Learning science from technology
type: CreativeWork
description: The study explored the possibility that science can be learned from technology and it described the effects of a teaching approach on electric current with learners aged 11 - 15 years. It was based on a constructivist-developmentalist view of learning which recognises that learners bring prior knowledge to science lessons. The nature of that knowledge and how it is incorporated into lessons is believed to influence subsequent learning. The purpose of science learning is seen as developing learners’ own ideas into more coherent conceptual knowledge so that learners can make better sense of their world. As technology is a part of that world, its place as a context for learning was investigated. Technology was defined in this study as ‘the ways humans use their intellectual capabilities and physical resources to solve problems of survival, well-being and quality of life.’ Related to this is a view of science which sees it as problematic, provisional and progressive, and hence different from views of science that are based on positivist-inductivist philosophies. This instrumentalist approach to science provided scope for analogy exploration. A teaching model incorporating learners’ prior ideas was derived from a learning theory which recognised that the principal action in learning occurs when learners generate new meanings. This teaching model used the familiar technology of the learners’ culture as a context for learning electric current. Problem solving was strongly featured in the teaching package. This study confirmed that many learners have prior ideas about electricity which are undifferentiated (with respect to current and e.m.f.), and have based their thinking about it on sequential reasoning and on schemata dealing with consumption. These theories and processes of knowing are resistant to change and likely to impede access to the ideas scientists regard as coherent. The task of changing to systems reasoning and of reducing the weight given to consumption notio…
abstract: The study explored the possibility that science can be learned from technology and it described the effects of a teaching approach on electric current with learners aged 11 - 15 years. It was based on a constructivist-developmentalist view of learning which recognises that learners bring prior knowledge to science lessons. The nature of that knowledge and how it is incorporated into lessons is believed to influence subsequent learning. The purpose of science learning is seen as developing learners’ own ideas into more coherent conceptual knowledge so that learners can make better sense of their world. As technology is a part of that world, its place as a context for learning was investigated. Technology was defined in this study as ‘the ways humans use their intellectual capabilities and physical resources to solve problems of survival, well-being and quality of life.’ Related to this is a view of science which sees it as problematic, provisional and progressive, and hence different from views of science that are based on positivist-inductivist philosophies. This instrumentalist approach to science provided scope for analogy exploration. A teaching model incorporating learners’ prior ideas was derived from a learning theory which recognised that the principal action in learning occurs when learners generate new meanings. This teaching model used the familiar technology of the learners’ culture as a context for learning electric current. Problem solving was strongly featured in the teaching package. This study confirmed that many learners have prior ideas about electricity which are undifferentiated (with respect to current and e.m.f.), and have based their thinking about it on sequential reasoning and on schemata dealing with consumption. These theories and processes of knowing are resistant to change and likely to impede access to the ideas scientists regard as coherent. The task of changing to systems reasoning and of reducing the weight given to consumption notio…
author: Cosgrove, Mark McElroy
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/505c8cb2-fbb1-49e5-86d5-88481d568895/download
date published: 1989
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:24Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Waikato