Andrew Elby

This paper pulls into the empirical realm a longstanding theoretical debate about the prior knowledge students bring to bear when learning scientific concepts and representations. Misconceptions constructivists view the prior knowledge as stable, context-independent alternate conceptions. By contrast, fine-grained constructivists believe that much of students’ intuitive knowledge consists of unarticulated, loosely-connected knowledge elements, the activation of which depends on context. By focusing on students’ intuitive knowledge about representations, and by fleshing out the two constructivist frameworks, I show that they lead to empirically different predictions. Pilot studies demonstrate the feasibility of a full-fledged experimental program to decide which flavor of constructivist describes students more adequately.