Raoul Sommeillier

Ohme Academia

- Perfect and continue to develop science education and awareness techniques, notably by combining my experiences and expertise acquired both in the framework of my PhD thesis in science didactics and in the ArtScience activities developed by Ohme. - Adapt the teaching methods developed in my academic research work at university level to the context of mediation, awareness raising and science popularization. - Develop a methodological framework and experimental protocols for data collection and analysis in order to evaluate the impact of such science outreach initiatives through the integration of the arts (STEAM) with different targets (high school students, general public, artists, etc.). - Combine academic research in science education, development of science awareness initiatives for the general public and bridging of expertise - especially in the field of Artscience - through the mediation and facilitation of collaborative and transdisciplinary practices

The study of our students' preconceptions has been the stepping stone to discover, study and investigate a large spectrum of research areas from didactics of science to philosophy of science, including epistemology, cognitive psychology, pedagogy and engineering education. From this starting point, the main objectives of this exploratory thesis have been formulated in terms of basic research questions. Knowing that preconceptions are observed not only at pre-university level, but also at university level, the key research questions initiating our research investigation and design were the following: (1) Are the students' unexpected mistakes we face each year due to their prior knowledge? To which extent? (2) Is it possible to develop new ways to teach electricity, specifically new teaching strategies and methods helping us to trigger the overcoming of such difficult-to-change students' learning obstacles? The overall design of this thesis is built at the meeting point of four elements: (1) our previous teaching experiences and observations in classrooms with engineering students at university level, (2) a first literature overview unveiling some gaps, (3) our clear identified intentions formulated in terms of two basic research questions, and (4) an intuitive `to-be-tested' idea. This idea consists in switching the focus from the 'models' themselves, i.e. the substances and subjects we use to learn and teach, to another central concept around which this whole piece of research is gravitating: what we call the 'domains of validity' associated with those models, i.e. the range of situations in which they can be appropriately used and applied regarding the related context and desired outcomes. Using this concept of `Domain of Validity' (or DoV), as a common thread throughout our studies, we have investigated its roles and links with other well-documented constructs of research about prior knowledge. It leads us to consider knowledge as the combination of two connected elements: a model and a domain of validity (K=M+DoV). By embracing this two-component view of knowledge (model and DoV) and explicating the domain of validity of various models, we propose a new conceptual framework: the Domain of Validity Framework (or DoV framework). Going a step further in the literature by pulling together disparate pockets of research concerned with common, difficult-to-change conceptions students have about particular scientific topics, we clarify similarities and differences across these bodies of research, highlighting unique contributions of different research traditions. It is quite easy to see that there is no clear consensus among the frameworks proposed in the literature about how to model, identify and overcome preconceptions. Seeking resolution across these constructs and links between preconceptions and other important areas of the constructivist literature (as conceptual change, threshold concept, p-prims, learning obstacles, etc), we realise that our two-component view of knowledge solve some discrepancies and present a certain integrative power regarding other constructs. Adding the notion of the `domain of validity' for given models - and focusing on problems of overgeneralisation of domains of validity - indeed offers a new way forward. The DoV framework is a new highly practice-oriented framework that has always been thought, developed, designed and improved with a strong intention, focus and aim of conceiving new teaching strategies and methods. This exploratory thesis has been the ideal playground to investigate various hypotheses about this new conceptual framework and its possible instructional implications in relation to our main research goals: understanding, diagnosing and addressing difficult-to-change prior knowledge. This conceptual framework’s proposal has been continuously and iteratively fed and enhanced by new ideas emerging from observations and reflections. Following a mixed methods research approach rooted in a form of pragmatism aligned with our engineering background, we explore and assess in this thesis the didactical implications and implementations of the DoV framework through a series of studies designed to investigate our two main research questions. Therefore, the main goal is to assess the usefulness and effectiveness of our ideas and DoV framework in two `modes': (1) the `static/descriptive' mode focuses on how to help teachers diagnosing, describing and categorising the learning obstacles encountered by their students. (2) the `dynamic/prescriptive' mode focuses on how to help teachers conceiving and integrating new easy-to-apply teaching strategies and instructional techniques in their teaching practices with the aim to trigger the overcoming of their students' learning obstacles. A first direct implication of the `domain of validity' (DoV) concept is that it allows us to propose an original and formalised model of preconception (static/descriptive mode). According to the DoV framework, a preconception is knowledge - so the association of two components: a model and a DoV - whose DoV is overestimated in relation to the context in which it is used, to the phenomenon it is intended to explain or to the problem it is intended solve. This simple definition gives first leads to diagnose the presence of preconceptions in students' cognitive structure in specific areas of knowledge (starting with electricity). A first outline of a teaching strategy - aiming to help teachers to trigger the overcoming of such students' preconceptions and learning obstacles (dynamic/prescriptive mode) - basically consists in confronting students to paradoxical situations so that they realise the limits of the original DoV and subsequently both reduce the domain of validity of the original model and search for a new model. This instructional strategy also emphasises the importance of teaching not just models, but their domains of validity. Then, it also means being much more explicit about the two components of knowledge.