The ECLIPSE Project:
ECLIPSE is:
Exploring Conceptual Learning, Integration and Progression in Science Education
This project seeks to develop a better understanding of how conceptual learning occurs in science, with a particular focus on how well the learner's conceptions are integrated, and how conceptual frameworks develop over time. The project is underpinned by a constructivist position on learning - that the nature of all learning is highly contingent (upon prior learning, learning context, features of language...). The project draws upon research and scholarship into students' alternative conceptions and conceptual frameworks ('misconceptions', 'intuitive theories' etc.) This project is intended to develop theory about learning science that will be of practical use to teachers, learners and those responsible for determining the science curriculum.
The ECLIPSE project website includes many examples of students' ideas and learning difficulties in science topics from the school and college curriculum.
Student 'misconceptions' (alternative conceptions) in science
Some examples of student ideas and thinking exlpored in ECLIPSE include:
- Chemical bonding - chemical bonding understood in terms of atoms wanting to fill their electron shells: the basis of an extensive alternative conceptual framework
- Chemical stability - student conceptions of chemical stability dominated by notions of the intrinsic stability of octets/full shells
- Conservation of substance - fuels get 'used up' on burning: pupil's intuitive notion
- Electrical resistance - electrical resistance depends upon density: as resistance is understood as a blocking of the flow of charge
- Ionic charge - deviation conception of electrical charge: positive ionic charge understood as having electrons over a full shell; negative ionic charge understood as being electrons short of a full shell
- Ionisation energy- students apply alternative conceptions to explaining patterns in ionisation energy, and retain their hard core conceptions despite degree study
- Metallic bonding - students misconceive the nature of metallic bonding in terms of prior learning about covalent and ionic bonding
- Nuclear charge sharing - conservation of force conception: that an atomic nucleus gives rise to a fixed amount of electrical force (depending on its charge) which is shared between the electrons present
- Orbitals - student misunderstanding of orbital models of atomic and molecular systems
- Thickness of light - refraction of light understood in terms of a visualisation of light as having a physical thickness, part of which passes across an interface before the rest.
For examples of how students explain such ideas in their own words, visit the ECLIPSE Project website.
ECLIPSE is an umbrella for a series of smaller sub-projects and interests:
- Understanding Science project - looking at secondary age students' developing understandings of topics in school science, and the links between them (examples of student 'misconceptions' are given below) ;
- Learning about the nature of science and religion - as part of a concern with students' developing understanding of the nature of science ('how science works'); linked to the collaborative LASAR (Learning about Science and Religion) Project, working with Reading University.
- Learning science doctors - using diagnostic assessment approaches in the classroom to identify the 'learning bugs' that can block student learning, e.g. the typology of learning impediments
- Challenging the most able in science - through projects such as APECS (Able Pupils Experiencing Challenging Science) and ASCEND (Able Scientists Collectively Exploring New Demands)
- Physical Science project - looking at how A level students relate their learning in chemistry and physics; this includes a collaborative project with colleagues at the National Institute of Education in Singapore, exploring learning about the topic of Ionisation Energy (Tan, D., Goh N. K. and Chia L. S. and Taber, K. S. (2005) Development of a Two-Tier Multiple Choice Diagnostic Instrument to Determine A-Level Students' Understanding of Ionisation Energy, Singapore: National Institute of Education - may be accessed from this link Tan et al (2005) Ionisation Energy.pdf (764k).
- Challenging Chemical Conceptions - exploring students' understanding of chemical concepts (based on a Royal Society of Chemistry teacher fellowship Project - see http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/learnnet/miscon2.htm)
- Scaffolding Learning in Physical Science project - exploring the nature of teaching materials that support conceptual learning
Dr. Keith S. Taber
[kst24@cam.ac.uk]