Fostering conceptual change by analogies - between Scylla and Charybdis

A growing body of research shows that analogies may be powerful tools for guiding students from their pre-instructional conceptions towards science concepts, But it has also become apparent that analogies may deeply mislead students' learning processes. Conceptual change, to put it into other words, may be both supported and hampered by the same analogy. The study presented here was designed to investigate the processes of analogy generation and development and to reveal the microstructure of analogical reasoning. Analogical reasoning was investigated during a grade 10 physics unit on the limited predictability of chaotic systems. Analogies played a key role in the instructional module to make explicit function and structure of certain chaotic systems. Analogies were also used to introduce the notion of "chaotic systems" embracing prototypical examples of chaotic systems studied. The theoretical orientation of the study merges key features of conceptual change approaches and social-constructivist studies on communities of learners. Hence, students were provided with substantial periods of time to generate their own analogies or employ analogies provided by the teacher to understand chaotic systems. There are many cases in our study that illustrate the affordances and pitfalls of analogies in promoting conceptual change. Hence the use of analogies as teaching and learning aids may always be a delicate course between Scylla and Charybdis. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.