Three Types of Conceptual Change: Belief Revision, Mental Model Transformation, and Categorical Shift

Learning of complex material, such as concepts encountered in science classrooms, can occur under at least three different conditions of prior knowledge. First, a student may have no prior knowledge of the to-be-learned concepts, although they may have some related knowledge. In this case, prior knowledge is missing, and learning consists of adding new knowledge. Second, a student may have some correct prior knowledge about the to-be-learned concepts, but that knowledge is incomplete. In this incomplete knowledge case, learning can be conceived of as gap fi lling. In both missing and incomplete knowledge conditions, knowledge acquisition is of the enriching kind (Carey, 1991). In a third condition, a student may have acquired ideas, either in school or from everyday experience, that are “in confl ict with” the to-be-learned concepts (Vosniadou, 2004). Knowledge acquisition under this third case is of the conceptual change kind. It is customary to assume in this case that the prior “in confl ict with” knowledge is incorrect or misconceived, and the to-be-learned information is correct, by some normative standard. Thus, learning in this third condition is not adding new knowledge or gap fi lling incomplete knowledge; rather, learning is changing prior misconceived knowledge to correct knowledge. This chapter focuses on this conceptual change kind of learning.