim
and Joe used their written materials but scored significantly lower on the test than John, Ken,
and Des, who needed to look up less information. Ken’s answer to Items 4 and 5 gives some
measure of the quality of his understanding of heat and temperature.
Item 4: Give an example of two objects for which Object 1 has a bigger heat capacity than
Object 2 but Object 2 has a bigger specific heat than Object 1.
This question was highly conceptual, and Ken’s complete answer was:
Let’s say we have 1 g of water and 6 g of aluminum. Then: water would have a great spe-
cific heat: Cwater ⫽ 1.00 and CA1 ⫽ 0.21. But aluminum would have a greater heat ca-
pacity:
kA1 ⫽ CA1 ⫻ mA1 kwater ⫽ Cwater ⫻ mwater
⫽ 0.21 cal/⬚C g ⫻ 6 g ⫽ 1.00 cal/⬚C g ⫻ 1 g
⫽ 1.26 cal/⬚C ⫽ 1 cal/⬚C
So 1 g of H2O has a greater specific heat, while 6 g of aluminum has a greater heat ca-
pacity.
Ken’s one omission was to indicate that 0.21 cal/⬚C g should be 0.21 cal/⬚C/g. Overall,
Ken’s differentiation between heat capacity and specific heat is clearly evident.
Item 5: Consider the following dialogue between two students.

Student 1: When hot water and cold water are mixed, some of the temperature of the hot
water goes over to the cold water until they meet at an equilibrium temperature.
Student 2: That’s wrong. In come cases, the temperature of the cold water might increase
by more than the temperature of the hot water decreases, so they don’t reach equilibrium.
Answer: Each of these students is partially right and partially wrong. Write a clear expla-
nation for these students of what does happen when hot and cold water are mixed. Tell
each student where he was right and where he was wrong.
Next to the first student’s comment Ken wrote “* should be heat,” and the “*” was against
a heavily underlined “temperature *.” Ken continued,
Student 1 was right when he say the two samples of water will eventually reach an equi-
librium temperature. But he did not consider the fact that the two samples might have dif-
ferent masses and therefore have different heat capacity r therefore different temperature
change.
While Student 2 had thought that the different temperature changes were the different fi-
nal temperatures. What really happens is the temp change of the samples may vary but
the final temperature of the both of them would be the same.
So if we combine both Student 1 and 2’s thoughts, we have the right reactions: that is, the
two samples would have different temperature changes but will reach equilibrium even-
tually.
*But their major confusions are: for Student 1: He thought temperature was heat (which
would be in units of calories).
For Student 2: He mixes the temp change with the final temperature.
Ken omitted reasoning steps such as “heat lost ⫽ heat gained” and failed to explain why
the temperatures changes: namely, that the temperature difference produces a thermal interac-
tion culminating in thermal equilibrium. He did explain that the magnitude of the temperature
changes is determined by the heat capacities of the two water samples. It could be claimed that
his comments infer that he is applying heat lost ⫽ heat gained and that all he has failed to do
is mention all steps as asked. The explanations are conceptually sound, indicating that Ken is
capable of using his understanding of thermal processes to identify the errors in flawed reason-
ings.
Describing Conceptual Change

Throughout these lessons, the teaching/learning activities maintained the guided inquiry
approach described in this story line. For each concept and proposition, the students’ prior con-
ceptions were elicited and the subsequent set of laboratory activities, exercises, and problems
were used to engaged the students in meaningful learning (Novak, 1984). The discussions
played a pivotal role because the students’ prior and present conceptions were regularly scru-
tinized to identify evidence for conceptual growth and to provide opportunities for concept sub-
stitution where appropriate. Often the scientific concept or proposition required for substitu-
tion into one or more of the students’ frameworks was volunteered by another student. The
probing discussions elicited the aforementioned alternative conceptions in a supportive envi-
ronment favoring social construction of meaning (Solomon, 1987). Pintrich et al. (1993) point-
ed out that conceptual change is rarely the cold, rational process proposed by Posner et al.
(1982). Rather, it is often a hot, irrational activity that is best accomplished in a social envi-
ronment. Another finding in this study was that when students did change their conceptions,
the change was rarely revolutionary. Instead, change was often piecemeal and incremental
(Duschl & Gitomer, 1991; Laudan, 1985; Villani, 1991). This finding is significant because
many early conceptual change models held that key alternative conceptions could be remedi-
ated by concise teaching sequences that relied on generating conceptual conflict and dissatis-
faction. Recent research concentrating on replacing children’s conceptions with scientists’ con-
ceptions suggests that for many students, conceptual evolution is much more effective than
conceptual revolution.
Ken’s pretest conceptions were gradually restructured as he worked through the various ac-
tivities, problems, and discussions. Using the dissatisfaction, intelligibility, plausibility, and
fruitfulness criteria espoused by Posner et al. (1982), Ken’s explanations indicate that he found
the scientific conceptions of heat capacity, specific heat, and thermal equilibrium intelligible and
plausible. That is, the status of the scientific conceptions rose and the status of his preconcep-
tions fell. Hewson (1981) and Hewson and Hewson (1984, 1992) called this conceptual ex-
change (analogous to Posner et al.’s accommodation). The facile way in which he used these
concepts to solve different problems involving thermal interactions suggests that the scientific
conceptions were fruitful for Ken. Even though Ken did not directly compare his preconcep-
tions to his current conceptions, his many comments about relevant thermal concepts supports
a claim that he was dissatisfied with his earliest conceptions and had relinquished these in fa-
vor of the desired scientific view.
The interpretive approach we have used to make claims about changes to students’ con-
ceptions draws in part on the work of Hewson and Thorley (1989), who claimed that students’
unqualified comments about their conceptions are inadequate evidence for determining the sta-
tus of these conceptions.
[T]here are problems in determining the status of a student’s conception when only its ex-
plicit content is being discussed. Knowing the conceptions to which it is connected helps,
but does not remove all ambiguity. What is needed is evidence of a different kind, evi-
dence that comes directly from the student, evidence that is in the form of a comment on
the status of the conception. (p. 546)
In this vein, Hennessey (1993) and Hewson and Hennessey (1992) taught students the lan-
guage of the Conceptual Change Model (CCM) and, by consensus, established the students’
meaning of these terms. Hennessey’s students used the CCM’s terms—intelligible, plausible,
and fruitful—during science lessons and in interviews about science concepts, enabling her to
identify instances of conceptual capture and conceptual exchange learning.
We decided against this approach on the grounds that the credibility of a student’s claim
that a conception is intelligible, plausible, or fruitful could be colored by the student’s desire to
please the teacher or to avoid explaining a difficult concept. Many transcripts show that this was
Tim’s modus operandi. Tim was much less able than the other students, but gave the impres-
sion of knowledge by repeating the teacher’s and other students’ comments in a convincing man-
ner. When pressed to explain, most often he could not.
The usefulness of Ken’s and his classmates’ detailed explanations is that they were “state-
ments about the conception. They include opinions, attitudes, feelings, etc.” (Hewson & Thor-
ley, 1989, p. 549); however, our students did not use the status terms of the CCM. Rather, we
believed that multiple comments about thermal conceptions in a variety of contexts yielded ev-
idence of superior credibility and viability for determining conceptual status. In fact, formative
comments such as the one Des made on Page 15, “I did understand it but it wasn’t very clear,”
along with the errors, self-corrections, fumblings, reversals, and questions that punctuate the
transcripts, are, we believe, more realistic measures of what happens in the status wars that char-
acterize conceptual competition.
The transcripts tell a credible story of how Ken, Des, and John tried to make sense out of their
prior knowledge and present experiences; we believe that our interpretive status conclusions about
student conceptions are viable in this context. It is worth making a final point in this argument.
The transcripts clearly demonstrate that the students often thought they understood thermal inter-
actions when in fact they still held alternative conceptions. Students with inflated opinions of their
scientific conceptions will probably claim higher status for them than is justified. We are not sug-
gesting that the students do not believe what they do believe; rather, we are challenging the claimed
scientific status that students often make for mixed intuitive scientific conceptions.
The purpose of the story is to supply sufficient data to satisfy the reader that there were sub-
stantial changes to the status of Ken’s conceptions of heat, temperature, thermal interactions,
and thermal equilibrium. We might add that the variety of situational comments in the story fits
well with Thorley’s (1991) paper, in which he concluded: “[t]he view that a conception is rep-
resentable in multiple modes, that it can be plausible for many different reasons, and that it can
be related to other conceptions in complex and interesting ways offers a valuable framework for
the interpretation of learning and instruction” (p. 12).
Summary of Findings
Three of the five students demonstrated conceptual development whereby their understand-
ing of heat and temperature was substantially restructured in a scientific direction. One unsuc-
cessful student lacked both the requisite cognitive ability and personal study skills to change his
conceptions, while the other unsuccessful student, although very able, lacked the social skills nec-
essary for success in groupwork and independent learning. Four of the five students progressive-
ly adopted scientifically precise language, and the consistent verbal and written use of scientific
terminology by three of the students supported the belief that they understood the concepts they
described. Two students epistemologically changed their thinking about science during this unit.
Analysis of pretests, initial discussions, and early work showed that each student commenced
the unit of study with naive, undifferentiated conceptions lacking a number of key concepts. Four
students viewed heat and temperature as equivalent entities. This prevented them from solving
simple everyday problems. During the initial discussions and activities, students developed an op-
erational definition for temperature and added the concepts of thermal interaction and thermal equi-
librium to their conceptual framework. These items functioned as anchoring conceptions which
subsequently helped each student separate heat and temperature. Student investigation results pro-
vided information for use in concept substitution, which in turn led the students to more fully dif-
ferentiate heat from temperature and stimulated them to reconstruct their conceptual framework
in a coherent way. As the course progressed, the three successful students consistently identified
misuse of heat and temperature concepts by themselves and the two less successful students.
Thermal interactions were treated using proportional reasoning based upon the concept of
heat capacities and temperature differences. Three students developed their own version of the
standard heat calculations; in the final test, two quite different quantitative methods were used
with equal success. Similarly, a series of concept maps showed that for each student the num-
ber of concepts held increased with time; the detail and sophistication of the connections in-
creased with time, and conceptual hierarchies emerged as the course drew to a close.
Discussion of Educational Importance

This study indicates that students have difficulty differentiating concepts such as heat and
temperature and that their naive conceptions are robust and resist change. When exposed to tra-
ditional teaching approaches, students appear to assimilate the scientific view of heat and tem-
perature; however, this study shows that alternative student conceptions of these phenomena
need to be revisited in a variety of contexts before student conceptual frameworks are adequately
restructured.
Moreover, the standard conceptual change model (Hewson & Hewson, 1992; Posner et al.,
1982) appears to be limited by not factoring in the social dynamics of the classroom. As Pin-
trich et al. (1993) argued, conceptual change teaching requires the teacher to be sensitive and
adaptable to the social milieu of the classroom as well as being skilled in the subject matter and
in engaging the students in cognitive development. This case study therefore provides valuable
insights into the variety of conceptual developments that take place in a group of students of
differing intellectual and social backgrounds as they strive to assimilate and accommodate dif-
ficult and abstract scientific concepts. We believe that the dynamic social context in which this
learning took place was every bit as important as the rational-cognitive issues that were nego-
tiated. The personal-social aspects of this classroom were important for two reasons. First,
Solomon (1987) insisted that most knowledge is socially negotiated and confirmed; that “it is
almost as though we do not understand what we think unless we can discuss it and receive back
the effects it produces when our friends respond” (p. 63). Second, the intrinsic motivation that
was generated during the discussions had a positive motivational effect on the class. The five
students became more intellectually adventurous and they genuinely looked forward to physics
class, especially the discussions. These gains were maintained throughout the year; in the sec-
ond semester, the students spontaneously reorganized their timetable to allow two extra periods
of physics each week.
The case study also highlights the teaching and learning difficulties that are encountered when
an attempt is made to teach for understanding rather than for content and quantitative problem
solving. The observation that Ken’s conceptual development was incremental and piecemeal sup-
ports Duschl and Gitomer’s (1991) position. The implication of this finding is that much more time
needs to be spent on fundamental concepts to provide students with opportunities to craft their
ideas, to apply and test their conceptions, and to reiterate their understandings in a nonjudgmen-
tal and supportive environment (Dykstra et al., 1992). When such an environment exists, concept
substitution is a viable method for generating conceptual exchange such that the status of the stu-
dents’ intuitive conceptions decline and the status of the expected science outcomes increases. The
discussions that facilitated concept substitution also encouraged metacognitive reflection by the
students on their and their friends’ conceptions, and it is claimed that these interactions signifi-
cantly contributed to Ken’s cognitive and affective gains reported in this article.
Finally, this study reemphasizes the need for teachers to probe the understandings of their
students before, repeatedly during, and at the close of instruction (White & Gunstone, 1992).
This article describes some of the methods that teachers can use to monitor and mentor their
students’ conceptual progress; for example, pretests, formative discussions, insistence on writ-
ten explanations, encouraging students to explain their conceptions to their peers in supportive
environments, frequent and flexible laboratory investigations, and communal problem-solving
episodes. An important thread woven through these activities is the social construction of knowl-
edge; the thread is the belief that scientific knowledge is a social consensus and that this mod-
el is an effective way to foster learning in science.
Some Qualifications
Content-laden subjects such as physics are still often taught in teacher-centered ways using
expository techniques. Such teachers argue that their students achieve high grades and know
their physics; besides, there is not enough course time to allow students to learn each topic in
the way described in this article. However, the aim of science education should be to foster ra-
tional and affective understanding of natural processes, and there is evidence that high grades
do not strongly correlate with understanding (Treagust & Zadnik, 1991; McDermott, 1993;
Yager, 1991). This should concern all teachers. The position implicitly advocated in this article
is the development of open-ended, guided inquiry learning supplemented by teacher-led inter-
ventions such as concept substitution. Clearly, the success of this student-centered approach de-
pends on a renegotiation of both the curriculum content and the time available. The evidence
and argument presented here lends support to the claim that social, discursive, and open-ended
instruction that purposefully works with, rather than against, the students’ prior conceptions en-
hances understanding; still, further evidence will be needed to make this claim with confidence.
Open-ended inquiry-based learning has inherited a pejorative reputation because of its per-
ceived links with discovery learning. Even though the student investigations and problems in
the heat and temperature module were student centered, the teacher and discussant closely mon-
itored the students’ progress and conceptually engaged the students in discussions and concept
substitution episodes. The students were not left to think what they liked. They were constant-
ly challenged to write out their explanations (which some vigorously resisted) and encouraged
to verbalize their understanding (which most came to enjoy). Because of the differences between
students’ intuitive ideas and scientists’ conceptions, it was necessary on a number of occasions
to explain to the students what scientists mean by, for example, temperature and thermal equi-
librium. The inquiry process was guided and, whenever necessary, scientific terms and concepts
were inserted during concept substitution discussions. We must emphasize that no concept was
introduced in a vacuum. Every conceptual activity was contextualized and the students were
immediately directed into thought or practical problems. On appropriate occasions, when the
students asked what-if questions, these questions were investigated as student-planned experi-
ments. The locus of learning control was vested in the students; nevertheless, the teacher’s role,
though unobtrusive, was significant.
Applying These Principles in Larger Classes

The class featured in this article differs from most Grade 11 physics classes in two respects:
There were only five students, and a visitor was occasionally involved in the classroom learn-
ing. The first issue of class size may lead teachers to believe that the successes described here
are unachievable in larger classes. This notion is probably more perceived than real. The con-
ceptual change and concept substitution strategies embedded in the pretests, frequent discus-
sions, guided experiments, and qualitative explanations were mostly accomplished in regular
groupwork. Indeed, it can be argued that the richness of the whole-class discussions would be
enhanced in larger classes. The small groups where the experiments were done and written ex-
planations were constructed will be more numerous in a large class; however, as Grayson et al.
(1995) pointed out, with too few groups the teacher in this study often trespassed on the stu-
dents’ freedom to think and work on their own. Dykstra et al. (1992) also explained that stu-
dents should be given ample time and opportunity to work through their conceptions by delay-
ing closure. Indeed, Grayson (1996) used the strategies and curriculum materials (McDermott,
1996) employed in this study with groups as large as 36 students.
The second issue of an interesting visitor is not replicable in a normal class. The second au-
thor’s visits were motivating and the students looked forward to these occasions. However, it
must be stressed that most of the teaching and learning was effected with only the class teacher
present. The implication is therefore that a knowledgeable, committed, and adaptable teacher
can achieve significant learning improvements in physics. It should also be noted that the nec-
essary changes in the teaching and learning seemed more difficult for the teacher to accommo-
date than for the students (Grayson et al., 1995). The students quickly adapted to the student-
centered learning, and this pattern was maintained until the year’s end. Ken’s case study conveys
a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction on his part, and the students’ request to increase the num-
ber of physics lessons is evidence of positive motivation. Teaching for understanding requires
a changed mindset by the teacher and does take more time; however, the outcomes reported in
this article seem well worth the effort.
Conclusion
At the commencement of the 8-week unit of study, Ken, the primary case study subject,
held highly intuitive conceptions of heat and temperature. He visualized heat and temperature
as similar entities, and even though he believed that heat could be transferred from one object
to another, he lacked the systematic conceptions to explain heat transfer processes. Thermal in-
teraction and thermal equilibrium concepts were nonexistent or so rudimentary that he believed
that different objects can have different temperatures in the same environment. The use of
pretests and carefully planned investigations, questions, and discussions using concept substi-
tution enabled Ken to address the incommensurable aspects of his knowledge. Ken progres-
sively added scientific concepts such as thermal interactions (involving heat gained ⫽ heat lost)
and thermal equilibrium by conceptual capture. He concomitantly differentiated heat and tem-
perature by constructing new conceptual hierarchies that culminated in the integrative reconcil-
iation of heat and temperature as the concept of thermal interactions. The status of Ken’s men-
tal model of thermal interactions was certainly intelligible and plausible and was probably
fruitful. It is very likely that Ken’s resultant conceptions were in part the product of gradual con-
ceptual exchange processes (Hewson & Hewson, 1992). A significant indicator of these changes
was the entries and connections on his concept map and his increasingly perceptive and critical
comments during discussion.
By the unit’s close, Ken viewed temperature as an intensive characteristic of objects, and
thermal interactions were described both qualitatively and quantitatively. It is claimed that Ken
experienced a form of conceptual change in which the status of the scientific conception rose at
the expense of his intuitive conceptions; however, the exact nature of his conceptual restructur-
ing is unclear. It is claimed that Ken’s conceptual change was nonrevolutionary, that his con-
ceptual changes were cumulative and piecemeal (Duschl & Gitomer, 1991), and that this learn-
ing took place in a dynamic social environment that provided consistent support as he and the
other students struggled to accommodate new, and for them, counterintuitive ideas.
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Investigating A Grade 11 Student's Evolving Conceptions of Heat and Temperature

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JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 36, NO. 1, PP.

Investigating a Grade 11 Student’s Evolving Conceptions

Allan G. Harrison,1 Diane J. Grayson,2 David F. Treagust1

Received 22 January 1997; revised 6 October 1997; accepted 23 February 1998

Correspondence to: A.G. Harrison

© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/99/010055-33

Theoretical Framework for Changing Student Conceptions

Author Information Addition Easy Conceptual Change Difficult Conceptual Change

Kuhn (1962) Normal science Revolutionary science

The answer space for each question was half a page.

Choosing a Student for the Case Study

Pretest and Initial Activities

Results and Interpretations

Initial State: Preinstructional Conceptions

Des: At 60⬚? It’s only 60⬚.

Promoting Concept Differentiation Using Concept Substitution

Des: They must be all the same temperature . . . about 60⬚.

Disc: Is it about 60⬚ or is it 60⬚?

Joe: Sort of . . . it’s funny.

Continued Differentiation of Concepts

This exchange identified a number of weaknesses in the understanding of several students

Further Challenges in Differentiating Concepts

Reflecting on Prior Conceptions

Stability of New Conceptions and Ways of Reasoning

Ken: I found the equilibrium temperature in another way.

Figure 2. Ken’s explanation to the class of his method of mixtures reasoning.

Figure 3. Ken’s concept map illustrating his conceptual development.

1. Heat is measure in calories.

Item 5: Consider the following dialogue between two students.

Describing Conceptual Change

Discussion of Educational Importance

Applying These Principles in Larger Classes

Hashweh, M.Z. (1986). Toward an explanation of conceptual change. European Journal of

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