2006 Volume 47 Issue 2 Pages 75-82
Finding ways to develop children's naive concepts into scientific concepts is one of the important tasks of science classes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between hypothetical examples in experimental activities and children's concepts regarding "the expansion of air" in the "quantity and temperature of air" unit in the fourth grade of elementary school science class. As a result of the investigation, the following points became clear: 1) Children's naive "circle type," "upward type," and "compression gushing type" concepts were often modified into the scientific "expansion type" concept while they performed experiments with hypothetical examples. 2) The children whose ideas changed about the scientific concept regarding "the expansion of air" monitored their naive concepts and noticed the contradictions in them while performing experiments with hypothetical examples.
