What are the different stages of 'Conceptual development' or 'Conceptual Evolution'? Kindly provide references to the literature. Thanks
Hi Faraz Khurshid,
In my opinion, difficulties with scientific concepts are often due to inappropriate science curricula.
Hi Faraz Khurshid,
In my opinion, difficulties with scientific concepts are often due to inappropriate science curricula.
There has been much debate over whether concepts are mental (symbolic) representations (e.g., Dummet, 1996), or abstract objects, constituents of propositions that mediate between thought and language on the one hand and referents on the other (Margolis & Lawrence, 2005). They are basic parts of thoughts, and so they are essential to mental processes like categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making (Margolis & Lawrence, 2005). We make sense of concepts through categorization, the most important process in human thought, perception, action, and speech. According to a probabilistic view of categories, examples of a concept can differ in the degree to which they share some features. In addition, making sense of concepts differs depending on our physical, social, and cultural experiences.
In science education, for example, non-western students, because of their background knowledge, may misunderstand scientific concepts. To fix this problem, teachers should be cognizant of the gap between the different views of the concepts so that their students accommodate the new knowledge without confusion, as concepts save us mental effort by allowing us to apply previous knowledge to new situations.
Children’s concepts differ from adult concepts, given that young children’s minds differ from the minds of adults. In contrast to adults, children’s concepts are more concrete, perceptually based, and comprise incomplete superordinate groupings. Piaget (1964) believes that cognitive development progresses through four sequential stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations) beginning at birth and culminating in adolescence. Progress through the initial stages is driven primarily by physical maturation. Later stages increasingly arise from physical experience and interaction with others.
Some valuable resources are provided below.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4494551.pdf?casa_token=UPQGFtQyyW0AAAAA:oqNMKWfyCbKbTxZdPG2bJRTvjCBwdKTk0jfGo46mO8N72G6adSrkZK2d46v_S-XO8ayarZX0Quyx9wlM3ZMrHF6HLJIChYq47_OsdX-KJOCK5Mpp_0By
https://books.google.com.my/books?hl=en&lr=&id=swdREAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR19&dq=Dummet,+M.+(1996).+The+Seas+of+Language.+Oxford:+Clarendon+Press.&ots=_uUYwPWol-&sig=ssF9Xnofi4tdtOHAtmCkiGzuzYw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7410261/pdf/nihms-1505329.pdf
https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html?campaignid=70161000000RNtB&vid=2120483
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20116182
- Badges
- Science topic