PERC 2010 Abstract Detail Page
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| Abstract Title: | Instructional explanations as an interface - The role of explanatory primitives |
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| Abstract: | What makes an instructional sequence in physics meaningful to students? Why do some explanations seem more plausible than others? Why is it that an explanation can appear plausible to one student but not to another? We present a model that addresses these questions. Elaborating on diSessa's (1993) concept of p-prims, we develop a model of explanatory primitives, and argue that different individuals have different sets of explanatory primitives, or assign different priority to the same explanatory primitives in certain contexts. We use this idea to argue that this difference between individuals can account for differences in reactions to a specific instructional explanation, and present empirical data to support this claim. We then use the model to analyze Jim Minsrell's (1982) instructional sequence on the existence of a normal force to explain how an effective learning sequence addresses the differences between individuals by evoking a rich set of explanatory primitives. |
| Abstract Type: | Contributed Poster |
Author/Organizer Information | |
| Primary Contact: |
Shulamit Kapon Graduate School of Education, University of California Berkeley 4517 Tolman Hall, Graduate School of Education University of California Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-1670 Phone: 408-390-1600 |
| Co-Author(s) and Co-Presenter(s) |
Andrea A. diSessa Graduate School of Education, University of California Berkeley |
