Structural characteristics of students’ conceptions of natural phenomena

Time is a wealth of research findings related to students’ conceptions of natural phenomena, which creates a need to synthesize and to generalize these findings in order to conceptualize their diversity. Based on phenomenography, this study uses digraphing as methodology to synthesize students’ conceptions about natural phenomena in order to identify the structural characteristics of students’ conceptions. Based on phenomenography, students’ conceptions about natural phenomena are structured by the internal horizon, external horizon, and the interaction between these two horizons. Through the digraphing synthesis procedure, this study has found that the internal horizon is characterized by three types of relations that are between a natural phenomenon (such as gravity) and objects (or substances), between a natural phenomenon and constructs, and between a natural phenomenon and quantities; the external horizon of students’ conceptions about a natural phenomenon is characterized by all possible relational combinations among constructs, objects, and quantities; and the interaction between the internal horizon and the external horizon of students’ conceptions about a natural phenomenon is characterized by relations among a natural phenomenon, objects, quantities, and constructs. The above findings have significant implications for further research on students’ conceptions about natural phenomena and for science curriculum and instruction on natural phenomena.