Developmental aspects of primary school children's construction of explanations of air pressure: the nature of conceptual change

A considerable amount of work has focussed on children's 'alternative conceptions' in science and their resistance to change. This study looks at the language in which children frame explanations in science, and the consistency of these explanations across contexts. Schoolchildren of age from 5 to 13 experimented in small groups with a range of activities illustrative of 'air pressure'. An analysis of transcripts of their discussions and of several written probes indicates a developmental factor in childrens preference for both explanatory forms and conceptions, in the types of links they made and in the consistency of their explanations across contexts. The analysis gives new insights into the nature of conceptual change.