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Situated Conceptions and Obstacles. The Example of Digestion / Excretion

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Science Education Research in the Knowledge-Based Society

Abstract

The concept of epistemological obstacle, as defined by Bachelard (1938), is often used in French science education research and teaching. New data are presented on the classical example of conceptions on digestion / excretion. Differences between biology and other sciences students’ samples appear significant, except in the first year of University. The work reported in this paper illustrates the notion of “situated conceptions”, which differs when a student answers different questions on digestion / excretion. We discuss how the concept of obstacle is useful to interpret the conceptions. We propose three complementary categories of obstacles: epistemological, didactical and psychological.

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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Clément, P. (2003). Situated Conceptions and Obstacles. The Example of Digestion / Excretion. In: Psillos, D., Kariotoglou, P., Tselfes, V., Hatzikraniotis, E., Fassoulopoulos, G., Kallery, M. (eds) Science Education Research in the Knowledge-Based Society. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0165-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0165-5_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6337-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0165-5

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