Characterization of a modelling activity for a first qualitative approach to the concept of energy

How students acquire physics concepts is still an open research question, since the knowledge is complex and requires a long time to be acquired. Within this perspective, this paper presents an analysis of student’s cognitive processes and their evolution during the resolution of a succession of teaching tasks specifically designed to put into play a modelling activity in physics. We particularly focused on cognitive processes which establish relations between the world of objects and events (experimental field) and that of the theory/model. We observe the evolution from simple cognitive processes to more complex ones throughout the successive tasks. This evolution is only possible because the students can simultaneously process elements of the theory/model and the experimental field.