Teenagers’ and adults’ conceptions of iodine sublimation

Abstract

This paper tries to relate Piaget’s study about the causal explanations to the research carried out by the so called alternative conceptions movement. In this sense, a review of articles on the development of intuitive theories about the constitution of matter is carried out. The results obtained in Ruth Stavy’s research about the change of state of matter are highlighted. Afterwards, a research about the state changes of iodine, which was carried out with the participation of teenagers and adults, is reported. The obtained results show different levels of reasoning presented by the individuals. By analysing the results one can conclude that individuals in more advanced levels presented notions of lawfulness based on empirical generalization, even though they had some difficulty to establish causal relationships that employ corpuscular models.

Keywords

• causal explanation
• change of state of matter
• formal-reasoning stage
• alterative conceptions