Creating and Using Symbolic Mental Structures via Piaget's Constructivism and Popper's Three Worlds View with Falsifiability to Achieve Critical Thinking by Students in the Physical Sciences

Abstract

Learning a new concept requires the mind to enter into a state of disequilibrium and then progress through identified stages to re-establish eventually a new state of equilibrium. The human intellect persists in a dynamical equilibrium state while maintaining self-satisfaction and a contented worldview by constantly integrating and assimilating incoming information that resonates with its current understanding and previous experiences. This equilibrium state allows reflective thought and reassurance to the individual about what is already known albeit it with a limited generalization. However, with the onset of receiving and assimilating a new concept, you are thrown into a state of mental disequilibrium. It is the need to remove the disequilibrium that requires either critical thinking by the individual, resulting in an expanded worldview, or a discounting of it while maintaining a disengaging behavior. The former allows re-establishment of mental equilibrium with an expanded understanding, and the latter persists by never departing from equilibrium. In either case, the intellect has its equilibrium—one instance with requisite development of new understanding, the other without change. To restrict the onslaught of a constant barrage of new concepts, underprepared students avoid majoring in the physical sciences, opting instead to pursue other majors or to take fewer physical science courses. To address the lack of effective learning, we have developed the notion that individual Symbolic Mental Structures, as a key component of constructivism, can assist the underachieving student to become more engaged in the physical sciences and academia in general. This approach requires us to revisit Piaget's constructivism theory, Karl Popper theory with its falsifiability criterion, which supports the former, and to consider Bloom's affective and cognitive domains.