Learning of science concepts within a traditional socio-cultural environment

Abstract

The learning of science concepts within a traditional socio-cultural environment were investigated by looking at: 1) the nature of \"cognitive border crossing\" exhibited by the students from the traditional to the scientific worldview, and 2) whether or not three learning theories / hypotheses: border crossing, collaterality, and contiguity were applicable to their science conceptions. At the end of the instructional intervention, the discussions of two groups, each consisting of ten subjects from the experimental and control groups, were video recorded to test whether or not their views had changed from alternative to scientifically valid conceptions of selected concepts. The findings of the study showed that the students exhibited different forms of cognitive border crossing thus corroborating the three learning theories / hypotheses. However, the study revealed that each of the three theoretical models did not seem to fully capture the phenomenon of border crossing, and hence the positing of the \'Cognitive Border Crossing Learning Model\' (CBCLM), which combined the three models to show how, when and in what contexts the various types of border crossings took place in the mind of a learner. The study raised issues for further research.


South African Journal of Education Vol.24(4) 2004: 270-277