Internet vs. matter: Differences in students' concept development from elementary through high school

Internet is an emerging complex scientific concept that children have not yet systematically learned in schools but continuously experience in their daily lives. In contrast, matter is a classic complex scientific concept that children systematically study from elementary through high school in addition to continuous everyday experiences. In this study, with two independent samples of grades 4-12 students, the authors deliberately compared these two concepts to understand the effects of formal and informal learning experiences. Understandings of Internet and matter were measured and then converted into a same interval scale through Rasch modeling. Results show that the development of Internet understanding has a much lower rate than that matter and the development of Internet understanding shows more heterogeneous than that of matter. These findings suggest that formal learning helps increase the students' understanding growth rate while reduce variation in understanding among students.