Speaking Across Levels: Generating and Addressing Levels Confusion in Discourse

• In Event: Framing and Epistemology and Theories of Learning

Abstract

Reasoning across distinct descriptive levels with multiple representations is a fundamental component of scientific reasoning, particularly in chemistry. Repeatedly, students are seen to confuse features restricted to one level across multiple levels as they progress through science curriculum. The present study examines the nature of teacher-student discourse practices that can generate, maintain and reconcile levels-confusion in the chemistry classroom. Our analysis of whole class discussions of chemical and physical changes illustrate how teachers and students enter the chemistry classroom biased to reason about chemistry phenomena from very different levels. We suggest that levels-confusion in chemistry arises from multiples sources that include the philosophical assumptions of chemistry, representational practices of the domain, and subtle epistemic moves made by chemistry teachers.

Authors

• Mike Stieff, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Minjung Ryu, University of Maryland - College Park

• Jason C. Yip, University of Maryland - College Park