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Teachers’ language and pupils’ ideas in sciencelessons:can teachers avoid reinforcing wrong ideas?M. Louisa a , F. C. S. Veiga a , Duarte J. V. Costa Pereira b & Roger Maskill ca Escola Superior de Educacao de Coimbra , Coimbra, Portugalb Universidade do Porto , Portugalc University of East Anglia , Norwich, UKPublished online: 25 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: M. Louisa , F. C. S. Veiga , Duarte J. V. Costa Pereira & Roger Maskill (1989) Teachers’ language andpupils’ ideas in science lessons:can teachers avoid reinforcing wrong ideas?, International Journal of Science Education, 11:4,465-479, DOI: 10.1080/0950069890110410

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950069890110410

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INT. J. sci. EDUC., 1989, VOL. 11, NO. 4, 465-479

Teachers' language and pupils' ideas inscience lessons:can teachers avoid reinforcing wrong ideas?

M. Louisa F. C. S. Veiga, Escola Superior de Educacao de Coimbra, Coimbra,Portugal, Duarte J. V. Costa Pereira, Universidade do Porto, Portugal andRoger Maskill, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

The lessons given by seven secondary school science teachers on the subject of 'heat', temperature andenergy were observed and all of the teacher's substantive statements were recorded. The language usedwas descriptively analysed and categorized in order to find out the nature of the inherent ideas. It wasfound that the common misconceptions found in studies of pupils' work in this topic area (such as thecaloric notion of heat having substantial properties similar to a fluid) were embedded in the linguisticmetaphors and analogies used by the teachers when discussing with the pupils. The misconceptions arethus not simply brought into classrooms from everyday discourse and experience: they are present in theclassroom itself in the language of teaching. It is argued that the common misconceptions stand littlechance of being eradicated in this situation, since they are continuously being unintentionally reinforcedby the teacher. Teachers, who understand the ideas, cannot easily pass on their knowledge since thelanguage they must use in order to communicate contains an implicit and serious barrier to learning. Somesuggestions for coping with this situation are made.

Introduction

There is growing evidence that 'students' science', a term used by Gilbert et al.(1982), is both tenacious and persistent. Viennot's work (1979) showed that formalteaching is not always successful at changing students' ideas. Voelker (1982) foundthat grade 12 students showed no increased understanding of several concepts (e.g.,molecule, organic chemical) over grade 10 students. Similarly, it was found that theintuitive ideas of some aspects of physics have been shown to persist, despiteinstruction, even among university physics students (Duit 1983, Viennot 1979). Astudy by Villani and Pacca (1987) showed that students who had finished a universityphysics course still used spontaneous notions in the solution of qualitative problemsabout the speed of light.

Shayer and Wylam (1981) found that many students aged 14 and 16 years whohad been exposed to formal instruction in the area still seemed to associate the word'heat' with the meanings that they had constructed for it during their everydayexperiences with hot and cold things. Tiberghien (1985) described the developmentof students' ideas of 'heat' and temperature as a result of teaching, using studiesundertaken over a number of years with French children aged between 10 and 14years. She found some improvement in their understanding of stability oftemperature during change of state, particularly for boiling water and meltingmetals, but she also noted students' difficulties in applying ideas about thetemperature of change of state. She also found that the number of students whorecognized the causal relation—'when a substance is heated, its temperatureincreases'—increased after teaching. Nevertheless, it remained a difficult concept forthem. No progress was noted in students' understanding of the equality oftemperatures at thermal equilibrium before and after teaching. Tiberghien (1985)

0950-0693/89 $3.00 © 1989 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

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also found that some pupils' explanations of 'heat' were of the same type before andafter teaching—'the material retains warmth or cold well or not as well'—althoughsome new words had been added. In other cases a noticeable change was found,although with evidence of significant difficulties. It was recognized, for instance, that'heat' transfer presupposes an action of one object on others, i.e., there is aninteraction between objects.

Comparing fourth year students' ideas of energy before and after teaching,Solomon (1983 b) found that the overall trend was a general movement towards theuse of newly-learned physics terms. The older 'human' aspect of energy was notpronounced amongst the less able group after teaching.

Yager and Yager (1984) studied the effect of schooling upon pupils' understand-ing of eight science terms, including energy, for 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students.They found no increase in students' understanding of the concepts between 13- and17-year-olds. These researchers considered the findings as an extension of Voelker'sstudy (1982) carried out with grade 10 to 12 students. They suggested that the schoolscience programmes seemed ineffective in increasing formal knowledge. The factthat grade 3 students (9-year-olds) were not as knowledgeable as were grade 7students (13-year-olds) and grade 11 students (17-year-olds) was explained by Yagerand Yager (1984) as likely to be due to reading problems. Also the younger group hadless opportunity to encounter the terms outside school.

The results selectively reviewed here make it clear that students' ideas often donot change very considerably or satisfactorily with formal teaching. It would beuseful if the reasons for this state of affairs could be investigated. The conventionalintepretation is that pupils' out-of-school lives consistently reinforce the non-science denotations of the words they use in science lessons. However, anotherpossibility is that teachers themselves reinforce the wrong ideas by the way theyteach. It is this second possibility that was investigated in the experiment reportedhere.

The experiment

A representative sample of 32 science teachers in the central region of Portugal wereasked to co-operate in the experiment (Veiga 1988) by allowing their lessons to beobserved. They were told that the interest of the experiment would simply be tointerpret how what they said to their students, individually or as a class, affects thethinking and the responses of the students. From the 32 teachers 16 expressed aninterest in being observed in their classrooms.

Sequences of three lessons in two grade levels were observed for each teacher.This number of lessons was the mean time judged to be necessary to cover areasonable sub-topic of the curriculum. Lessons from grades 5 to 9 were observed,the majority being from grade 7.

The sub-topics chosen were:

(i) effects of heat; and(ii) differentiation between heat, temperature and energy.

These topics were chosen because they have been heavily studied from theperspective of the learners' misconceptions and this should make possible acomparison of the ideas expressed in class with the known learning problems.

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First, teachers were asked when they intended to start teaching the chosensubjects. It was necessary to integrate various timetables, causing some organiz-ational conflicts, and the final sample was made up of seven teachers. The schoolswere heterogeneous with respect to socioeconomic stratification and students'abilities and, so far as could be judged, the teachers were a representative group,except for the obvious fact that they had volunteered for the experiment.

Collection of dataPupils' early science ideas have been observed and characterized in a variety ofdifferent ways (Sutton 1980), usually with individualized tests. The purpose of thepresent experiment was not to investigate teachers' ideas, which would haverequired similar methods, but was to characterize the ideas implicit in the languageteachers use when dealing with the science topics in naturalistic teaching situations.The data needed were the actual linguistic events associated with the teachers'classroom descriptions. Thus' live classroom observations were arranged, sixobservations for each teacher spanning one semester. This resulted in a total of 42observations, each one lasting for about SO minutes.

The observations started with each class at the beginning of the first lesson on thetopic. The researcher was present in all classes and was introduced to the pupils assomeone interested in observing student-teacher classroom interactions. For anumber of reasons the only possible recording technique was the use of a paper-and-pencil method to register information. Unfortunately, a tape-recorder was notaccepted by some teachers, with the main excuse being that pupils (but probably alsothe teachers) would not feel comfortable. Audio recordings would have beenpreferable but, as in all experiments of this kind, teachers' confidence is essential andit was necessary to accept this limitation.

It was realized how difficult it would be to maintain a value-free approach to thelive recording of teacher language and activity. The teachers might attempt to pleasethe observer and try to adapt to what they know is supposed to be expected of them.This possibility had to be accepted. A serious attempt was made by the observer toavoid being biased while observing teachers, although again it was clear that totalimpartiality could never be reached. A deliberate effort was made to avoid theobservations being influenced by the researchers' own ideas and expectations.

During the data collection the teachers' and pupils' relevant comments werewritten down by the observer as they happened. Chalkboard notes were recordedand handouts, assignments and some non-verbal cues were also noted. This resultedin a set of field notes for each teacher, which constituted the 'data set' for that teacher.It was impossible to pick up all the teachers' words used during the lessons and it isnecessary therefore to consider how the choice of the relevant features was made bythe researcher.

Undoubtedly the distinction between the most and the least important verbaloccurrences had to be subjective, being based on the researchers' previousexperience and expectations. However, because is weakness was realized from thebeginning, the subjectivity was kept down to a minimum. In general, the approach todata collection employed in the experiment was similar to that used in illuminativeclassroom evaluation (Parlett and Hamilton 1972).

The teaching frameworks revealed are not a categorization of teachers' ideas.However, they should offer a means of analysing the types of understandingsprovided and reinforced in classrooms. The analysis will be illustrated in this study

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using transcriptions of the teachers' verbalizations, using their own words asrecorded by the researcher. Because the number of relevant substantive commentsmade by the teachers was only a small part of the classroom talk, the researcher waseasily able to write it all down, as it happened. That some substantive comments maynot have been noticed (for subjective reasons) has to be accepted as a methodologicalweakness.

Analysis of data

The teachers' verbalizations made seven 'data sets'. They were sorted out intogroups, according to the topic(s) that had been taught. By using code numbers foreach verbalization, it was possible to identify the teacher, the grade level and thetopic. This procedure made it possible to examine the data in terms of individualconsistency across both the topics and the grade levels and in terms of the prevalenceof common types of concept usage (if any). The analytical method was to collecttogether all the utterances related to a given concept and look for patterns andcommonalities in the data.

The teaching frameworks (i.e., the ideas implied in the teachers' talk) for theconcepts associated with the words 'heat', temperature and energy will be looked atin depth and some of the implications will be drawn out.

Results

The ideas to be discussed below arose from a variety of classroom situations.Different sources of data (teacher-* student, teacher-*class, student-* studentinteraction; teacher's demonstration, students' experiments, group work,...)provided the data with which to address different sorts of questions about theprevalent classroom understanding of 'heat', temperature and energy. The lessonswere organized around these and other concepts but in many instances the datapresented on any concept was likely to have been generated from one or moresources, irrespective of the main themes of the lessons. The following analysis ofteachers' verbalizations represents a summary interpretation of the concepts, asevidenced in the observed lessons. Each of the concepts will be dealt with separately,stressing for each one the main features that led to the sorts of judgements that will bemade.

'Framework' is meant here not to categorize teachers' understandings, but as auseful means to express the understanding they probably provide through thelearning experiences they create.

'Heat'

Classroom observations seemed to suggest that teaching was mainly developed fromthe teachers' assumption that direct and everyday evidences related to 'heat' wouldcontribute to the knowledge development of the students. An example of this was thefrequent explanation by teachers of physical change phenomena within a familiarcontext. By such analogies teachers seemed to presume that the classroomexperiments would be more readily understood. However, the impression given inthe lessons was that everyday situations didn't necessarily make learning easier.Students frequently seemed to have difficulties in crossing back again, after havingused an everyday system of explanations. This point was clearly evident whendealing with physical changes and expansion. Teachers placed great emphasis on

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ideas to do with particles. Particles moving and colliding were frequently stressedand 'pushed' into students' explanations by the teachers. However, even whenchildren were made (spontaneous use of participate theory was uncommon) toexplain identical phenomena in both classroom and everyday contexts, it seemed tobe extremely hard for them to transfer the paniculate explanatory system from theformer to the latter contexts.

When explaining events, teachers tended to associate 'heat' with the normaleveryday meanings of the term used in encounters with hot and cold objects,referring to the degree of hotness of an object and to sources of 'heat'. ThePortuguese word for 'heat'—calor—can be used both with a substantive or anadjectival function, which probably causes much confusion concerning both life-world and classroom contexts.

A caloric viewpoint was generally supported by all teachers, almost referring to'heat' explicitly as a material substance. When not following the so-called principleof conservation of caloric (which describes 'heat' as indestructible and uncreatable),by saying that 'heat' could be created by friction, they also often used the idea that itcould be passed from one object to another.

The idea of 'heat' as a material substance was often exhibited by teachers. Thestatements shown below are examples:

.. . exposing a piece of metal to the sun turns it warmer... You know... the sun is asource of 'heat'... the sun supplied 'heat' to the metal and made it warmer;. . . you see... the same quantity of 'heat' wanned the metal ball and the waterdifferently... they were heated during the same time... so they received equalquantities of 'heat'.

Often the words heat and energy were used synonymously, mainly when trying torefer to gain/loss. However, some differentiation often appeared, by explicitreferences to 'heat' as a form/source of energy.

'Heat' was qualitatively assumed as that which always increases the temperatureof the object to which it is supplied. Similarly, the object's temperature decreased if'heat' was subtracted from it. Teachers' verbalizations about the mechanisms of'heat transfer' from one object to another or within the same object relied heavilyupon two main features:

(i) the substantive notion of 'heat' and its mechanism of transfer: e .g. , . . . heatflows through the bar from one end to the other... well . . . youknow.. . metals have electrical charges which may move freely and may carrythe heat from one point to another..., and

(ii) the properties of the substances through which 'heat' moves: e.g., . . .heatflows through the metal bar and doesn't through the wood.. .just becausesome substances have the property of conducting heat and othersdon't. . . they are called conductors and insulators... good and badconductors.

A variety of explanations were used in the topics related to physical changes inmatter. The use of analogies in these topics was more evident than in any otherswhere teaching was observed. Explanations of an animistic or human-centred typewere common when dealing with expansion:

e.g., you see... the air wants to get out... it is too squashed in the flask, because it washeated... therefore it expanded... well... it behaved just as you do in a supermarket,when you feel uncomfortable, as you feel too squashed...

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How teachers focused upon the various partial theoretical frameworks included inexplanations of this type varied a good deal. For some of them, causal relations like'heat/heating implies expansion* or 'heat/heating gives rise to an increase oftemperature' seemed to be considered as the core explanation and were repeated asmany times as the explanation was required. For others, a human-centred viewpointbased upon 'logic' derived from common experience and making use of analogiesappeared to be assumed to be the best teaching approach.

Although the particulate theory was the most prevalent model developed byteachers, it generally appeared followed up by either causal relations or human-centred analogy derived from everyday experiences, or both:

e.g., the liquid was heated... the molecules/particles moved faster and furtherapart... if it was heated its temperature increased... the molecules/particles movedfaster and further apart... if it was heated its temperature increased... well... we maymake a parallel with what would happen to you being closed in a very warm room, plentyof people... you would feel uncomfortable... you would become nervous...agitated... and certainly you would try to get farther apart from all the other people.

Even in higher grade classes, ideas like 'heat' associated with the motion of theparticles, 'heat' as the result of movements of the particles, kinetic energy associatedwith the random motion of the atoms or the molecules comprising all matter wereinfrequently exposed.

On the basis of the understandings that these teachers seemed to provide for theterm 'heat', a set of frameworks was derived to summarize the overall picture.

1. Substantive framework—'heat' as being substantive in nature, 'heat' as aquantity that:

• is contained in objects;• is supplied or subtracted to something and gives rise to an increase or

decrease in its temperature;• may be transferred from one object to another; and• travels from one point to another within the same object and flows from

object to object.

This substantive framework was frequent and popular amongst all theteachers, irrespective of grade levels and curriculum topics. It seemed to bechosen especially for explanations of changes of state, 'heat' conduction andexpansion/contraction.

2. Causal framework—'heat' as the causal agent when one compelling event istaken and related to another subsequent event.

This causal framework was clearly evident among all teachers. It was oftenused when 'heat' appeared to be associated with the words temperature andenergy (changes of state and expansion/contraction). Evidence for thisframework was simultaneous with that of the substantive framework,associating a quantity of 'heat' supplied to the body with any effect thatmight occur afterwards. The source of 'heat' was often made explicit,usually inferred from contiguity. 'Heat' was the cause of any followingevent, rather than a mediating link between cause and effect.

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3. Fluid framework—'heat' flowing in a mechanism of transfer; 'heat' is viewedas a fluid moving in the interior of an object, or passing from one object toanother.

This framework seemed to be supported by reference to two main teachers'assumptions:• 'heat' is a fluid that flows by itself, implicitly implying the existence of

holes or empty spaces for it to travel through; and• 'heat is a fluid that is carried.The two statements described below give examples of these two implicitassumptions:

. . . the bar was heated at the top end... but heat passes from point topoint... it crosses through the bar and so reaches the opposite end...;. . . as you know metals have electrical charges which can freely move andcarry heat step-by-step until it reaches the other end.

No significant differences were found in the use of these frameworks in class with thedifferent grade levels involved in the study, except for the introduction of new words,such as 'electrical charges'.

Pupils' ideas of 'heat' have been well characterized in the literature. It iscommonly used as a verb, is seen as something substantial that flows from one objectto another (Clough and Driver 1985, Erickson 1979, Erickson and Tiberghien 1985,Tiberghien 1980, Watts 1983) and is not easily related to the paniculate model(Briggs and Brooks 1984). The teachers' references to 'heat' mirrored closely thesepupil notions and, in general, were unsatisfactory and sometimes even incorrect.Heating was not often referred to as a process by which internal energy transfers canoccur.

Temperature

The everyday use of the term suggests its strong relation with different levels, ordegrees, of 'heat'. It is used as a measure of the amount of 'heat' that a body possesses.Similarly, any change of temperature in an object is frequently explained in terms ofhaving either added or subtracted 'heat'.

All students in this study were presented with both qualitative and quantitativetasks for the development of the idea of temperature. Two representational systemsfor the concept were frequently combined: one qualitative, descriptive and intuitive,and the other quantitative and numerical. The emphasis put on each varied fromteacher to teacher and from task to task. Some stressed the qualitative representationof temperature from personal experience, intuition and common sense; othersemphasized the numerical system used to measure temperature.

It must be pointed out that many of the teachers taught mathematics at somegrade levels. Some were teachers of science and mathematics to the same class. Theseother syllabuses require the manipulation of numbers to represent additivequantities. It is understandable that teachers did not stress the numbers thatrepresent an intensive, non-additive property such as temperature. It may alsoexplain why these teachers frequently assumed that the 'intensive physical property'of temperature was understood by students and didn't explore the pupils' reasoning.Students were often asked to predict the temperature of water poured into an emptyvessel from two containers, both with water at the same temperature. Students were

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shown two vessels with water at 20°C. After mixing, some pupils predicted thetemperature to be 20°C and others 40°C. When trying to eliminate students'misunderstandings on this point, teachers rarely stressed the intensive property oftemperature. They did not stress that temperature is not dependent on the quantityof matter. Instead, identity explanations were given, such as:

. . . you see... all the water is 20°C... so the mixture of both has to be 20°C;

. . . it has to be 20°C, because... you see... it's the same water;

. . . you've just poured the water... so the temperature of the final mixture must bethe same.

The differentiation between temperature and 'heat' was generally done through theuse of a mental model, i.e., through a theoretical structure which was hypothesizedon the basis of observations of natural phenomena. The explanations could becategorized as either simple descriptions, based on logic derived from commonexperience (e.g., ' . . .you know.. . whenever you supply heat to an object, itstemperature increases...') or as a restatement of the observations of the demon-strated phenomena, with a description of the mental model (e.g. , ' . . . mercury roseup because you supplied heat to the water and. . . you know, an increase of heat givesrise to an increase in temperature...')' The warm-cold duality was assumed acrossalmost all the explanations (e.g., ' . . . the conclusion is that, at a certain moment, anyobject you touch seems warmer or colder accordingly to the object itself and to theprevious temperature of your skin...').

An overall analysis of the ideas implied in the teaching suggest that the followingconceptual framework for temperature, with two major dimensions, 'would bedeveloped.

I. Reversible relation framework, which can be translated in the followingterms:

'Heat' Temperaturecauses

(adding/subtracting) • (increasing/decreasing)(quantity of heat) < (degree)

is a measure ofA transcription of part of a lesson will exemplify how the change of anyobjects' temperature was explained by teachers in terms of having eitheradded or subtracted 'heat' to it:

. . . although they are different, heat and temperature are related... thefollowing analogy will help you in understanding thedifference... when water is poured from a tap into a container thewater level goes u p . . . but the liquid level and the quantity of waterwhich fell into the container are different things.. . the liquid leveldepends on the container diameter... in the same way, when a body isheated its temperature goes u p . . . but the increase of temperature andthe amount of heat received are different things... if you use a matchflame to heat a metallic ring, the temperature can rise in such a way thatyou are unable to hold i t . . . but if you use the same match flame to heatthe water in a glass, it will be difficult to perceive any increase oftemperature, although both the ring and the glass received equalquantities of heat... .Another framework was shared by some of the teachers, although notby the majority, especially when chemical reactions were being taught.

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2. Causal framework—when a cause-effect relation is shown (either directly,or by describing intermediate effects) and where temperature takes the placeof cause, instead of being the effect.

This framework and that of reversible relations are not contradictory.Something must make (cause) an increase in temperature (effect) and this, inits turn, is given as the cause of another process. But whereas in the firstframework the cause of the increase in temperature was always made clear,in the causal framework it was not so evident. The following teacherstatement illustrates the causal framework.

. . . you see.. . an increase in temperature implies particles movefaster... as the possibility of colliding increases... a bigger number ofeffective collisions will occur... and so the rate of reaction increases...

Pupils' ideas of temperature have been studied and, just as for heat, are similar tothose reported here in their teachers' language references. Erickson (1979) showedthat temperature is related by pupils to the amount of a substance. It is alsoconsidered to be a measure of the amount of 'heat' or 'cold' contained in thesubstance (Briggs and Brooks 1984). The additive nature of temperature has alsobeen shown to be a source of confusion (Strauss et al. 1977, Stavy and Berkovitz1980) and many children are unable to distinguish temperature from heat (Finley1985).

Energy

The number of relational propositions generated in the observed teaching for energywas large. The word appeared mostly related to biological and physical conceptssuch as life, change, growth, health, human activities, chemical, potential, kinetic,thermal, mechanical, electrical transformations and conservation.

The idea of energy as a measurable quantity, corresponding to a state of particleagitation, was not often referred to by the teachers, although they made frequentstatements using the words energy and agitation.

The word energy was most commonly used in teaching with the meanings that itusually takes in 'life-world' language, i.e., considered either as a quality that peopleand objects possess or in terms of living associations and activities:

e.g the ball doesn't have enough energy to move... that's why it stopped...e.g.,... we need energy to live... when we run out of energy we have to eat, to drink,to rest, . . .

Although defining the term was, in general, avoided, energy was predominantlystated as 'the capacity for doing work'. This assertion appears to be acceptable toteachers, who probably already comprehend the subtleties of the concepts. But forsome students who may only have learned definitions it could bring some problemsbecause of the varied meanings of the concept of work in everyday language.

The fundamental position of the sun was often stressed, being referred to as 'thesource of life', 'the main source of energy', 'the power of the solar system', 'whatmakes food grow'. Degradation of energy was linked to the problem of energy crisisthrough the idea that some sources of energy are becoming weak and will not berecuperated. The 'principle of energy transformation' was stated by all theseteachers in a similar way:

e.g.,... energy is never created and never destroyed, but can be changed from one formto another.

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However, the emphasis was mainly put upon the second part of the statement(reversibility). Some of them made it explicit that 'energy cannot be created out ofnothing'. When the energy crisis was discussed in the classroom, the reversibilitydidn't seem to imply to students that there was quantitative conservation. Only oneof the teachers put the question in explicit terms:

e.g.,... the idea that any one form of energy always results from another one brings usthe question: will there always be conservation of energy? We should say, yes, thequantity of energy doesn't change through transformations... however, there is alwayssome energy which is not recuperated for new use... this is why we talk about an energycrisis and why the problem of decreasing energy reserves is so important.

Words like heat and light were frequently used by teachers as synonyms for energy.They did not exactly say that they are the same thing, but used theminterchangeably.

The following overall conceptual frameworks were identified in the teachers'statement.

1. Antkropocentric framework—energy is to do with living things—typicalstatements use the word energy related to living things (by way of beingenergetic) and human energy (being rechargeable through food, exercise orby resting).

2. Energetic framework—energy as an energetic quality—energy was as-sociated with living and non-living things, possessing the quality of beingenergetic.

3. Source framework—energy as a source of force, motion, activity wasidentified with a display of activity, and was considered as what makes thingswork; some things were seen as having excess energy to be given off, whileothers needed the energy they receive from any source.

4. Functional framework—energy as the main ingredient for some functionalprocesses—energy was associated with processes that make life morepleasant, through useful activities.

5. Transformational framework—energy as a transformation ingredient—thechanges of energy from one form into another were considered as takingplace in some physical and chemical process.

6. Flow framework—energy as transferable—energy was seen as flowing, inmovement, and being transferred from the 'owners' to the 'receptors'.

Teachers' explanations and examples could not usually be classified as belonging toany single framework. Multiple frameworks were usually displayed simultaneously.The most pervading structure in the explanations was the human need to rechargeenergy through food, exercise or by resting—the anthropocentric framework—andwas associated with the idea of living and non-living things possessing the quality ofbeing energetic—the energetic framework. Within this multiple framework, humanactivites, health, food and fuels played the central role. There was great emphasis oneating, drinking and physical well-being, in a very egocentric sense. Energy wasmostly given an energetic quality rather than a measurable quantity.

In the source framework an emphasis was given to energy stores, which wererelated to the view that some things are deposits of energy, while others expend the

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TEACHERS' LANGUAGE AND PUPILS' IDEAS IN SCIENCE 475

energy they receive. Batteries, fuel, coal, combustibles were frequent words used inthese explanations. This framework always implied the idea of a depository ofenergy, the sources being the deposits in which the energy is stored until it isneeded.:

e.g., . . . please identify some sources of energy and give evidence of their uses,e.g., . . . from where do you receive the energy you use in running, playing,studying?... yes, from the sun... the sun causes the food to grow... you eatthe food.

Although some teachers gave explanations in terms of the 'source' framework alone,the sources were often linked to the functions and transformations they caused, withthe idea of energy being transferable from the sources to the acceptors, as a flow.

The functional framework was frequently made explicit through a great numberof examples given by the teachers, using activities that were supposed to befundamental for a comfortable or pleasant life. The purpose or function was linkedwith some kind of energy that was needed at the personal level.

The transformational framework was less common but was dominant with two orthree teachers, e.g.,

... how does the radiator work?... electrical energy is transformed into thermal energy;

... burning some combustibles, coal or fuel, you take thermal energy and produceelectrical energy... this is, in its turn, converted into movement energy, magneticenergy, light energy, sound energy...

The ways in which functional and transformational frameworks appeared together isshown below:

e.g the radiator uses electrical energy and transforms it into thermal energy... sothe radiator heats the room... ;e.g., ... burning some combustibles, fuel,... you get thermal energy to produceelectrical energy... this is converted into movement energy, light energy, soundenergy,... so we are now able to explain how dams and cars work...

Pupils' ideas of energy closely follow the ideas revealed here in the teachers'language. Solomon (1983 b) showed that human activities (health, food, fuel, etc.)figured largely when pupils were asked to write sentences using the word energy.Similar findings were also reported by Watts (1983). Watts and Gilbert (1983) foundthat energy was frequently seen by pupils as a causal agent, something stored inobjects, that induces them to move or is produced by activity as a by-product. Asimilar result was reported by Bliss (1985) in her study of 13-year-old girls. Duit(1983) and Driver and Warrington (1985) have also reported the difficulties studentshave with the idea of energy conservation. These findings and the teachers' linguisticreferences found here will be discussed in the next section.

Discussion and conclusions

The purpose of this work was not to describe teachers' ideas about 'heat',temperature and energy. It was to find out and to systematize implied forms ofthought in terms of an interpretation of some aspects of teachers' language. The dataand analysis do point to some possible reasons why students do not significantly altertheir perceptions about how and why things behave as they do in a scientific sense.Teachers discuss science experiences with pupils and, in order to communicate in anaturalistic manner, use words with everyday meanings alongside the same wordsused with their more precise scientific definitions. It was found that the misconcep-

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4 7 6 RESEARCH REPORTS

tions and difficulties that pupils are known to have were similar to the misleadingreferences used by the teachers in their everyday language in the classroom.

Teachers may have an almost impossible task. On the one hand they must talk tothe pupils in words and language that the pupils will understand. However, thisnatural language may contain the very ideas that the teacher is trying to change.When a teacher says 'the heat flows down the copper bar' or 'closing the door keepsthe warmth in' the caloric notion of heat is being implicitly reinforced in the pupils'minds (Hewson 1983). Saying 'energy comes from the sun* is analogous to sayingthat 'coal comes from Newcastle', which carries with it the idea that energy issubstantial and can be moved about in containers. The phrase 'comes from ' is notwrong in either context but requires a different interpretation in order to convey therequired meaning in each case.

For pupils the meaning of words when they are first used in a science context isthe sum of all the connections to all the other situations in their lives when thesewords have been used. Most words therefore have multifaceted meanings. A wordsuch as temperature has a meaning internal to science, which comes from the waythat the word is used within the rules established in the subject matter. Anothermeaning, which is largely external to science, comes from the way the word is used inthe everyday context (Schutz and Luckmann 1973). In this study, teachers andlearners used many words in the formal scientific way, as well as in the everyday lifesense. Informal reasoning and explanations in the classroom made use of a widerange of interpretative notions brought from daily experience. The words certainlyacquired new meanings to the pupils as they were used in these scientific situations.However, it should not be presumed that students forget other meanings by the factof a change of setting, particularly since the teachers continued to import, andtherefore implicitly maintain, the everyday meanings in their phraseology.

In the observed lessons, teachers continually developed situations that requiredthem to use both everyday dimensions of words (in order to communicate with thepupils) and also scientific dimensions (in order to define and state ideas as clearly aspossible). The words almost certainly denoted different things for teachers andstudents. As these situations developed the teachers' and students' understandingsof the same words probably diverged.

This may explain why, when pupils are learning new scientific ideas, priorconceptions associated with words remain important and probably dominant for along time. The teachers are continually using the same non-scientific meaningdimensions in their conversations. It is not surprising that both teachers andstudents face problems when the teaching and learning experience results in poortest performance; the teachers can't understand why their carefully organizedlessons have not had the desired effect and the pupils can't understand why theirlearning is not as desired.

Teachers often believe that learning difficulties have two main causes: eitherlearners are deficient in prerequisite skills or learners have firmly embeddedconceptualizations that are in conflict with the scientific concepts. However, the twodimensions of meaning in the words used by teachers—the 'real life' sense and the'science' sense—was almost certainly a major problem in teaching the concepts of'heat', temperature and energy in the present investigatoon. The two systems ofmeaning—the two languages—not only interacted badly with each other but, asalready suggested, they also probably served to reinforce the ideas that every studentalready had before the formal teaching of the concepts started.

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TEACHERS' LANGUAGE AND PUPILS' IDEAS IN SCIENCE 477

It is impossible for teachers to speak using scientific terms (scientific here is anyword that carries a specific meaning when used within the context of a particularscience subject) without bringing in daily meanings. A form of language that wouldavoid all possible misleading references, denotations and connotations cannot beimagined. It would have to avoid all common linguistic references and would have tobe continually circumscribed with qualifying comments ( ' . . . when I say that energycomes from the sun I don't mean that it comes in the same way that coal comes fromNewcastle nor do I mean that it comes in the same way that I come from Yorkshire nordo I mean that it comes in the same way that good health comes from clean living whatI mean is ' ) . Such a form of language would not communicate. Teachers have touse naturalistic language that the pupils are familiar with and which does not get inthe way of an easy exchange of meaning. However, teachers must become aware thatthe possibly conflicting ways of interpreting such natural expressions may, at thevery least, slow good learning down. As already argued it would be impossible andalso undesirable to keep informal culture out of science classrooms. Everyday sensesof scientific words are entrenched in the everyday meanings of words since themeanings of scientific words cannot be separated from the daily social context inwhich they are most frequently used (by scientists and non-scientists alike; even aprofessor of thermodynamics would probably tell his children to 'close the door tokeep the warmth in'). The core concept associated with the phrase 'comes from'above is probably impossible to characterize (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976) anddepends on the acceptable and conventional usage of the term in many variablecontexts (Lackoff and Johnson 1980). The finding that pupils' intuitive ideas about'heat', energy and temperature identified in the literature appeared to be veryprevalent in the language used by teachers is a natural and unavoidable consequenceof this unpredictable and variable property of language.

In recent work by Shuell (1987), it was argued that science educators also haveprior conceptions that influence their work. He pointed out a variety of alternativeframeworks, in particular those from curriculum, subject matter, behaviour andscientific principles and methods. We are suggesting that an equally seriousimpediment to learning is the scientifically incorrect conceptions contained in andcontinually reinforced by the natural language in the class. The answer is not, assome might suggest, for teachers to stop talking so much, though there are otherreasons for believing that this might lead to an improvement, but rather for teachersto become more keenly aware of the problems. Teachers are there to help pupils tobuild a better understanding of the concepts (Hewson and Hewson 1984) and thiswill be enabled by a more sympathetic and carefully considered approach todescriptive language and possibly by deliberately keeping misleading references to aminimum.

References

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CLOUGH, E. E. and DRIVER, R. 1985, Secondary students' conceptions of the conduction ofheat: bringing together scientific and personal views. Physics Education, Vol. 20,pp. 176-182.

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Correspondence

M. Louisa F. C. S. Veiga, Escola Superior de Educacao de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.

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