Abstract

NAVARRO-ROLDAN, Claudia Patricia  and  CASTELLANOS-PAEZ, Virgelina. Conceptual change in the learning of history. CES Psicol [online]. 2017, vol.10, n.2, pp.3-16. ISSN 2011-3080.  https://doi.org/10.21615/cesp.10.2.1.

This paper identified the conceptual change fifth-graders’ students had in relation to their learning in history subject, as a result of comprehension of the emerging properties of the past phenomena. (i.e., new and complex, product of interactions arisen from individual elements, which are self-organized, but they do not present a direct and causal relation with them). Using a non-probabilistic sample of convenience two groups were selected, one of 23 students who were exposed to an enriched learning sequence based on that history behaves as an emergent system; and other group of 27 students, who kept on their conventional history classes. The repeated measures analysis revealed that students exposed to enriched learning differentiated the ontology processes vs. event, but they did not differentiate ontology attributes of emergent processes vs. direct processes. On the other hand, students exposed to conventional classes did not make enough conceptual change for explaining history in a plausible way; it occurs from the ontological attributes related to the processes and the emergency, as an expert historian would do it. It is concluded that explicit instruction about emerging ontological properties favored conceptual change to understand history as a process.

Keywords : History Learning; Learning Strategies; Concept Formation; Education; Cognitive Processes.

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