particular difficulty with changing their strongly held pre-existing misconceptions
that the Moon orbits Earth once each day and is visible only at night. Those
misconceptions are a major barrier to pupils’ understanding of other lunar concepts
such as the phases of the Moon, tides and eclipses.
Recommended age level for mental model building. This study supports a view that
pupils as young as 11 years old are able, given the right conditions, to build, affirm
and defend their mental model of the Sun–Earth–Moon system. Overall, and
apparently contrary to the suggestions of Driver et al. (1996), the present study
suggests that mental model building (at least in astronomy education) is an effective
and appropriate cognitive activity for Year 7–8 pupils.
This study’s approach to developing a teaching unit, based on the pupils
constructing their mental model of the Sun–Earth–Moon system, has implications
for other areas of the science curriculum in which pupils are unable physically to
observe a complicated system, such as biological populations, atomic structure and
plate tectonics. A similar approach is possible, for example, for atomic structure in
which a model which is closest to the scientists’ mental model could be introduced
to the pupils, who then investigate the model’s implications with respect to
subordinate concepts such as physical and chemical properties, then solve problems
that are novel to them and then defend their new insights.
Pupils’ understandings of the nature of science. This paper suggested that pupils’
understanding of the nature of science might be promoted by a mental modelbuilding
intervention. This study’s findings lend support to the idea that Year 7–8
pupils can construct mental models of complex systems of interrelated concepts by
reconciling visible phenomena with invisible mental constructions by a process of
repeatedly critiquing the models that represent the mental models (Hesse, 1966,
2000).
In addition, the idea that science is a social process conducted by people was
illustrated and then practised by the pupils in that they openly shared their mental
models and subordinate conceptions and then cooperatively constructed models
themselves, rather than by following a set procedure. They then cooperated in small
groups to solve novel problems that were interactively reported back to their peers
in a questioning environment – much in the spirit of a science conference. This
research, then, suggests that a mental model-building intervention can promote Year
7–8 pupils’ understanding of the evolving, socially constructed, nature of science.
An additional benefit should be that learners come to understand the role of models
and mental models in science.