Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables

The primary purpose of this work was to identify the process by which the control of variables' strategy develops. Investigations are described which indicate that the strategies used on 'control of variables' tasks are task specific. The quasi/empirical nature of science tasks is sh...

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Main Author: Joyes, Gordon Michael
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 1982
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13706/
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author Joyes, Gordon Michael
author_facet Joyes, Gordon Michael
author_sort Joyes, Gordon Michael
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The primary purpose of this work was to identify the process by which the control of variables' strategy develops. Investigations are described which indicate that the strategies used on 'control of variables' tasks are task specific. The quasi/empirical nature of science tasks is shown to affect the use of the control strategy. Further investigations are described that indicate the existence of a concrete operational control strategy which has as its basis negation by elimination and cancellation, and not Piaget's formal level operation of negation by neutralisation. Two major studies, one at the Secondary School and one at the Junior School level, are described in which four parallel substages in the development of the control strategy were noted. At the concrete operational level these substages represented an increasing ability to produce a consistency between judgments and experimental results through the formation of increasingly sophisticated strategies, i.e. through attendance to first order relations. At the formal operational level the substages represented an increasing ability to compare criteria for the use of strategies, i.e. attendance to second order relations. Neo-Piagetian procedures are applied and the calculation of the M demand for the substages tends to confirm a static model for the size of M space.
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format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
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publishDate 1982
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spelling nottingham-137062025-02-28T11:26:40Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13706/ Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables Joyes, Gordon Michael The primary purpose of this work was to identify the process by which the control of variables' strategy develops. Investigations are described which indicate that the strategies used on 'control of variables' tasks are task specific. The quasi/empirical nature of science tasks is shown to affect the use of the control strategy. Further investigations are described that indicate the existence of a concrete operational control strategy which has as its basis negation by elimination and cancellation, and not Piaget's formal level operation of negation by neutralisation. Two major studies, one at the Secondary School and one at the Junior School level, are described in which four parallel substages in the development of the control strategy were noted. At the concrete operational level these substages represented an increasing ability to produce a consistency between judgments and experimental results through the formation of increasingly sophisticated strategies, i.e. through attendance to first order relations. At the formal operational level the substages represented an increasing ability to compare criteria for the use of strategies, i.e. attendance to second order relations. Neo-Piagetian procedures are applied and the calculation of the M demand for the substages tends to confirm a static model for the size of M space. 1982 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13706/1/346625.pdf Joyes, Gordon Michael (1982) Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
spellingShingle Joyes, Gordon Michael
Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
title Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
title_full Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
title_fullStr Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
title_full_unstemmed Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
title_short Problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
title_sort problems in the learning of physics: development in the control of variables
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13706/