The authors organized an experiment to clarify the respective effects of (1) terms-manipulation, (2) scientific experience and (3) extended experience of everyday experience on science learning. They divided university students into 4 groups. Group1 executed all of (1)(2)(3), Group2(1) and (2), Group3(1) and (3), and Group4 only (1). Their learning task was to understand the physics law “Light moves in a straight line”. Before each learning procedure, all subjects were not able to solve almost all the problems. After the experiment, the following results were gained. (a)Performing only terms-manipulation had no effect on learning. (b)Supplementing terms-manipulation with experience, any of scientific, extended from everyday experience or both of them, fully enabled thinking relying on analogy from prior experiences. (c)In the situation mentioned above, the subjects failed to produce logical thinking on scientific laws for both complex and simple problem situations. (d)When both terms-manipulation and scientific experience were performed, a small number of learners were capable to use logical thinking in the complex problem situations of the simplest type.

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The “knowledge operation” is the mental activities through which learners transform their knowledge representation for problem solving. The purpose of this study was to analyze the communication processes between teachers and learners in science classes of the elementary school from the point of view of knowledge operation. The analyses focused on vicarious knowledge operation; a type of knowledge operation that teachers performed partially on behalf of learners. The results were as follows: (1) few learners voluntarily performed the knowledge operation that was desirable in their learning; (2) the use of vicarious knowledge operation in the form of question was effective in promoting the understanding of the learners; (3) the importance of the vicarious knowledge operation was not necessarily self-evident for the teachers. These results suggested that the vicarious knowledge operation had compensatory effects for the learners, and that the performance of the vicarious knowledge operation greatly depended on the teachers’ interpretation of teaching materials.

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[in Japanese]

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