2016 Volume 57 Issue 1 Pages 45-52
Conceptual exchange semantically implies abandoning the old theory and accepting the new theory; however, the abandonment of the old theory is not forgotten. In other words, there is a replacement of the order of the beliefs about the theories (i.e. commitment toward these theories) through conceptual change (Strike and Posner, 1994). As understanding is a commitment to a theory, understanding is also confidence and/or belief in said concepts. The structure of conceptual exchange consists of two stages, i.e. switching of theories and an increase in the commitment toward a new theory (Tonishi and Kubota, 2004). In this study, a detailed process of conceptual exchange was studied using the fortune lines method (White and Gunstone, 1992). The teaching content is based on the “balance of a rigid body” in a high school physics class, and the task used is about the moment of the force. From the results, we could clarify that the process of conceptual exchange is quite variable; however, there is a common pattern, such as the decrease in commitment toward one’s own theory before the switching to a new theory, followed by an increase in commitment toward the new theory. The first stage of conceptual exchange is switching theories with the decrease in commitment toward one’s own theory, and the second stage is the increase in commitment toward the new theory. These stages are independent of each other. Because the switching of theories needs competition or conflict between theories as a precondition, it arises during the interactive social process among students and/or between students and the teacher. Only the commitment toward the theory changes with evidence. The commitment increases when the result of experiment is considered concordant with the prediction from the theory; otherwise the commitment would decrease. The experiments do not create or change the theories, but they do change the commitment. These views strongly support the results of the practical study on conceptual exchange in junior high school by Tonishi and Kubota (2004).
