Promoting Understanding through Representational Redescription: an Exploration Referring to Young Pupils’ Ideas About Gravity

Abstract

This paper describes an attempt to operationalise some aspects of the cognitive developmental hypothesis of Representational Redescription, (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992, 1994 and 1997). It is illustrated by a study that examined processes and outcomes of teaching and learning about gravitational force with pupils in the 4–11 age range. The researchers collaborated with a group of teachers in an attempt to apply to classroom practice some implications of the theoretical underpinning upon which the R-R view of knowledge development is based. Some insights into how the transformation of pupils’ internally stored representations might be provoked in the classroom are described. Our attempts at educational application do not claim to test the R-R hypothesis, but in the educational context of learning science ideas, some difficulties in applying the theoretical formulation are discussed, and some implications for ways forward are considered.