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KEVIN C.

DE BERG

THE STATUS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM IN CHEMICAL EDUCATION RESEARCH AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF THE CONCEPT OF IDEALIZATION IN CHEMISTRY

ABSTRACT. A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not oer any unique perspectives that cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/ learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. KEY WORDS: experience-based constructivism, discipline-based constructivism, idealization INTRODUCTION

Constructivism as a theory of knowledge and as a theory of teaching and learning is so central to modern education that Michael Matthews (2000, p. 491) has called it educations version of a grand unied theory and Phillips (1995, p. 5) regards the status of constructivism in education as something akin to a secular religion. So powerful an inuence has constructivism been in education over the past twenty years that three full editions of the journal, Science and Education (1997, 6, Nos. 1, 2; 2000, 9, No. 6), have been dedicated to a critical appraisal of

Foundations of Chemistry (2006) 8: 153176 DOI 10.1007/s10698-006-9010-1

Springer 2006

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its foundation and inuence. Scholarly analysis has revealed the existence of as many versions of constructivism as there are working models of the modern motor car. This, in itself, makes the use of the term in education somewhat problematic. The term can refer to a worldview, a particular philosophical orientation among many, a sociological viewpoint, a political viewpoint, a personal belief, and so the list goes on. Each brand of constructivism usually emphasizes a dierent characteristic. For example, Piagetian constructivism emphasizes the individual construction of knowledge while sociological constructivism emphasizes the negotiation of meaning and knowledge construction by a group of individuals. For the purpose of this paper I am conning the term to the context of educational constructivism and, in particular, to the way it is used in science education in relation to knowledge, teaching, and learning. The science educators, Lorsbach and Tobin (1992, p. 5), dene the constructivists position as it relates to knowledge as follows.
The constructivist epistemology asserts that the only tools available to a knower are the senses. It is only through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting that an individual interacts with the environment. With these messages from the senses the individual builds a picture of the world. Therefore, constructivism asserts that knowledge resides in individuals.

This statement on constructivist epistemology very much reects the intense interest science educators have shown in students alternative frameworks that have been established before and after formal instruction from an experience through the senses. So, from this point of view, one can think of the statement as reecting a science educators understanding of experience-based constructivist epistemology. Beverley Bell (1986, p. 6), also a science educator, continues the individualistic theme of the above statement and asserts that knowledge is the personal construction of an individual and does not exist externally to be transmitted. Some constructivists of the science education tradition, while not denying the emphasis on individual construction of knowledge, have moderated this emphasis by including a social dimension to knowledge. Driver

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and workers (1994, p. 7), for example, maintain that, Making meaning is thus a dialogic process involving persons-inconversation. Constructivist teaching and learning in the framework of science education is generally regarded, then, as being supportive of a constructivist view of knowledge as outlined above. Thus constructivist pedagogy emphasizes the making of knowledge rather than the transmission of knowledge and constructivist learning emphasizes student engagement with the experiential world so construction can take place. While not denying a constructivist epistemology based on sense experiences of the world elaborated in the previous paragraph, Keith Taber (2002), another science educator and, in particular, a chemical educator, allows for the development of knowledge that is discipline-based. Discipline-based knowledge, while not excluding experiential knowledge, includes the specic language and nomenclature of the discipline and rulebased concepts so important for progressing through the ideas inherent in a discipline like chemistry. These rules are not derived from the senses but from the declarations of the profession. The teaching and learning of this discipline-based knowledge is said to be constructivist because, like the experience-based constructivism of the previous paragraph, it uses the metaphor of the building of knowledge on an explored foundation of concepts and relies very much on student engagement with the concepts. The emergence of experience-based and discipline-based constructivism is understandable from the way the school and university science curricula are structured. In primary school and the early to middle years of high school the emphasis in chemistry is on those features detectable by the senses. These children study topics like heating, cooling, melting, dissolving, changing state, rusting, reacting, neutralisation, and air pressure, and much of the early research literature on childrens alternative conceptions examined childrens ideas in these areas. At upper high school and university chemistry the emphasis is on the structure of the discipline of chemistry, its tools of trade and presuppositions as it were- concepts not always detectable by the senses. So constructivist studies at this

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level tend to focus on the professional content of the discipline and childrens conceptions of chemical concepts after formal chemistry instruction. In this paper I wish to appraise these views of constructivism in science education, that is, experience-based and disciplinebased constructivism, rstly, in relation to their occurrence in the chemical education research literature and secondly, in relation to the concept of idealization in chemistry. In particular, I wish to show that constructivism appears more as a fashionable educational label than as a signicant unique undergirding theory in chemical education.

CONSTRUCTIVISM AND CHEMICAL EDUCATION RESEARCH

Constructivism, particularly experience-based constructivism, as outlined in the introduction has come under increasing criticism from scholars over the last seven years or so. The view that knowledge cannot be transmitted but only constructed by the individual or social group from experience has been criticised, for example, by Matthews (2000, p. 495). Language, especially scientic and mathematical language, needs to be mastered and, at the end of the day, transmitted. Jenkins (2000, p. 602) questions the optimism inherent in the idea of constructing knowledge from experience when he reminds us that, Science evolved very late in human history and it seems more than optimistic to assume that young students can construct scientic explanations simply by observing phenomena and generating and testing hypotheses. Jenkins (2000, p. 601) also sees as problematic the fact that some constructivists have over-emphasized the view that science education is about making sense of the world rather than about establishing a valid scientic understanding of natural phenomena. This situation is problematic because, as Matthews (1997, p. 9) observes, Things can make perfect sense without being true. These ideas are related to the view expressed by some constructivists in science education that, while an objective reality may exist out there, we cannot directly access it. We can only make sense of our perceptions of it through our constructions

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of it. Matthews (1997, p. 8) observes that, This idea, that science is about making sense of the world, rather than nding out about the world, has been much debated in the history of philosophy. The fact that constructivism has highlighted for science educators the need to take account of students preconceived ideas and the need to be more student-centred in our teaching strategies than teacher-centred has undoubtedly had a positive impact in science education. The fact that science educators, including chemical educators, might overstate their case by drawing support from the more extreme and often antiscientic writings of constructivists (Scerri, 2003, p. 472) such as that described above, would suggest that extreme caution be exercised in the way we dene and understand the term constructivism. In fact I wish to show in what follows that the term is somewhat problematic in the way it has been used in chemical education research. The theory of constructivism is often used in chemical education research that examines or makes use of students alternative understandings of a particular concept. For example, Scott and colleagues (1994, pp. 201220), in a paper entitled, Working from Childrens Ideas: Planning and Teaching a Chemistry topic from a Constructivist Perspective, report on a study of rusting with 1213 years-old which attempts to develop a classroom pedagogy based on what children already think about the concept of rusting. The purpose of the exercise was to build a knowledge of rusting upon the concepts the students already knew and to eventually develop an understanding equivalent or close to the scientic view. While the original intention was to emphasize the building or making of knowledge from experience rather than the transmission of knowledge, the teacher had to augment the students own investigations to provide evidence for the scientic view. The children knew from their investigations that air was important for rusting but how could they extrapolate this nding to deduce that oxygen was the component of air responsible for rusting? The teacher recognized this diculty and said, but we all know from our work before that oxygen is denitely part of air isnt it?....and if theres air we assume there must be oxygen,

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alright (Scott et al., 1994, p. 213)? But how do we know that rusting is not caused by the nitrogen in the air or some other component of the air? Think how dicult this would be for a student to ascertain from rst principles given the diculties scientists themselves had historically in determining the composition of air. This is illustrative of the dilemma Matthews (1997, p. 12) poses for experience-based constructivists. If knowledge cannot be imparted and if knowledge must be a matter of personal construction then how can children come to a knowledge of complex conceptual schemes that have taken the best minds hundreds of years to build up? Constructivism has become so closely linked with studies on students prior conceptions that one might be led to think that they coexisted from the emergence of alternative conceptions research or that one was the product of the other. In 1983 Hewson and Hewson (1983) reported a trail-blazing study on the eect of instruction, using students prior knowledge and conceptual change strategies, on the learning of the concepts of mass, volume, and density. This paper makes no reference to constructivism and in fact places the alternative conceptions line of research rmly in the spirit of Ausubel in 1968 via his well-known maxim. The most important single factor inuencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly (Ausubel, 1968, p. vi). Ausubel is known for his use of advance organisers to help students accomplish meaningful learning and these advance organisers are always designed in the light of what a student already knows or doesnt know about a concept. In view of this admission by Hewson and Hewson it would appear that constructivism became a later educational label for an area of research that already had its roots in the learning theories of Ausubel. Indeed, what concepts did Ausubel develop that highlighted the relationship between learning and prior knowledge? Ausubel (1968) developed the concepts of reception versus discovery learning and meaningful versus rote learning in the early chapters of his book on educational psychology. In reception learning the entire content of what is to be learned is

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presented to the learner in nal form, and in discovery learning the principal content of what is to be learned is not given but must be discovered by the learner before he (she) can incorporate it meaningfully into his (her) cognitive structure (Ausubel, 1968, p. 22). In discussing the dierence between meaningful and rote learning Ausubel makes the following important reference to reception and discovery learning.
Although the distinction between reception and discovery learning discussed above has absolutely nothing to do with the rote-meaningful dimension of the learning process, the two dimensions of learning were commonly confused. This confusion is partly responsible for the widespread but unwarranted twin beliefs that reception learning is invariably rote and that discovery learning is inherently and necessarily meaningful. Both assumptions, of course, reflect the long-standing assumption, in many educational circles, that the only knowledge one really possesses and understands is knowledge that one discovers by oneself. Actually, each distinction (rote versus meaningful learning and reception versus discovery learning) constitutes an entirely independent dimension of learning. Hence, a much more defensible proposition is that both reception and discovery learning can be either rote or meaningful depending on the conditions under which learning occurs. In both instances meaningful learning takes place if the learning task can be related in nonarbitrary, substantive (non-verbatim) fashion to what the learner already knows, and if the learner adopts a corresponding learning set to do so (Ausubel, 1968, p. 24).

Ausubel then discusses meaningful learning in terms of its logical and psychological dimensions. The logical dimension refers to the level of organization of the subject matter to be learned and the psychological dimension refers to the individual learners capacity or readiness to incorporate the logical structure of the subject matter into their cognitive structure. Ausubel (1968, p. 45) illustrates this relationship as follows. Thus the emergence of psychological meaning depends not only on presenting the learner with the material manifesting logical meaning, but also on the latters actual possession of the necessary ideational background. A study of student understandings of concepts accumulated from everyday experience or formal schooling experience can thus be seen to be consistent with preparing the groundwork for meaningful learning in the Ausubelian sense.

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Students alternative understandings in chemistry is the focus of a recent publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry (Taber, 2002). This publication deals not only with misconceptions intuitively developed as a result of everyday experience but with misconceptions developed as a result of instruction in chemistry. The constructivist perspective espoused there deals with exploring students current conceptions of discipline-based knowledge using interesting devices such as concept maps and building new knowledge in a way that is sensitive to these conceptions. This work is dierent from the studies mentioned previously in that it includes those forms of knowledge not based on experience such as the language, denitions, nomenclature, models, and inventions of concepts not grounded in observation. While this use of constructivism might escape the previous criticisms levelled at experience-based constructivism, the interesting teaching and learning tools discussed such as concept maps, diary keeping, scaolding, poles and planks, are not unique to constructivism. Taber (2002, p. 173) denes a constructivist chemistry teacher as both a classroom researcher and a learning-doctor. The chemistry teaching is honed to the needs of each group of learners, and is an interactive process that is both challenging and stimulating: much like science itself. These attributes also applied, however, to a chemistry teacher using guided discovery methods or the methods of Piaget, Gagne, or Ausubel. In the preface of his excellent book, Learning Science, Richard White (1988, pp. ixxi) admits that his book on learning science concepts, including discipline-based knowledge, has been written from a constructivist perspective and then proceeds to state that his model of the learning process has been absorbed from the models of Gagne, Ausubel, Piaget, Tulving, Schank and Abelson, Paivio, Wittrock, Carroll and Marton. David Hawkins (1994, p. 9), in reviewing the history of constructivism, recognizes its historical indebtedness to the philosophers, psychologists, and educators of the past and insists that, even though the substance of constructivism is not new, it needs to be extended and reduced to order. In this paper I suggest that there is little evidence that this has taken place in a way that has reduced its controversial character and enhanced its usefulness as a research tool.

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In a paper designed to illustrate the properties of a constructivist classroom, Rodney Thiele (1995) outlines alternative approaches to the teaching of chemical equilibrium using water as an example. Thiele compares alternative teaching strategies such as the use of analogies, classied under the umbrella of a constructivist perspective, with the transmission of knowledge approach. The assumption is made that while the alternative teaching approaches promote active student engagement with the learning materials, a transmission approach does not actively engage students. While Thieles emphasis on student engagement is admirable, the suggestion that transmission of knowledge automatically disengages students is an unwarranted assumption. Taber (2002) has demonstrated, for example, that discipline-based knowledge, even viewed from a stated constructivist perspective, can be transmitted in a way that does engage students. What is intriguing is that in an excellent earlier paper on high school chemistry teachers analogical explanations the word constructivism does not appear anywhere in the article and is not referred to even in the discussion on the implications for teaching and teacher education (Thiele and Treagust, 1994). In fact one of the references in which Thiele is one of the authors has the title, Teaching Science with Analogy: A strategy for transferring knowledge. So, while in one case the transmission or transferring of knowledge was the theme, in the article with a constructivist perspective the constructing of knowledge by student engagement was the theme. Might this not be a case again of constructivism acting as a convenient label rather than as a powerful underlying theory of teaching and learning? Other authors (Fensham, 1994, p. 22) also stress student active engagement with learning materials as part of a constructivist perspective but Nola (1997, pp. 5861) reminds us that strategies that rely on active student participation in learning go back at least to Socrates and Plato and are not therefore unique to constructivism. Tien and workers (2002) discuss a peer-led team learning instructional approach with college organic chemistry students using a social constructivist foundation. The strategies involved students in group work, student-student interactions,

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questioning, and explaining, but one could have written the paper from the perspective of student-centred learning as opposed to teacher-centred learning without invoking social constructivism and its related complex vocabulary. Matthews (2000, pp. 499501) has shown that constructivist vocabulary often contains technical jargon that impedes rather than assists communication. Constructivist language identied by Matthews (2000, p. 499) and used by Tien et al. (2000) include (with the orthodox equivalent in brackets): construction of knowledge (learning); negotiation of meaning (discussion); dialogic argument (discussion); student engagement (paying attention); discourse (writing or speaking); cognitive apprenticeship (education); and an additional one I observed, socially mediated interaction (chaired group discussion). Now this criticism could be levelled at all professional discussion and there is a sense in which professional language takes on an important meaning of its own not shared by its orthodox usage. The point to be made here is that the presence of an identiable vocabulary associated with constructivism conrms the status that has been given it in education, and this presents, as for all professional language, communication issues. Some constructivist authors, of course, are more adept at using the vocabulary to the extreme than others and this might be one reason why practising classroom teachers have had diculty in implementing a so-called constructivist perspective in their teaching. Roger Lock (2002, p. 16), for example, has observed that, The constructivist research linked to pupils ideas has had lots of lip service paid to it but its impact in classrooms, in my experience, is negligible. Thomas and McRobbie (2001) invoke a constructivist framework for using a metaphor to improve chemistry students metacognition (understanding the learning process). The metaphor, learning is constructing, is described as a situation where students expatiate, revise, and recognize prior concepts rather than simply acquire knowledge. These qualities could equally belong to an Ausubelian framework as previously described so there is nothing unique to constructivism here. Thomas and McRobbie do go a step further however in suggesting that their

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constructivist framework is one that questions the existence of a single objective reality that can be known. This is a deeply controversial component of constructivism as previously mentioned which is not always declared as openly as in Thomas and McRobbies paper. However, while stated in the section on epistemological orientation, this controversial position did not seem to be addressed in the case studies on metacognition. It may have simply acted as a lens through which the study was understood and there was no evidence that students had to interact with this concept. This lens, however, is considered deeply controversial as explained previously. Some recent chemical education research papers deal with issues of the teaching and learning of chemistry without any reference to constructivism. Davidowitz and Rollnick (2003) reported on a study of metacognition with second year university chemistry students using ow diagrams and a competency tripod model without any reference to constructivism as an undergirding philosophy. Chiu and colleagues (2002) studied the eect of cognitive apprenticeship which involved coaching, modelling, scaolding, articulation, reection and exploration on conceptual change amongst tenth grade students studying chemical equilibrium. While the term constructing is used, reference to constructivism as a theoretical framework was not made. The cognitive apprenticeship approach denitely involved the transmission of knowledge but also the construction of knowledge without the philosophy of constructivism attached. Chin and Brown (2000) also do not appeal to constructivism as a theoretical framework for the study of deep learning by Grade eight students in a chemistry topic. They deal with cognition, metacognition, and approaches to learning which include the use of prior knowledge, the giving of explanations, analogies, and the constructing of theories without referencing these to the theory of constructivism. The very helpful compilation of chemistry education articles in Chemical Education: Towards Research-based Practice (Gilbert et al., 2002) has no chapters devoted specically to the role of constructivism in chemical education research in spite of the fact that a number of the authors would be sympathetic to

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some form of constructivism in theory and in practice. It may be that chemical educators are realising that constructivism provides no tools for understanding teaching and learning that have not been present all along in the educators library. De Vos and Verdonk (1985a, 1985b, 1986, 1987a, 1987b) in earlier research show how a guided discovery approach to teaching about chemical reactions can give pride of place to student ideas and actively engage students in the learning approach. This is all done without reference to constructivism but containing what are considered to be the valid but not unique points of modern constructivist teaching. In part four of their series, where the concept of molecules is introduced, de Vos and Verdonk (1987a, pp. 693694) make this relevant observation.
Students appeared to have difficulties with the idea of objects being absolutely identical. After some discussion they refused to believe that two coins or two other objects could really be identical. The students felt there must be differences, caused for instance, by little scratches, even if you cannot see them. How then could two molecules be identical? We realised that we had introduced a theoretical concept that had no direct empirical basis. Like the ideal gas concept it is something that has been invented, not something that has been discovered, and it should not be taught as a self-evident consequence of experience.

This situation powerfully challenges experience-based constructivisms view that knowledge cannot be transmitted but only constructed within from sense experiences of the world. This view is also expressed by Ogburn (1997, p. 126). Constructivist thinking ignores a kind of work of construction specially characteristic of science; the construction of theoretical objects of knowledge. I wish to expand on this view by looking in more detail at the concept of idealization in chemistry.

CONSTRUCTIVISM AND IDEALIZATION IN CHEMISTRY

The concept of idealization is probably rst met by chemistry students in the study of ideal gas behaviour. The fact that real gases approximate the ideal gas condition at moderate temperatures and pressures usually disguises the real meaning of

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ideality. Lewis and Randall (1961, p. 45) describe the main fundamental characteristics of the ideal gas as follows. The perfect gas, or the ideal gas, is an invented substance, dened by certain properties which are not possessed by any actual substance but which are supposed to be approached by every actual gas as its pressure is indenitely diminished. Glasstone and Lewis (1963, p. 11) describe the ideal gas as a hypothetical or imaginary state and Smith (1990, p. 9) assigns a molecular description to this imaginary state as when the molecules behave simply as mass points which do not interact; that is, they neither repel nor attract each other. Most knowledgeable students could tell you that an ideal gas is one that obeys Boyles law or the gas equation, PV=nRT, but they would probably be at a loss to tell you the essence of this invention of the human mind as described above. This is reected in the way rst year General Chemistry textbooks treat the ideal gas state. Eight General Chemistry textbooks have been reviewed for their treatment of the ideal gas state as shown in Table I. Most textbooks identify an ideal gas as one that obeys the ideal gas laws. Some texts state that an ideal gas state is imaginary or hypothetical but characteristically do not expand on this. The idea of a gas consisting of dimensionless mass points is sometimes mentioned in the section on the kinetic-molecular theory but this is never specically spoken of as an ideal state. The idea that an ideal gas consists of dimensionless mass points is really highlighted when one considers the plot of volume against temperature for a given mass of gas at a constant pressure in Figure 1. All gases converge to the temperature of )273.15 C at zero volume but practically speaking all real gases will have liqueed before this point. So an ideal gas is a limiting unrealisable case of a real gas in which the molecules have mass but no dimensions and )273.15 C is the lower limit of temperature for matter. Only one textbook associates zero volume at )273.15 C with the properties of an ideal gas. A dierent text (Petrucci and Harwood, 1993) refers to a gas at )273.15 C as being hypothetical whose molecules have mass but no volume but the authors do not identify this gas as ideal. It would appear, then, that more often than not, an ideal gas is associated more

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TABLE I Treatment of the ideal gas state across eight General Chemistry Textbooks ( = present; = absent) Textbook Imaginary Obeys gas laws Dimensionless mass points Zero volume at 0 K

Whitten et al. (6th ed) (2000) Atkins/Beran (2nd ed) (1992) Masterton/Hurley (4th ed) (2001) Umland/Bellama (3rd ed) (1999) Petrucci/Harwood (6th ed) (1993) Chang (5th ed) (1994) Olmstead/Williams (1994) Kotz/Treichel (3rd ed) (1996)

Volume

-273.15

Temperature (Celsius)

Figure 1. A schematic plot of volume against temperature for two dierent gas samples showing their convergence at the limit )273.15 C.

with the mathematical ideal gas equation than with its invented, hypothetical, imaginary, dimensionless properties so essential to our understanding of the nature of chemistry. The limiting nature of the ideal gas law is sometimes illustrated by a PV/nRT against P plot for a variety of gases as shown in Figure 2. This shows that all gases in the limit of zero pressure have exactly the same PV/nRT value of 1. The idea of limiting values is also important for determining a value for the

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CO2 N2

2 PV/nRT 1 x x H2 Ideal gas

0 P/atm

10

Figure 2. A schematic plot of PV/nRT against P for three gases showing the limiting value of 1 for zero pressure.

ideal gas constant, R. The constant has to be obtained under ideal conditions so values of R have to be extrapolated to zero pressure to obtain the ideal value. The concept of a hypothetical ideal limit is also important in solution chemistry. When Svante Arrhenius was wanting to present evidence in favour of his ionic dissociation model for salts in water he used the results for freezing point depression and extrapolated them to an innite dilution case, that is, when the salt concentration approached zero. In this way he hoped to show that a NaCl unit would split into two ions and a CaCl2 unit into three ions, even though the results at higher concentrations were suggesting values between 1.7 and 2.0 for NaCl and between 2.6 and 2.7 for CaCl2. Some of the data that Arrhenius (1904) presented to the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1904 is shown in Figure 3. The data supports the notion that solutions in general will approach ideal behaviour as they are progressively diluted. For example, the ratio, DT/ kfm (related to the number of particles in solution per formula unit), and sometimes known as the vant Ho factor, i, has a value of 1.77 for a 1 molal solution of KBr and a value of 1.88 for a 0.1 molal solution of KBr. The value of i becomes closer to 2 as the solution is diluted and would equal 2 at the limit of innite dilution. An innitely dilute solution cannot be realized in practice but it is an imaginary situation from which real solutions can be compared, much the same as was said about an ideal gas.

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3 MgCl2

2 T /kfm 1

K2SO4 LiCl NaCl Cane sugar

Phenol

Concentration 0.6 (no units given) Figure 3. A plot of the freezing point depression against the concentration for dierent substances extrapolated to innite dilution. 0

Now how is the theory of constructivism related to this concept of idealization in chemistry? Idealization of objects goes back at least to Galileos treatment of frictionless objects in free fall and the treatment of real objects as dimensionless points in the mathematics of kinematics and mechanics. It is thus endemic to scientic thinking. Lewis Wolpert (1992, p. xi) compares such scientic thinking with naturalistic or everyday thinking in these words. Scientic ideas are, with rare exception, counter-intuitive: They cannot be acquired by simple inspection of phenomena and are often outside everyday experience.... doing science requires a conscious awareness of the pitfalls of natural thinking. There seems no doubt therefore that experience-based constructivism as conceived by science educators fails as an epistemology and learning theory for much of a subject like chemistry where the concepts and conventions, while sanitized by their interface with the experiential world, exist by way of denition or, like idealization, are the product of the human imagination. The ideal state cannot be experienced in the real world like the concept of rusting for example. Rusting is experienced by us all but mass points of no

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dimensions do not exist to be experienced. They are purely imaginary but constitute a state that can be approximated by real things under certain conditions. These imaginary concepts however have proved to be critical in the establishment of modern science. The notion of absolute zero, dimensionless particles, and innitely dilute solutions are all related to the concept of idealization and are vital reference points for discussing the behaviour of real systems. Matthews (2000, p. 289) regards the idealizations of science not as useless entities because of their imaginary nature but as scientic tools of trade, or instruments, whereby the complex concrete world can be investigated. Giere (1988, pp. 6978) emphasises the centrality of approximations and idealizations in scientic practice by observing that the equations commonly used in textbooks for a linear oscillator (an analogy for the vibrational behaviour of atoms joined together by a chemical bond) depend on the following simplifying assumptions or idealizations: (1) the spring is subject to neither internal nor external frictional forces; (2) the spring is without mass; (3) the force-displacement characteristic of the spring is linear; (4) the mass is subject to no frictional forces and; (5) the wall is rigid so the wall recoil due to motion of the mass may be neglected. Giere (1988, p. 70) highlights the signicance of these idealizations for the nature of science in the following words.
This list of idealizations is especially interesting because it makes clear that the authors are not talking about any particular real mass spring system. There are no springs without any mass whatsoever or without internal frictional forces. Instead, the authors are dealing with an ideal mass spring system that perfectly satisfies the (equation). The idealizations are required to ensure that the conditions of the equation are satisfied.

According to Giere (1988, p. 78) scientists and philosophers have often treated approximations and idealizations as being of only practical signicance rather than of theoretical signicance. This is borne out in the following statement.

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Those scientists and philosophers who have taken it for granted that the laws of nature are well confirmed, general statements have obviously not been ignorant of the fact that scientists regularly use approximations. But they have taken this to be a relatively inconsequential fact about science. They have regarded the fact as a matter of only practical, not theoretical importance. This attitude has been reinforced, I think, by taking logical systems and mathematical theories as the model for scientific theories. In logic and mathematics, at least before the age of computers, approximate methods served only the practical end of making calculations possible, or at least easier. Empirical science is different. Idealization and approximation are of its essence. An adequate theory of science must reflect this fact in its most basic concepts.

Giere (1988, p. 79) proposes that idealized systems, like the ideal gas or ideal linear oscillator, be called theoretical models which bear a relationship to a real system through theoretical hypotheses which contain the relationship of similarity. These hypotheses must indicate, however, what features are in fact similar between the theoretical model and the real system and to what extent the similarity exists. As the theoretical model cannot be obtained by observing a real system but only through a process of human invention, experience-based constructivism in this context makes no sense. However, the theoretical model can be said to be a construction of the discipline. In fact, Giere (1988, p. 78) points out that theoretical models like the harmonic oscillator can be thought of as socially constructed entities of the community of scientists. However, he warns against extending this concept of social constructivism too far.
By focusing on the process of ongoing research, constructivist investigations have made valuable contributions to our understanding of science as it is currently practised. But an excessive concern with current scientific conclusions, especially those in highly controversial areas, makes the constructivist account seem better than it is. It misses what scientists take for granted, namely, the role of previous findings in current research, particularly findings that have made possible the instrumentation for current research. There was a time, before 1920, when one could have argued that protons are a social construct. But that time is long past. Today protons must be regarded as being no less real than protozoa. Quarks, perhaps, are still up for grabs.... To maintain a constructivist stance regarding protons requires extreme maneuvers indeed (Giere, 1988, p. 131).

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One can undoubtedly show how idealization ts into the structure of chemistry as one of the building blocks of the concept of a gas by drawing a concept map for it. The authors attempt is shown in Figure 4. Keith Taber (2002) uses concept maps to demonstrate this principle for a number of chemistry concepts. The concept map for gas can be thought of as a knowledge construction of the concept with idealization an important component of the structure. In this sense it could be argued that a concept map for a chemistry concept is part of a
Dimensionless masses consist of Ideal gases are Imaginary entities are

at high T and low P approx. to

have properties

Real gases

have properties

P, V, T, n

In ideal approx. related as PV = nRT n,T constant P, T constant n, P constant V, n constant V 1/P V T V n P T

Figure 4. Concept map for gases.

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constructivist epistemology. However, building structures for concepts is not unique to constructivism and while disciplinebased constructivism allows for the introduction of concepts that cannot be experienced in the sense outlined by Lorsbach and Tobin (1992) it attaches itself to a popular term that has problematic philosophical implications and often complicated vocabulary. Novak and Gowin (1984) were two of the rst to describe how to build concept maps and use them as a way of detecting students understandings, but the theory of constructivism is not the foundation for constructing a concept map. Given that some chemical education research in teaching and learning proceeds comfortably without reference to constructivism, it may be time to reconsider its use in chemical education curricula and research.
CONCLUSION

If one thinks of constructivist teaching as that type of teaching which seeks to ascertain what ideas students have already structured into their thinking and how new material might be best incorporated into this structure or a remodelled version of this structure, then such a model appears to be little dierent to that suggested by Ausubel and others. Of course constructivism has acquired a vocabulary of its own and consequently the way it describes the teaching/learning process may appear to be different on the surface but, in eect, is no dierent to that suggested by previous teaching/learning theories. I have showed that the term has a varied use in the chemical education literature and does not appear to be foundational for studies in the teaching and learning of chemical concepts. While some researchers purport to base their studies on constructivist epistemology, others study the same teaching and learning issues (for example, metacognition) without recourse to constructivism. While some chemical educators adopt some of the more controversial issues of constructivism as a lens for understanding their research studies, the majority would appear to adhere to a simple view of learning by construction, or student-centred learning, which I have shown not to be unique to constructivism.

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The use of constructivism by chemical educators would appear to fall into two broad categories; experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. I have shown that experience-based constructivism cannot act as a foundational theory for the teaching and learning of concepts like idealization in chemistry and although discipline-based constructivism does allow for the teaching and learning of concepts like idealization it does not oer any insights that have not already been gleaned from other theories of learning and instruction. It has not been my intention in this paper to demean much of the good eort that chemical educators have expended under the umbrella of constructivism in trying to improve the teaching and learning of chemistry. The intention has been to provide evidence that might help us reect more critically on the many isms we adopt from time to time in chemical education.

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Department of Chemistry, Avondale College, PO Box 19 Cooranbong, NSW 2265, Australia E-mail: kdeberg@avondale.edu.au

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