A Lakatosian Framework to Analyze Situations of Cognitive Conflict and Controversy in Students' Understanding of Heat Energy and Temperature

The objective of this study is to analyze secondary school students' interactions (conflicts, controversies, and arguments) as they participate in an intact classroom activity designed to facilitate their understanding of heat energy and temperature. The study is based on 32 ninth-grade students in a public school in Londrina, Brazil. Results obtained show that the differentiation between heat energy and temperature constitutes considerable difficulties for the students, and can be considered as part of the hard-core of their understanding (Lakatos, 1970, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 91–196). Student interactions (video taped) were classified into an Alternative Model, Transitional Model, and Scientific Model, depending on the degree to which they reflected a progressive transition in their hard-core. Students generally resisted a change in their conceptual understanding. Some students were able to question the hard-core of their beliefs and construct a Transitory Model. Some students experienced a further progressive transition by constructing a Scientific Model, based on the understanding that Temperature only measures the energy of agitation. Methodology used also provided a glimpse of how a particular student grappled with the conflicts in order to facilitate progressive transition in understanding. It is concluded that given the opportunity to discuss, reflect, consider alternative/conflicting situations, students can construct models that increase progressively in their heuristic/explanatory power.