2000-Elby-What Students' Learning of Representations Tells Us About Constructivism

Journal of Mathematical Behavior 19 (2000)
481502
What students learning of representations tells us

about constructivism
Andrew Elby
Physics Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Abstract
This article pulls into the empirical realm a longstanding theoretical debate about the prior
knowledge students bring to bear when learning scientific concepts and representations.
Misconceptions constructivists view the prior knowledge as stable alternate conceptions that apply
robustly across multiple contexts. By contrast, fine-grained constructivists believe that much of
students intuitive knowledge consists of unarticulated, loosely connected knowledge elements, the
activation of which depends sensitively on context. By focusing on students intuitive knowledge
about representations, and by fleshing out the two constructivist frameworks, I show that they lead
to empirically different sets of predictions. Pilot studies demonstrate the feasibility of a full-fledged
experimental program to decide which flavor of constructivism describes students more adequately.
D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Constructivism; Misconceptions; p-prims; Conceptual change; Representations
1. Introduction
Students interpretations of graphs and other representations can shed empirical light on
a longstanding theoretical debate about science learning. To spell out my claim, I must
distinguish between two flavors of constructivism. According to misconceptions
constructivists, students walk into the classroom with alternate conceptions and theories
(McCloskey, 1983b; Strike & Posner, 1985). By contrast, fine-grained constructivists believe
that much of students intuitive knowledge consists of loosely connected, often inarticulate
minigeneralizations and other knowledge elements, the activation of which depends heavily
on context (Hammer, 1996a; Smith, diSessa, & Roschelle, 1993/1994; Tirosh, Stavy, &
Cohen, 1998). I will show that (1) these two frameworks, when fleshed out, lead to different
sets of
482 A. Elby / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 19 (2000) 481502
0732-3123/00/$ see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII:
S0732-3123(01)00054-2
predictions about student behavior, and that (2) pilot studies show the feasibility of a
fullfledged experimental program to decide which flavor of constructivism describes
students more adequately, and also give us reason to take fine-grained constructivism
seriously. So, this article operationalizes a debate usually conducted on a theoretical plane.
First, I explicate the two flavors of constructivism, underscoring the difference between
representational misconceptions and finer-grained, context-dependent intuitive
knowledge elements. Unlike diSessa (1993), who lays out a detailed account of students
intuitive knowledge about physics, I provide only a sketchy overview of students intuitive
knowledge about representations. But I begin to build a fuller account by spelling out the
nature and activation tendencies of one crucial representational knowledge element.
Finally, using this element, I show that the fine-grained and misconceptions frameworks
make empirically different sets of predictions about students behavior in certain
circumstances. Pilot studies demonstrate a method of putting those different sets of
predictions to the test.
2. Two flavors of constructivism
In this section, I tease apart misconceptions constructivism and fine-grained

constructivism, focusing initially on students intuitive knowledge about physics, which is a
heavily researched topic (diSessa, 1982; Halloun & Hestenes, 1985; McCloskey, Carramazza,
& Green, 1980; McDermott, 1984). Then, I explore a less-traveled terrain, students intuitive
knowledge about representations.
2.1. Two flavors of students intuitive knowledge about physics
For my purposes, a constructivist is someone who believes the following: Learners do

not walk into the classroom as blank slates ready to be filled with knowledge. Instead, as
students construct a new understanding, their prior knowledge plays a crucial role.
Within this broad framework, however, different camps tell different stories about the
structure of this prior knowledge and the mechanism of conceptual change. According to
misconceptions constructivists such as McCloskey (1983a) and Strike and Posner (1985),
students prior knowledge consists largely of noncanonical conceptions and theories. For
instance, according to McCloskey (1983b), students intuitive knowledge about mechanics
resembles the impetus theory believed by natural philosophers in the middle ages. This
alternate theory contains the misconception motion requires force, according to which
an object in motion requires a force to keep it moving.1 By assuming that the misconception
exists as a comparatively stable knowledge element inside peoples heads, we can explain
why students mistakenly think that a desk being pushed across the floor at constant velocity
feels a net forward force. And to explain why some of these same students hold the
1 By contrast, according to Newtonian physics, a net force is required to initiate or change motion, but not to
maintain motion at constant velocity.
A. Elby / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 19 (2000) 481502 483
apparently contradictory belief that a ball thrown in outer space keeps drifting
indefinitely,2we can flesh out a story of competing conceptions (Maloney & Siegler, 1993) or
of a transition stage during which the student fluctuates between her original misconception
and the new conception she is learning (Thornton, 1995). In this way, the misconceptions
framework can accommodate inconsistencies in students reasoning. However, since
misconceptions are assumed to be somewhat theory-like, or are at least described in general
terms that are not linked to particular contexts, the misconceptions framework cannot make
predictions about the contexts in which fluctuations are most likely to occur.
Within misconceptions constructivism, the process of conceptual change resembles the
mechanism by which scientific communities are claimed to alter their theories (Strike &
Posner, 1985). When confronted with evidence that contradicts her old conceptions, and
when made aware of the difference between her old theory and the scientifically accepted
theory, the student becomes ready to accept the new theory. In brief, the students old
conceptions are confronted and then replaced.
Some misconceptions theorists, responding to research on conceptual change, allow for
the possibility that some misconceptions have internal cognitive structure and can be
compiled on the spot (Carey, 1992; Strike & Posner, 1992). However, even in these newer
formulations, the misconception remains the primary unit used to describe and analyze
students conceptual reasoning. Furthermore, although the modified misconceptions
framework allows for learning mechanisms besides confront and replace, the
misconceptions are not considered to be part of the raw material out of which the student
builds a new understanding.
Fine-grained constructivists (Smith et al., 1993/1994; Tirosh et al., 1998), by contrast,
believe that much of students intuitive knowledge takes the form of inarticulate
minigeneralizations from experience, as Hammer and Elby (in press) explain:
In this framework, students reasoning about the desk and the ball can be understood in
terms of the context-specific activation of the following fine-grained resources. Maintaining
agency3 is an element of cognitive structure useful for understanding any continuing effect
maintained by a continuing cause, such as a light bulb needing a continuous supply of energy
to stay lit. Actuating agency is another resource, an element of cognitive structure involved
in understanding an effect initiated by a cause, when the effect outlasts the cause, such as
the strike of a hammer causing a bell to ring. The desk scenario tends to activate Maintaining
agency, and hence, the idea that a continued net forward force is needed to keep the desk
moving forward. By contrast, the ball question tends to activate Actuating agency, and the
2 I have observed this phenomenon in my high school physics students. Along the same lines, Steinberg and
Sabella (1997) show that many students, in response to a multiple-choice item and a free-response item
probing the same misconception, give inconsistent responses. Other evidence (diSessa, 1993; Tytler, 1998)
also suggests that students reasoning is inconsistent in ways that a misconceptions account can
accommodate only by introducing competing conceptions or fluctuations, as discussed in the text.
3 diSessa (1993) called this continuing push. However, the word push in that name may be misleading as
the agency need not take the form of a force. We will also use the name actuating agency instead of
diSessas force as mover.
idea that the balls motion can outlast the force exerted by the thrower. 4 Unlike the
misconception Motion requires force, the finer-grained cognitive resources Maintaining
agency and Actuating agency are not incorrect. Neither are they correct. They are
resources that can be activated under various circumstances, sometimes appropriately,
sometimes not. Furthermore, whereas the misconception is an element of cognitive
structure specifically tied to motion and force, the finer-grained resources also apply to light
bulbs, bells, and numerous other situations. In this sense, these resources are finer-grained
but more general than misconceptions (though some finer-grained resources might be tied
more tightly to a particular setting).
Within the fine-grained framework, conceptual change is not a matter of replacing bad
minigeneralizations with good ones. Instead, it is partly a matter of tweaking those
minigeneralizations into a more articulate, unified, coherent structure. For instance, when
constructing an understanding of Newtonian mechanics, actuating agency can serve as an
intuitive grounding of Newtons first and second laws, according to which a force is needed
to initiate or change motion but not to maintain motion (at constant velocity). In Newtonian
mechanics, maintaining agency (merely) contributes to an informal heuristic for reasoning
about situations involving strong friction or other dissipative forces. But actuating agency
and maintaining agency both play a role in a physicists reasoning. As novices become
experts, few if any minigeneralizations die completely. They are restructured, not
replaced.
In summary, misconceptions constructivism and fine-grained constructivism disagree not
only about the form of students intuitive knowledge, but also about the mechanism of
learning and conceptual change. Consequently, these two flavors of constructivism invite
different instructional practices, as Hammer (1996a) discusses. For both theoretical and
practical reasons, we must decide which kind of constructivism better accounts for students
behavior in various situations.
2.2. Two flavors of students intuitive knowledge about representations
To see how the distinction between misconceptions and fine-grained constructivism plays
out in the context of representations, consider this velocity vs. time graph (Fig. 1)
representing a cars motion.
Novices sometimes think the car is not moving. Within a misconceptions framework, this
is taken to show that students are misreading the velocity graph as a position graph, a
mistake the student is likely to make on other velocity graphs (see Leinhardt, Zaslavsky, &
Stein, 1990; McDermott, Rosenquist, & van Zee, 1987). By contrast, within a finegrained
framework, the flat horizontal line can be taken to activate stillness, an element of
4 On this view, the internal force students often invoke in their explanations is not part of a stable,
preexisting misconception, but rather something they conceive of on the spot, if the context requires them to
explain the balls continued motion.
Fig. 1. A velocity vs. time graph for a car.
cognitive structure associated with lack of motion. In this story, if stillness gets cued when
the student is thinking about the car itself, she is likely to conclude that it is motionless. By
contrast, if she is consciously thinking of the cars speedometer needle when stillness gets
activated (perhaps due to a teachers intervention), then she is more likely to interpret the
graph as indicating steady motion. So, the fine-grained account predicts some context-
dependent inconsistencies in whether the student interprets the graph as if it indicates
position instead of velocity. As noted above, misconceptions constructivism accommodates
inconsistencies in students reasoning. Therefore, in the absence of a detailed story about
these contextual dependencies, the fine-grained and misconceptions stories do not make
empirically distinguishable predictions. They agree that students will sometimes read the
velocity graph as if it were a position graph, and that conscious reflection about what the
graph represents can help students make fewer such mistakes. A specification of contextual
dependencies is what distinguishes finegrained from misconceptions constructivism.
Without going into detail, I will now propose some other intuitive knowledge elements
that students might bring to bear when interpreting visual representations. These
speculations play no role in my later arguments, but illustrate the fine-grained constructivist
framework. Constancy, triggered by straight lines on graphs (flat or sloped) and presumably
by other visual cues, corresponds to the idea that something about the situation does not
change. For instance, the activation of constancy might cause a novice musician to interpret
a long horizontal line on the staff as indicating that she should hold whatever note she is
playing. 5 Sudden change, cued by steep segments on a graph or by borders on a map,
corresponds to dramatic change.
In this framework, a misconception can emerge in a particular context, but perhaps not
in other contexts, by the (mis)activation of various fine-grained intuitive knowledge
elements elements which in other contexts might contribute to productive
interpretations.
5 By the way, graphical expertise may consist in part of having constancy rather than stillness cued by a
horizontal line on a graph, since constancy is not tied to position, while stillness is.
3. A fine-grained intuitive knowledge element: WYSIWYG
3.1. What you see is what you get
A middle-school student, informed that Fig. 2 is a speed vs. time graph of a bicyclist,
speculates about what is happening between t1 and t2.
Experienced teachers and researchers, even if they have not seen this particular example
in the graphing misconceptions literature (Janvier & the Universite du Quebec a`
Montreal, 1987; Leinhardt et al., 1990; McDermott et al., 1987), can often anticipate that
some students think the bicycle is going over a hill. This iconic, or naively realistic
interpretation the hill on the graph is taken to represent an actual hill fits into a
pattern that teachers recognize. In my view, that is because the hill mistake and similar iconic
interpretations spring, in part, from the activation of a cognitive structure, specifically, an
intuitive knowledge element I call what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG).
WYSIWYG : x means x:
For instance, on a childs drawing of her family, the bigger people can be interpreted as
representing the grown-ups; bigger means bigger.6 Or, in the above example, hill means
hill. On a colorized image of Jupiter, a blue halo can be interpreted, inappropriately, as a
blue atmosphere; blue means blue. On a street sign showing a thick curvy line, WYSIWYG
contributes to the quick and in this case, productive conclusion that the road curves.
Two more examples will clarify the kinds of interpretations I take to be triggered by the
activation of WYSIWYG. Consider this map (Fig. 3) of the central California coastline. The
right-hand region is green, while the left-hand region is blue. If WYSIWYG is activated while
a student focuses on the green, he is likely to think that California is solid green. Similarly, a
WYSIWYG-triggered interpretation of the boundary line leads to the conclusion that it is
indeed a boundary; boundary means boundary.
In Fig. 4, some people may quickly interpret the central dot as the source of the arrows,
even when they do not know that the diagram portrays a charge and its electric field lines.
If WYSIWYG gets triggered while the student focuses on that source, she is likely to
interpret it as the source of whatever the arrows represent as moving.
So, WYSIWYG is one of the intuitive knowledge elements contributing to a naive
interpretation of a visual representation or an aspect thereof.7
As the above examples show, WYSIWYG can contribute to both productive (boundary
means boundary on map) and flawed (blue means blue atmosphere) interpretations.
Like
6 See Bruce Sherins article in this issue (Sherin, 2001) for more about how students use relative sizes and
distances on spatial representations to indicate the corresponding spatial relationships in the real world.
7 In this paper, I will not address several interesting questions about WYSIWYG. For instance, does WYSIWYG
do its cognitive work by spawning a bunch of specific implications, such as bigger means bigger and blue
means blue? Or, is WYSIWYG itself a larger cognitive structure arising from a collection of case-specific
minigeneralizations? Does this process go both ways, reinforced by a feedback loop? Fortunately, my central
argument does not depend on the answers to these detailed questions.
Fig. 2. A velocity vs. time graph for a bicycle.
most intuitive knowledge elements in a fine-grained framework, it is neither correct nor

incorrect. Young children learn, probably unconsciously, that WYSIWYG is not always
productive. For instance, when learning to read, a 5-year-old learns that certain squiggles
on the page refer to things in the world; cat refers to a furry critter that looks nothing like
the word cat. Similarly, when looking at a color-coded relief map, many children know to
interpret the different colors as heights, not as actual colors of the terrain. In other words,
children learn to interpret more abstract, less iconic representations representations for
which WYSIWYG must be put in the background.
3.2. Compelling visual attributes
Because it remains productive, WYSIWYG does not die. For example, bigger really does
mean bigger in many representations. To spell out my claim about which contexts cue
WYSIWYG most strongly, I must introduce a new concept: the compelling visual attribute.
Fig. 3. Grayscale version of a color map of the middle California coastline.

In some visual representations, one feature (or a particular Gestalt involving multiple
features) quickly draws your attention. That is the compelling visual attribute.
Experiments can determine which visual attributes are most compelling in which
circumstances. For instance, the motion of a subjects eyes can be measured during the first
few tenths of a second after a new visual representation is presented. In addition, a
welldeveloped line of research about the human visual system establishes that the layers of
neurons behind the light detectors in our retinas are hard-wired to see certain features
such as edges, corners, and motion (Churchland & Sejnowski, 1992). These visual attributes
are detected even before the information reaches the visual cortex in the brain. Edges,
corners, and motion probably constitute compelling visual attributes in some circumstances
and likely contribute to other compelling visual attributes in other circumstances. Therefore,
we can reasonably infer that the neuroscience of vision can contribute to our understanding
of compelling visual attributes.8
Which visual attributes are most compelling probably depends on context. For instance,
in Fig. 2, the hill may be an especially compelling visual attribute to a student who has just
read about a bicycle going over a hill.
3.3. When is WYSIWYG most likely to be cued?
My claim is that, even though WYSIWYG is not cued strongly in all contexts, it is cued
strongly with respect to the compelling visual attribute of a representation:
WYSIWYG activation claim: In a visual representation, the compelling visual attribute tends
to cue WYSIWYG.
Some old and new examples illustrate what the WYSIWYG activation claim means. The
examples also contribute to an argument for the claims plausibility, an argument I will
present immediately after the examples themselves.
Consider Fig. 3, the California coastline. Given that the human vision system is hard-wired
to detect edges (see Section 3.2), the compelling visual attribute is likely to be the boundary.
So, according to my activation claim, the boundary on the map (disproportionately) gets
interpreted as representing a boundary in real life. This interpretation, of course, is correct.
By contrast, even young children do not interpret the green and blue as showing the actual
colors of California and the ocean. In other words, WYSIWYG is not applied to all aspects of
the representation, but it is applied to the compelling visual attribute, the boundary.
Crucially, because the application of WYSIWYG to the compelling visual attribute leads to a
productive interpretation, that pattern of activation tends to get reinforced, as argued
below.
Fig. 4 (dot and arrows) may provide a less clear-cut but more typical example of
WYSIWYG activation. It may turn out that subjects, quickly and without conscious thought,
8Put another way, some of the primitives in the space of intuitive representational knowledge may
connect closely to sensory primitives hard-wired into our visual processing systems. This connection deserves
study. Nothing in my main argument rides on these speculations.
Fig. 4. Positive charge-emanating electric field lines.
perceive the overall Gestalt of the figure to be an outward flow from the central dot. If so,
the WYSIWYG activation claim says that the diagram is likely to be interpreted as showing
an outward flow from the center, which is, indeed, a productive way of viewing the
relationship between a charge and its electric field lines. By contrast, it is not productive to
view the arrows as representing actual arrows. So once again, assuming subjects perceive
outward flow as the compelling visual attribute, the activation of WYSIWYG with respect
to the compelling visual attribute leads to a productive interpretation.
I give one last example.
This picture of a galaxy (Fig. 5) is not a photograph, but rather, a visual display of
digitally stored data. In a 1996 high school physics class, students were told to look for a
supernova in this galaxy. The students knew that supernovae are extremely compact, bright
Fig. 5. A display of a digital image of a galaxy containing a supernova.

objects. For somebody in this context, one of the most compelling visual attributes is
probably the small bright blob on the left side of the galaxy;9 the students eye may dart to
that spot even before she begins consciously searching for the supernova. And indeed, the
small bright blob on the image represents a small bright blob in space, a supernova. By
contrast, the apparent edges of the galaxy on the image do not reliably indicate the edges
of the actual galaxy; adjusting the MIN setting of the software causes the displayed image
to shrink or expand (Friedman & diSessa, 1999).10 So, once again, WYSIWYG leads to a useful
interpretation of the compelling visual attribute, but not to a useful interpretation of other
aspects of the visual representation.
I now discuss the speculative developmental story underlying my WYSIWYG activation
claim, starting with a one-paragraph summary and then going into more detail. I propose
that WYSIWYG, or particular instantiations of WYSIWYG, develops extremely early. As David
Hammer (personal communication, October 14, 1999) puts it, the default, if you see
something, is to see what you see! Couched more carefully, the default attitude toward
something you can easily see is that you see it directly and unproblematically what you
see is what you get. Consider a visual attribute that is particularly useful for interpreting the
world. Its usefulness causes or at least favors the development of quick and direct
interpretative strategies (often involving WYSIWYG) that are effective and that call attention
to themselves, making them compelling. As a result, WYSIWYG becomes strongly connected
to compelling visual attributes.
According to this story, biological evolution produced edges as a hard-wired compelling
visual attribute partly because they are so useful in functional tasks such as knowing the
boundary of an object. This usefulness favors development of the quick, direct
interpretation of those edges as the boundaries of objects edge means edge. Because
it is paired with a quick, direct interpretation, the edge visual attribute becomes more
compelling, that is, more likely to grab attention.
Similar reasoning applies to soft-wired perception mechanisms, including
representational resources and the connections between them that implement interpretive
strategies. The most useful visual attributes become involved in quick and direct interpretive
strategies, which are often strongly and productively connected to WYSIWYG. By their
very nature, these quick-and-direct strategies disproportionately grab attention, making the
underlying visual attribute more compelling. Even when other interpretations of the visual
scene might be available, compelling attributes are so often useful that they compete
effectively for attention and carry along the WYSIWYG interpretive stance. In sum, the
usefulness of a visual attribute causes the development of quick and effective interpretive
strategies that preferentially call attention to themselves (are compelling) and for which
WYSIWYG is an appropriate default stance.
9 The big blob in the center of the galaxy may also be a compelling attribute.
10 Each displayed pixel corresponds to a brightness level (called the brightness count) recorded by the
digital camera that took the image. Any pixel corresponding to a brightness count less than the MIN setting gets
displayed as black. For this reason, adjusting the MIN setting causes previously gray pixels to appear black, or
vice versa, increasing or decreasing the apparent width of the galaxy.
The strong cueing of WYSIWYG by a compelling visual attribute may be reinforced by

additional natural selection at the societal (as opposed to biological or individual) level. A
representation for which WYSIWYG leads to an unproductive interpretation of the
compelling visual attribute will fool people, making the representation less useful and
presumably, less used by creators of representations than it would otherwise be. Partly
for this reason, as illustrated by the California coastline and the electric field, consumers of
representations experience WYSIWYG as a productive attitude toward compelling visual
attributes. In net, repeated experience with representations selected to make productive
use of compelling visual attributes reinforces the links between compelling visual attributes
and WYSIWYG.
I am not claiming that children consciously learn all of this. If a connectionist-style network
of fine-grained interpretational knowledge elements accurately depicts students quick,
unreflective reactions to visual representations, then WYSIWYG gets cued or does not get
cued quickly and automatically. For instance, according to this model, within a moment
of seeing the California coastline representation, people just think boundary! without
consciously pondering the applicability of WYSIWYG. Equally unconscious, in all likelihood,
is the learning process by which WYSIWYG and compelling visual attributes become strongly
paired.
Plausibility arguments aside, the truth or falsehood of the WYSIWYG activation claim is
ultimately an empirical matter. In the next section, I put the activation claim to the test.
4. How do the two flavors of constructivism disagree?
A deeper story needs to be told about WYSIWYG, compelling visual attributes, and the
activation claim that compelling visual attributes disproportionately cue WYSIWYG. For the
purposes of my central argument, however, I have gone far enough. The WYSIWYG
activation claim, which is one small part of a fine-grained constructivist account of intuitive
representational knowledge, allows me to make predictions about students behavior in
certain contexts, predictions that go beyond those of misconceptions constructivism. I am
not arguing for the completeness of my fine-grained explanations. Instead, I am using the
WYSIWYG activation claim as an illustration of the kind of story that separates fine-grained
constructivism from misconceptions constructivism.
To highlight why the two flavors of constructivism generate different sets of predictions,
I first sketch the general form of my argument. Misconceptions constructivism views
conceptual change as a switch from one set of stable conceptions to another. Within this
framework, nothing can be said about the fine structure of the transition, or about the
fluctuations between conceptions. By contrast, the context-dependent cueing of
finegrained constructivism allows stories to be told about the fine structure of these
transitions, stories that predict particular patterns of nonrandomness in the fluctuations. So,
fine-grained constructivism generates predictions about students behavior in cases where
misconceptions constructivism predicts nothing other than random fluctuations. If enough
of those fine-grained predictions turn out to be correct, then we have reason to prefer fine-
grained constructivism. By contrast, if fine-grained constructivists cannot predict and detect
patterns of nonrandomness in the fluctuations, then we have reason to prefer

misconceptions constructivism.
In this section, I describe two analyses of pilot-study data about which fine-grained
constructivism specifically, the WYSIWYG activation claim makes a prediction, while
misconceptions constructivism makes no prediction. My main point is methodological:
experimental data of this type, collected over a sufficiently diverse collection of
experiments, can eventually favor one flavor of constructivism at the expense of the other.
4.1. Analysis 1: Final exam question in a summer class about representations
In the MaRC project 1997 summer class about representations (see diSessa & Sherin,
2001, this issue), the final exam included this item:
Cars A and B start at the same position and move according to the graph of speed vs. time
[Fig. 6].
a. Is car A going forward or backward? What about car B?
b. What happens at time T1? Circle the correct response.
i. Car B is ahead. ii. Car A is ahead. iii. Neither car is
ahead; car B and car A cross each other.
I call Parts (a) and (b) the direction question and the crossing question, respectively.
What do the two flavors of constructivism predict about students answers? Within the
misconceptions framework (see Section 2.2), many mistakes are expected to stem from
reading the velocity graph as a position graph, a manifestation of the height vs. slope
confusion (Leinhardt et al., 1990).11 Therefore, if someone has confronted and replaced that
misreading, they will answer both direction and crossing correctly. If the replacement has
not occurred, the student will answer both questions incorrectly. Finally, students in a
transitional state could make random errors about direction and crossing. Random errors
could stem from other causes, as footnote 11 discusses. But nothing more can be said.
Misconceptions are generally described as applying robustly across multiple contexts. For
this reason, misconceptions constructivism cannot predict whether more errors will occur
on direction or on crossing.
A fine-grained constructivist who accepts my WYSIWYG activation claim has more to say.
On the direction question, WYSIWYG applied to the two oppositely sloped lines on the graph
leads to the incorrect conclusion that the cars go in different directions. On the crossing
11The misconceptions framework allows for errors that do not arise from a misconception. Examples
include knowledge-gap errors, such as lack of awareness that the area under a velocity vs. time graph
represents displacement; perceptual errors, such as seeing the area under curve A (between t=0 and t=T 1)
as no bigger than the area under curve B; and careless errors in processing the information. But the
misconceptions framework says nothing about which contexts and which tasks are more likely to evoke
these types of errors. In this scenario, the only prediction put forth by that framework is the expectation
that some (many?) students will exhibit the height vs. slope confusion, reading the velocity graph as if it
were a position graph.
Fig. 6. Graph for MaRC summer exam question.
question, WYSIWYG applied to the intersection of the graphs leads to the incorrect
conclusion that the cars cross at time T1. Given that our optical systems are hard-wired to
detect corners (Churchland & Sejnowski, 1992), and given the sparseness of distinct features
on the graph, the intersection is likely to be the compelling visual attribute. So, according to
the WYSIWYG activation claim, students are more likely to cue WYSIWYG and therefore,
to get the wrong answer on the crossing question. By contrast, as just explained,
misconceptions constructivism gives us no reason to expect more wrong answers on one
question than on the other. Fine-grained constructivism makes a specific prediction
concerning a distribution of incorrect answers. Misconceptions constructivism makes no
such prediction. This empirical difference is the main point of my article.
As it turns out, partly because the class spent little time on velocity graphs, only one
student out of nine got both direction and crossing right. Two students got both direction
and crossing wrong, choosing (iii) on Part (b). The other six students got direction correct,
but incorrectly concluded that cars A and B cross at time T1. The disproportionate number
of errors on crossing counts as evidence for the fine-grained account.12 Of course, to turn
this pilot study into a more solid result, we would need to confirm that the intersection is
the compelling visual attribute, and we would need a larger sample size. Again, my point is
that such experiments are feasible. 4.2. Analysis 2: Homework problem given in high school
physics
This analysis from September 1998 nearly duplicates the one just described, but with
different students and context. The subjects were eleventh-grade physics students at a
science/ technology magnet public high school in Virginia. After completing a series of
microcomputer-based laboratories using motion detectors, 71 students completed a
12 If we focus on students who got exactly one of those two questions wrong, and assume that those errors
are randomly distributed like coin flips, then the probability that all six such students would err in the direction
predicted by fine-grained constructivism is P=1/64=.016.
homework assignment about position and velocity graphs. The assignment included this
item from the Tools for Scientific Thinking physics labs (Thornton, 1987):
Both the velocity graphs below, 1 and 2, show the motion of two objects, A and B [Fig. 7].
Answer the following questions separately for 1 and 2. Explain your answers when
necessary. (a) Is one faster than the other? If so, which one is faster? (A or B) (b) What does
the intersection mean?
(c) Can one tell which object is ahead? (define ahead) (d)
Does either object reverse direction? Explain.
I coded students written responses concerning graph 2. The crossing question is Part (b).
No question directly asks about the direction of motion of each object. But in Part (d), most
students explicitly indicated whether they thought objects A and B move in the same
direction or in opposite directions, thereby providing an unambiguous answer to the
direction question.13
As discussed above, fine-grained constructivism, but not misconceptions constructivism,
makes a prediction about students who incorrectly answer exactly one of those two
questions. The fine-grained account expects more mistakes about crossing than about
direction. Of the 67 students who answered unambiguously, 49 got both questions correct,
9 got both questions wrong, and 9 got one right and one wrong. Of the nine students who
incorrectly answered exactly one of those questions, seven missed the crossing question and
two missed the direction question,14 in agreement with the results of the other pilot study
(Section 4.1).
A misconceptions advocate might claim that a fine-grained constructivist framework
cannot explain why many students (nine, in this experiment) answered both crossing and
direction as if they were consistently interpreting the velocity graph as a position graph. But
fine-grained constructivism does not require students to display pervasive inconsistency.15
13 Typical student responses included Both cars go the same direction, but A decelerates and No, both
cars always have positive velocity. In some cases, a students answer to part (c), such as A starts ahead, but B
catches up and passes it clarified an otherwise ambiguous answer to part (d), such as No, both cars the go the
same way the whole time. However, for 4 of the 71 students, an answer to the direction question could not be
unambiguously inferred. Part (c), when coded separately, did not yield data that could be used to support one
flavor of constructivism at the expense of the other. For instance, many students answers were consistent with
and even explicitly referred to their part (b) answers. A misconceptions constructivist could argue that this
consistency stems from a robust misconception, whereas a fine-grained constructivist could argue that the
knowledge elements activated by part (b) are still turned on when the student addresses part (c) a few seconds
later, and that some students consciously seek to answer neighboring questions consistently. Along the same
lines, many students part (c) answers were consistent with their part (d) responses. Again, a misconceptions
advocate would claim that this consistency stems from a misconception, whereas a fine-grained advocate could
claim that (c) and (d) go together partly because neither involves a compelling visual attribute. My point is
that the cleanest way to drive a wedge between the two flavors of constructivism is to analyze (b) and (d).
14 If the careless errors among those nine students were randomly distributed like coin flips, then the
probability that seven or more students would err in the direction predicted by the fine-grained account is
P=.090.
15 For instance, in an analysis of students conceptions about the origin of species, Samarapugnavan and
Wiers (1997) take students internal consistency as evidence against a diSessa-style fine-grained account of
students preconceptions.
Fig. 7. Velocity graphs for a high school homework question.
On the contrary, fine-grained constructivism gives us reason to expect that students will
often be consistent. For instance, as now argued, it can explain why some of those nine
students got both crossing and direction wrong.
! First, if a student consciously thinks of the graph as indicating position, then the same
representational and metacognitive resources that allow her to interpret position
graphs correctly will lead her to get crossing and direction wrong.
! Second, several different clusters of intuitive representational knowledge elements lead
to consistently wrong answers about crossing and direction. For instance, the student
might see
(i) the graphs as pictures of the paths of the cars; or (ii) the
slope as indicating the amount and direction of motion; or (iii) the
height as indicating distance traveled.
In a fine-grained story, these three interpretations could stem from the activation of
different (though overlapping) sets of intuitive representational knowledge elements. In
experts, (ii) and (iii) are tightly and consciously linked; when an expert interprets the
height of a graph as representing position, she automatically interprets its slope as
representing velocity. In novices, by contrast, (ii) could get triggered without (iii), or vice
versa. The activation of (i), (ii), or (iii) can explain why a student who does not hold a
stable, robust misconception might answer both crossing and direction incorrectly. ! Third,
when answering a series of related questions, some students monitor consciously or
unconsciously the coherence of the story they are constructing (see Schoenfeld, 1992).
For instance, suppose a student says that the cars cross when the velocity graphs cross.
On subsequent questions, the students consistency monitoring might lead him to give
extra weight to intuitive knowledge elements that seem consistent with his earlier
conclusion. The students consistency stems not from a preexisting misconception, but
from a productive metacognitive constraint on the process by which he constructs
answers out of his intuitive knowledge.
Again, as mentioned in Section 2.2, fine-grained constructivists do not deny that a cluster
of intuitive knowledge elements can come together to form a misconception. But in a fine-
grained framework, the misconception is not assumed always to be stable and robust across
multiple contexts. Rather, it is sometimes expected to be emergent knowledge that arises
in some contexts but not in others. Importantly, the misconception arises from finer-grained
knowledge elements that, in other contexts, serve a useful function. In this way, the fine-
grained framework reinterprets rather than denies the phenomenology of
misconceptions.
5. Another method for distinguishing the two flavors of constructivism
In Section 4, the two pilot studies employed the same methods, namely, the coding of
students written work produced in a classroom setting. A full-fledged experimental program
to decide which flavor of constructivism is best, however, must triangulate among multiple
methods in order to produce convincing results. With that in mind, I now show how clinical
interview transcripts can be used to argue for one flavor of constructivism at the expense of
the other.
In a clinical setting, Jeff Friedman interviewed pairs of high school students to uncover the
prior knowledge they bring to bear when interpreting visual representations of digitized
astronomical images (Friedman & diSessa, 1999).
Sections of his transcripts focus on students interpretation of slice graphs. The Slice Tool
is a component of the software used to view and manipulate images. Specifically, the
student uses the mouse to draw a line (slice) across the displayed astronomical image on
the screen. The computer then draws a graph showing brightness as a function of distance
along that line, as illustrated by Fig. 8. The vertical axis shows brightness counts, as recorded
by the digital camera that took the image. The distance on the horizontal axis is measured
in pixels.
Fig. 8. Slice graph of moon crater with a mountain in the middle.

During Friedmans interviews, students used slice graphs and other information to address
questions about craters and peaks on the moon.
I now lay out the empirical distinction between fine-grained and misconceptions
constructivism regarding students interpretation of slice graphs. When slicing the moon,
students often seem to misinterpret the slice graph as showing altitude (height) instead of
brightness (Friedman & diSessa, 1999). According to misconceptions constructivists, this
phenomenon is easy to explain: Students are indeed misinterpreting the slice graph as an
altitude graph. Within this framework, some students are expected to interpret the slice
graph as showing altitude, some are expected to interpret it as showing brightness, and
others are expected to fluctuate between the two interpretations. Crucially, misconceptions
constructivism makes no predictions about which particular questions or contextual cues
are most likely to induce fluctuations in a given direction.
By contrast, a fine-grained constructivist has a story to tell about the so-called
fluctuations. Some slice graphs contain a compelling visual attribute, such as a sharp peak
or deep valley. According to the WYSIWYG activation claim, students are more likely to
interpret a visually compelling peak or valley of the slice graph as an actual peak or
valley than they are to apply a WYSIWYG interpretation to other aspects of the
representation. In other words, a student is disproportionately likely to misinterpret the
graph as showing altitude when he is focused upon the most visually compelling peaks or
valleys of the slice graph. So, once again, misconceptions constructivism predicts nothing
more than fluctuations, while finegrained constructivism predicts a particular pattern in
students reasoning.
The following episode from Friedmans transcripts illustrates the kind of data that count
as evidence for fine-grained constructivism. Two students, L and H, are discussing how to
decide which is higher, a crater wall or a mountain peak. After working directly with a
printout of the image for several minutes they decide that using a slice graph might be
helpful. L explains why:
Interviewer: Can you think of any; uh, if you were on the computer, can you think
of any other, anything else you could do to; anything else you could do
to uh, to find, to compare the two? Would it be helpful in any way if
you were on the computer?
L: Im sure it would, but I cant really think right now of how I would go
about doing that. Um.
H: Did the slice graph have anything to do with like the height, or was it
just distance?
Interviewer: Why dont the two of you discuss that.
H: Never mind.
L: No, no, I know what youre talking about ...
H: Cause like I forgot what the, what the thing ... distance and count
(talking over each other).
L: But the light counts, but then you would be able to figure something
because the shadow; because I think the shadow would have a lot to
do with it because the suns obviously hitting, you know, these at the
same
point so if this is taller, then this is going to have a bigger shadow, you
know. But if we did use the slice graph, and we sliced this or whatever,
we could see how um, what, how long this distance is at that certain
light intensity, and then how long this distance is at that light intensity.
I mean, I feel the light intensity is like around the same, so we can just
see like until the light intensity gets back to all this the, what the
distance of that is, and then if thats bigger. So the slice graph would
probably work then, I think. [emphases added]
Although H initially thinks the slice graph might have something to do with ... the height,
L clearly and repeatedly states that it shows light intensity. She explains how slice graphs of
the shadows created by the crater wall and the mountain peak could be used to determine
which shadow covers more distance, and hence, which object is higher.
For the next several minutes, the two students deal with the logistical details of creating
and reading the slice graph. L never wavers from her correct contention that slice graphs
show light intensity vs. distance. But when she gets one of the needed slice graphs in front
of her, it contains a wide and deep valley corresponding to the shadow. As a result, she
briefly switches to an altitude interpretation of that feature before catching herself:
L: Well, lets figure out which counts are, which counts, like; See how this
gets really low right here so it would be like right here, so the counts
are lower where its lower down I guess, and then the counts are
higher um. Oh, but thats light intensity. So the light intensity for this.
Like you can see how its brighter right there, you know? [emphasis
added]
The first italicized phrase suggests that WYSIWYG got triggered by a compelling visual
attribute, the lowest valley on the slice graph. Consequently, L thinks lower on the graph
means lower on the moon; lower means lower. But then, when she considers a less
visually compelling part of the graph, a place where the counts are higher, WYSIWYG gets
cued less strongly, and some of Ls other knowledge takes over. She says, Oh, but thats
light intensity, indicating that, in the previous few moments, she was interpreting the slice
graph as showing something other than light intensity. Realizing her mistake, she now
returns to a light-intensity interpretation: Like you can see how its brighter right there, you
know? In response to this story, a critic could argue as follows:
Critic: Ls statements occurred in the context of trying to use slice graphs to
locate the highest peaks. Because she was looking for peaks and
valleys, thats exactly what L saw when a plausible valley presented
itself on the slice graph. Its just a matter of seeing what youre looking
for, not a matter of a compelling visual attribute cueing a naive
interpretation.
This critique gives us reason to doubt that my WYSIWYG activation claim fully explains Ls
behavior. But it does not refute my claim that Ls statements are best explained within a
fine-grained constructivist framework rather than a misconceptions framework. A
misconceptions constructivist could claim that Ls brief, isolated reversion to an altitude

interpretation was just a random fluctuation. The above critique, however, does not take
this line.
Rather, it says that a contextual factor namely, Ls goal predisposed her towards an
iconic valley interpretation of the dip; and presumably, once the goal was fulfilled,
intuitive knowledge elements associated with other interpretations could assert themselves
more strongly. In summary, the critiques focus on context-dependent activation of
interpretive resources places it squarely within the fine-grained camp.
Since WYSIWYG and the associated activation claim are just small pieces of a fine-grained
theory of intuitive representational knowledge, other knowledge elements and cognitive
processes such as the tendency to see what you are looking for undoubtedly play a
role in explaining Friedmans data. Again, the point of this article is not to argue for the
completeness of my particular fine-grained explanations, but rather, to show that fine-
grained constructivism generates predictions that go beyond those made by misconceptions
constructivism, and that the data give us reason to take fine-grained constructivism
seriously.
6. Conclusion
Educators can have different takes on the nature of the debate between misconceptions
constructivism and fine-grained constructivism:
! It is just semantic. Perhaps people who talk about misconceptions and people who
talk about preconceptions, or intuitive resources, or alternative theories, are
all talking about the same cognitive structures. They disagree only about word choice.
! It is about valuing students ideas. Upon discovering that students have
misconceptions, some teachers become exasperated about their students
wrongheaded ideas, while other teachers get excited about the ability of their students
to reason in terms of ideas they did not learn in the classroom (see Hammer, 1997).
Because these two sets of teachers place different value on students ideas, they often
favor different pedagogical strategies for dealing with misconceptions. Vigorous
debates can therefore arise. But the debates are not necessarily about the cognitive
structures underlying the misconceptions.
! It is purely theoretical. When Einstein proposed his special theory of relativity,
mathematically encoded in the Lorentz transformation equations, Lorentz had already
derived those equations from a complicated ether model of electromagnetic
propagation. So, the disagreement between the two theories was not empirical; it was
ontological. The two theories attributed different properties to space and time, but
generated empirically indistinguishable predictions (within a certain restricted domain
of phenomena).16 Similarly, it is possible to view the fine-grained and misconceptions

constructivists as disagreeing only about what cognitive structures to attribute to
students, not about empirical predictions.
This article shows that none of these three takes fully captures the disagreement between
fine-grained and misconceptions constructivists. First, they posit different cognitive
structures, not just different words to label the same structures; a stable, context-
independent belief that is either correct or incorrect is a different thing from a fine-grained
minigeneralization, the activation and appropriateness of which depends on context.
Second, a teacher can respect and value a students intuitive knowledge, no matter what
form she thinks it takes. Third, the different cognitive structures posited by the two flavors
of constructivism are not empty theoretical baggage; they lead to empirical differences, as
shown in Section 4. In summary, misconceptions constructivism and fine-grained
constructivism, when taken seriously, do not disagree only about word choice, or about
attitudes toward students, or about cognitive structures. They make different sets of
predictions about students interpretations of representations. Therefore, by fleshing out a
fine-grained theory of intuitive representational knowledge, and by experimentally
exploring numerous situations in which the fine-grained account makes a specific prediction
while the misconceptions account makes no prediction (or makes a different prediction), we
can gain insight into which flavor of constructivism best describes students knowledge.
To make this argument, I first proposed the existence of WYSIWYG, an intuitive
knowledge element about representations, according to which x means x. I argued that
particularly useful visual attributes tend to become connected to quick and direct
interpretations (many of which involve WYSIWYG) that call attention to themselves (are
compelling). As a result, compelling visual attributes end up with strong connections to
WYSIWYG. Because it leads to naively iconic interpretations, WYSIWYG gets cued less
strongly and less frequently as students gain experience with abstract representations. But
the link between a compelling visual attribute and its corresponding WYSIWYG
interpretation does not die off. In other words, the compelling visual attribute tends to cue
WYSIWYG.
Using this WYSIWYG activation claim, I generated predictions about students

interpretation of graphs, predictions that go beyond those made by misconceptions
constructivism. Pilot studies established the feasibility of testing these kinds of predictions,
and also gave us reason to take fine-grained constructivism seriously.
I briefly review why, in general, the empirical disagreement arises. Misconceptions
constructivism views conceptual change as a switch from one set of stable, robust
conceptions to another. Therefore, nothing (other than random fluctuations) can be
predicted about the fine structure of the transition. By contrast, the context-dependent
cueing inherent to fine-grained constructivism leads to hypotheses about the fine structure
of these transitions, hypotheses that predict particular patterns of nonrandomness in the
fluctuations.
16 Furthermore, just as new epicycles could rescue the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, modifications
to the ether model could rescue it from subsequent empirical findings, up to a point.
I close by pointing out an instructional implication of favoring one flavor of constructivism

over the other. As discussed in Section 2, fine-grained knowledge elements that are
unproductive in some contexts can be productive in others; those elements are neither
right nor wrong. Therefore, teachers can view the knowledge elements as useful raw
material out of which students can construct more sophisticated understandings. By
contrast, since misconceptions are cross-contextually stable and inconsistent with expert
knowledge, teachers cannot view them as contributing to expert understanding (Hammer,
1996a, 1996b).
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Andy diSessa and David Hammer for excellent feedback and editing
suggestions. This work was supported by NSF grant DGE-9714474 (Andrew Elby, PI). The
ideas expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily those of the NSF.
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Journal of Mathematical Behavior 19 (2000)

What students learning of representations tells us

Keywords: Constructivism; Misconceptions; p-prims; Conceptual change; Representations

2. Two flavors of constructivism

In this section, I tease apart misconceptions constructivism and fine-grained

2.1. Two flavors of students intuitive knowledge about physics

For my purposes, a constructivist is someone who believes the following: Learners do

2.2. Two flavors of students intuitive knowledge about representations

Fig. 1. A velocity vs. time graph for a car.

3. A fine-grained intuitive knowledge element: WYSIWYG

3.1. What you see is what you get

Fig. 2. A velocity vs. time graph for a bicycle.

most intuitive knowledge elements in a fine-grained framework, it is neither correct nor

3.2. Compelling visual attributes

Fig. 3. Grayscale version of a color map of the middle California coastline.

3.3. When is WYSIWYG most likely to be cued?

Fig. 4. Positive charge-emanating electric field lines.

Fig. 5. A display of a digital image of a galaxy containing a supernova.

The strong cueing of WYSIWYG by a compelling visual attribute may be reinforced by

4. How do the two flavors of constructivism disagree?

patterns of nonrandomness in the fluctuations, then we have reason to prefer

4.1. Analysis 1: Final exam question in a summer class about representations

Fig. 6. Graph for MaRC summer exam question.

Fig. 7. Velocity graphs for a high school homework question.

5. Another method for distinguishing the two flavors of constructivism

Fig. 8. Slice graph of moon crater with a mountain in the middle.

misconceptions constructivist could claim that Ls brief, isolated reversion to an altitude

of phenomena).16 Similarly, it is possible to view the fine-grained and misconceptions

Using this WYSIWYG activation claim, I generated predictions about students

I close by pointing out an instructional implication of favoring one flavor of constructivism

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