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The Structure of the Learner’s Knowledge

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Modelling Learners and Learning in Science Education

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Abstract

This chapter considers how we might understand a learner’s knowledge to be structured, and the challenges in building models of such structure. The chapter considers the affordances and limitations of concept mapping as a way of presenting student knowledge. The chapter discusses the importance of conceptual integration both within science, and within science learning. The notion of knowledge domains, and their possible relevance as a constraint on learning, are considered. Research studies that have explored learners' thinking in depth or across topics offer tentative indications of the ways in which learners do, and do not, make links in their science learning, providing some suggestions of the kinds of models that will do justice to the complexity of learners’ knowledge structures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Keith S. Taber

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  1. Keith S. Taber
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Taber, K.S. (2013). The Structure of the Learner’s Knowledge. In: Modelling Learners and Learning in Science Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7648-7_12

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