Calculating and Understanding Formal Models

Sci & Educ (2010) 19:225257
DOI 10.1007/s11191-009-9203-9
Calculating and Understanding: Formal Models

and Causal Explanations in Science, Common Reasoning
and Physics Teaching
Ugo Besson
Published online: 8 August 2009

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of the different types of reasoning and physical
explanation used in science, common thought, and physics teaching. It then reflects on the
learning difficulties connected with these various approaches, and suggests some possible
didactic strategies. Although causal reasoning occurs very frequently in common thought
and daily life, it has long been the subject of debate and criticism among philosophers and
scientists. In this paper, I begin by providing a description of some general tendencies of
common reasoning that have been identified by didactic research. Thereafter, I briefly
discuss the role of causality in science, as well as some different types of explanation
employed in the field of physics. I then present some results of a study examining the
causal reasoning used by students in solid and fluid mechanics. The differences found
between the types of reasoning typical of common thought and those usually proposed
during instruction can create learning difficulties and impede student motivation. Many
students do not seem satisfied by the mere application of formal laws and functional
relations. Instead, they express the need for a causal explanation, a mechanism that allows
them to understand how a state of affairs has come about. I discuss few didactic strategies
aimed at overcoming these problems, and describe, in general terms, two examples of
mechanics teaching sequences which were developed and tested in different contexts. The
paper ends with a reflection on the possible role to be played in physics learning by
intuitive and imaginative thought, and the use of simple explanatory models based on
physical analogies and causal mechanisms.
1 Physical Reasoning and Causal Explanations in Common Thought

Students do not arrive at physics classes with their minds empty of ideas about the physical
phenomena they are about to study. To the contrary, they already possess interpretative
schemata, and personal ideas and conceptions concerning many physical situations.
Beginning in the seventies, a vast and growing field of research has opened regarding
U. Besson (&)
Department of Physics A. Volta, University of Pavia, Via A. Bassi 6, 27100 Pavia, Italy
e-mail: ugo.besson@unipv.it
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U. Besson
students conceptions (representations, ideas) about specific subjects in physics, with a

special emphasis on the cognitive status of these conceptions and their role in learning and
teaching. The terminology used has varied according to the time, the cultural area and the
interpretative framework: pre-conceptions, misconceptions, prior ideas, alternative
frameworks, childrens science, spontaneous or common reasoning A veritable topography of the more common conceptions is now available.
Together with ideas about specific subjects and phenomena of physics and other sciences, research very quickly identified some general tendencies and transversal forms of
reasoning and explanation which are typical of common thought, and can pose problems
for learning.
Driver et al. (1985, cap. 10) describe some general characteristics found by analyzing
various studies on students conceptions:
focusing on limited aspects of a particular physical situation and on the perceptually
salient characteristics of the objects and the phenomena;
interpretation of phenomena in terms of absolute properties or qualities ascribed to
objects rather than in terms of interaction between elements of a system;
focus on changes in time rather than to equilibrium or steady-state situations, for which
there would be nothing to explain, because nothing happens;
linear causal reasoning, based on a logical and chronological sequence of one-causeone-effect chains, neglecting the reciprocity of interactions (cf. Rozier and Viennot
1991);
use of undifferentiated notions, which have a range of connotations more extensive,
inclusive and global than those used by scientists and include properties of different
physical concepts;
interpretations and explanations strongly context-dependent, calling upon different
ideas for situations that a scientist would consider as examples of the same type of
phenomena.
Viennot (1996) stresses the role of time in the students reasoning and the tendency to
focus on change and transitory rather than equilibrium or steady state situations, because
only changes are considered to require an explanation, and the tendency to transform
concepts in personages or things which change in a linear succession of events as in a
history or in an engine in which a piece acts on another and so on.
DiSessa (1983) defines some elementary explanatory structures (phenomenological
primitives, p-prims), which are constructed by abstraction and generalization of daily life
observations: springiness, squishiness, Ohms p-prim
Andersson (1986) has shown the relevance of an experiential gestalt of causation,
based on an agent-instrument-patient scheme, as the common core of pupils physical
reasoning.
Ogborn (1993) stresses the fundamental nature of causal action as an element of
reasoning that is not detached from objects and events, but considered as an essential part
of their meaning. Gutierrez and Ogborn (1992) have elaborated a framework for
understanding common causal reasoning based on a mechanistic mental model.
Brown (1992) shows the effectiveness of instruction proposing visualizable, qualitative, mechanist models which can help students to make sense of the more abstract
principles often invoked to explain the phenomena.
According to Psillos (1995), many difficulties in the understanding of electric circuits
stem from the fact that:
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The classical treatment of simple DC circuits is based on the study of functional

relationships between their basic macroscopic parameters such as current, resistance,
potential difference, energy etc the circuit equations do not reveal a physical
process through which the circuit has reached its steady state and they cannot support
any form of causal mechanism whilst students reasoning is causal, in the sense
that they are looking for causes which would lead a circuit to its new state.
Research in science education has shown the strong presence in common reasoning of
causal explanations, often conceived as a mechanism capable of accounting for physical
transformations. Formal laws and functional relationships, stating how things have to be,
are insufficient for learning at school age and unsatisfactory for the students need to
understand. Pupils require a causal explanation, a mechanism, which can account for
the dynamics of facts and effects that have led to a given situation, how things are the way
they are.
It can be a question of simple causality (one cause, one effect), a linear chain of causeeffect connections or of circular causality. The systemic reasoning used by physicists,
especially in stationary situations, is very far from the students intuition and way of
thinking. For this reason, it can be very difficult for students to give a physical sense to
many of the formulas studied.
Even in mathematics, where causality is certainly marginal and, to the contrary, the
reasons for the regularities are sought, causality has been found to appear in student
reasoning. For example, in everyday logic the implication p ) q is often interpreted as
a causal and chronological relationship (Dumont 1985), and the concept of limit appears
closely linked to a dynamical and chronological conception, and is associated with
physical movement and a physical approach (Sierpinska 1985). This is a conception that
researchers in the didactics of mathematics consider an obstacle to a correct understanding
of the mathematical concept, in which time has no role.
2 Causality in Science
It is worth stressing that science education and the philosophy of science have different
aims and thus different points of view on these issues. The goals of the philosophy of
science are primarily epistemological. For this reason, it aims understand the role and
status of causality in scientific knowledge, and to determine whether causation is to be
understood instrumentally or not. On the other hand, the goals of research in science
education are understanding learning processes in science, and improving the understanding of scientific concepts and theories. The differences between these sets of
objectives necessarily lead to different evaluations of causation in science and science
learning.
My aim here is not to provide a deeper analysis of the various views of causality and
scientific explanation that are available, but to sketch an overview of the principal positions
of philosophers and scientists. This is to provide a useful point of reference and problematic background that can help us better to understand physics learning processes as well
as to delineate effective didactic strategies that exploit the connections among common
thought, student conceptions, and scientific reasoning.
As showed in Sect. 1, causal reasoning has an important role in common thought, and in
daily and social life. On the other hand, the idea of causality has long given rise to debate
and criticism among philosophers and scientists.
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U. Besson
After the elaborations of classical philosophy and the related controversies (Aristotle,
Hume, Kant), different conceptions of causality have been supported by philosophers,
such as regularism, singularism, probabilistic causation, counterfactual theories, agency
theory More recently the concept of cause has been questioned: by the positivists (Mach,
Duhem), who argue that it is not possible to know the connections which exist in reality
and forbid physics from making conjectures about a level of reality which would be
subjacent to the phenomena; by the probabilistic or subjectivist interpretations of quantum
physics; by the chaos theorists, who dissociate causality and prediction; and by others, who
wish to restore the idea of finalism in science, and also of an intelligent design.
Comte (1830) had already supported the renunciation of the search for causes and the
mechanisms that produce the phenomena:
All good thinkers today recognize that our actual studies are strictly limited to an
analysis of phenomena aiming to discover their effective laws, i.e., their constant
relationships of succession and similarity, and can by no means concern their intimate nature, whether their cause, first or final, or their essential mode of production For any scientific assumption to be really subject to judgment, it must relate
exclusively to the laws of the phenomena, and never to their modes of production.1
Mach (1883) wrote:
In nature there is neither causes nor effect cause-effect connection exists only in
the abstraction which we carry out with the aim of reproducing facts I endeavored
to replace the concept of cause by that of mathematical function. (1883, 4.4.3)
And B. Russell, with his typical English humor:
The reason why physics has ceased to look for causes is that in fact there are not
such things.The law of causality, like much that passes muster among philosophers,
is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm. (1912, p. 1)
According to Wittgenstein (1921):
In no way can an inference be made from the existence of one state of affairs to the
existence of another entirely different from it. There is no causal nexus which
justifies such an inference. The belief in the causal nexus is superstition. (1921,
sections 5.1355.1361).
In the article in which he formulated the uncertainty principle, Heisenberg (1927)
expressed himself in a drastic manner:
Since the statistical character of the quantum theory is closely connected with the
imprecision of all observations, one could be induced to suppose that behind the
perceived statistical world there would be a real hidden world in which the causality principle is valid. But such speculations, we emphasize it explicitly, seem to us
fruitless and meaningless. Physics has to formally describe only the complex of the
1
A. Comte (1830) Cours de philosophie positive, Paris, Rouen Fre`res, Tome 2, 28e lecon, pp. 435436 e
454. Tous les bons esprits reconnaissent aujourdhui que nos etudes reelles sont strictement circonscrites a`
lanalyse des phenome`nes pour decouvrir leurs lois effectives, cest-a`-dire leurs relations constantes de
succession et de similitude, et ne peuvent nullement concerner leur nature intime, ni leur cause, ou premie`re
ou finale, ni leur mode essentiel de production. Toute hypothe`se scientifique, afin detre reellement
jugeable, doit exclusivement porter sur les lois des phenome`nes, et jamais sur leurs modes de production.
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observations. Indeed by means of the quantum mechanics the non validity of the
causality principle is definitively established.2
Currently, one tendency seems to have become dominant, that of skirting or avoiding the
idea of causality and of emphasizing, instead, functional relationships and systemic or holistic
descriptions. This way of thinking is often linked to a criticism of realism,3 considered as
more or less nave, and to the assumption of an instrumentalist point of view. Of course, the
situation in the philosophy of science is more complex. A position which opposes causation is
not necessarily instrumentalist, nor is a position which favors causation necessarily realist: it
is possible to endorse realism and at the same time to be against causation. Nevertheless,
where causality is considered to be a power attributed to objects, and not merely an epistemic expedient, then the idea of causality implies realism in at least some form.
It is interesting to contrast two authoritative opposite citations.
Duhem (1908) sustains that the aim of physics is not to explain phenomena, but only
to represent and describe phenomena, and that physical theories are merely natural
classifications:
When Kepler or Galileo declared that Astronomy has to take as hypotheses propositions the truth of which is established by Physics, this assertion could mean that the
hypotheses of Astronomy were judgments on the nature of things and on their real
movements, that by testing the correctness of these hypotheses, experimental method
was going to enrich our cosmological knowledge with new truths But, taken in this
sense, their assertion was false and harmful. In spite of Kepler and of Galileo, we
believe today, as did Osiander and Bellarmin, that the hypotheses of Physics are only
mathematical artifices intended to save the phenomena (19081990, pp. 139140).
On the contrary, K. Popper complained that:
Today, the view of physical science founded by Osiander, Cardinal Bellarmin, and
Bishop Berkeley has won the battle without another shot being fired. Without any
further debate over the philosophical issue, without producing any new argument, the
instrumentalist view has become an accepted dogma it has become part of the
current teaching of physics. (1968, 1, pp. 99100)
However, there are also some scientists and philosophers who have reasserted the value
and the central, although not exclusive, role of causality in science and particularly in
physics (Bachelard 1934; Bunge 1959; Halbwachs 1971; Piaget 1971; Harre 1972; Salmon
1984).
2
However, in the same paper, Heisenberg uses expressions that clearly indicate a causal connection, even if
in the presence of a certain indeterminacy of some dynamic quantities. Referring to the Compton or
photoelectric effect, he writes: When a light quantum that hits an electron is reflected or diffracted from it
and then, again refracted through the microscope, it provokes the photoelectric effect; and Of such light a
single quantum is enough to hurl the electron outside of its orbit. It seems to me that some physicists tend
to generalize in a hurried and exaggerated way. Starting with some results of quantum physics that are in
contrast with some characteristics of causality for some situations, they arrive at general philosophical
conclusions.
Realism is A doctrine according to which being is independent of the knowledge that conscious
subjects may have of it at a given time: esse is not equivalent to percepi. Idealists hold that the intellect
knows only its own states: see the commentaries on contemporary physics, which deny the existence of any
given external to our representations (to measurements made by observers). Realism and idealism are
opposed term for term, each asserting what the other denies. The first posits that thought is inside the being;
the second posits that the being is contained in thought (Largeault J. Realisme, Encyclopaedia Universalis 8, 2002).
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U. Besson
Max Planck wrote:

Scientific thought aspires to causality, indeed it is the same thing as causal thought,
and the final aim of any science must be to take the causal view-point to its last
consequences (1949, chap. 7).
According to the philosopher R. Harre,
the discovery of the mechanism by which causes produce or generate their effects is
a central part of a scientific investigation a scientific explanation is characterized
by the fact that it describes the causal mechanism which produces the phenomena
(1972, p. 118 e p. 181).
And according to W. Salmon to give a scientific explanation is to show how events fit
into the casual structure of the world (1984, p. 19).
Bachelard (1934):
We say, more generally, that the principle of causality subjects itself to the
requirements of objective thought and can be taken as the fundamental category of
objective thought When heat dilates bodies or changes their color, the phenomena
give us a conclusive demonstration of the cause, even though they do not prove
determinism (p. 115).
Piaget (1965):
In physics, one proscribes causality as an explanation in vain, ordering to limit itself
to laws: the research of the causal explanation remains more than ever an essential
need for the human thought (1965, p. 53).
Similar ideas are currently supported from many physicists. I would cite as an example
Giuliani (2007, p. 274):
The causality principle, understood as a methodological commitment to the
searching for causes, has been one of the propulsive forces of scientific knowledge: a
discipline that, on the basis of hardly conclusive evidence, is really abandoning this
commitment, is doomed to drain its vital sources.
According to some authors, the instrumentalist point of view in its radical form is a
paper position, that is, a position that can be only supported in a paper or book, but not in
real life or scientific practice (cf. for example Giuliani 1998). Something similar can be
said concerning causality, which atomic physics puts into question, but which we cannot
do without in daily and social life. As B. Brecht writes (1970):
The boldness of the physicists is often boasted about What makes me laugh is
how they generalize their results, or refuse to generalize them. It is amusing how they
invite philosophers to draw consequences from the questionability of causality in
atomic physics, while at the same time assuring us that this is the case only in their
field, atomic physics, and does not have any influence over the broiling of steaks in
the houses of normal people (pp. 227228).
Indeed, who can deny that the HIV virus is the cause of AIDS, that the Colorado River
has caused the formation of the Grand Canyon, or that it is the flame of the stove that
makes water boil?
Bunge (1959) proposed an intermediate position:
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To declare that the sole verifiable relations are those obtaining among sense data,
concepts, and judgments, and to hold that it is vain to try to disclose autonomous
interconnections and real modes of production, is an anthropomorphic attitude
blocking scientific advance; it is a regressive attitude, even if most of its upholders
sincerely believe that they are in the van of modern thought The right and progressive attitude is to face the fact that science has advanced to such a point that,
without dispensing entirely with the causal principle, it has assigned it a place in the
broader context of general determinisma role that is neither the principal nor the
meanest, nor that of a superstition. The causal principle is one of the various
valuable guides of scientific research (pp. 334335).
At the same time Bunge sustains realism:
Scientists explore the world and attempt to keep at arms length from the things
they handle or model, because they are intent on discovering what they are like in
themselves rather than for ourselves. An analysis of any physical experiment
shows that the experimenter assumes the independent existence of the thing he
intends to observe, measure or alter Were it not so he would have to say that he
invented or constructed everythingwhich would sound either schizophrenic or
postmodern (Bunge 2003, p. 464).
More recently, to conciliate the different behavior of microscopic and macroscopic
worlds, an interesting idea has been proposed of causality as a secondary quality (Menzies
and Price 1993) and/or an emergent property (Laudisa 2005), and causality is considered as
a category of thinking which is indispensable to us to interpret and act in the physical
macroscopic world.
3 Typologies of Physical Explanations and Cognitive Development

3.1 Explanations in Physical Sciences
Halbwachs (1971) distinguishes three types of explanation used in physics: causal or
heterogeneous, formal or homogeneous, and bathygeneous explanations (bathyge`ne in
the French text, from the Greek bathys, deep).
In causal or heterogeneous explanations, the change in the system is due to agents outside
the system. These produce an effect by means of delayed actions expressing real connections between things. Causality can be simple A?B, linear A?B?C?D, reciprocal
A?B e B?A, or circular A?B?C?D?A. Moreover, often in the phenomena of real and
social life, there are many causes that concur and are entangled in a nearly inextricable way.
The Italian writer C.E. Gadda wrote, with efficacious artistic exaggeration:
Causes and effects are never conceivable in the singular The hypotyposis
[vivid rhetorical figure] of the chain of causes should be corrected and softened with
one of a mesh or net, but not of a mesh with two dimensions (surface) or three
dimensions (space-mesh, space-chain, three dimensional chain), but a mesh or net
with infinite dimensions. Every ring, or lump or tangle, of relations is bound by
infinite filaments to infinite lumps or tangles (Gadda 1974, p. 79).
Formal or homogeneous explanations, on the contrary, consist of simultaneous functional relations between quantities which describe the system and are all internal to the
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system. Some examples are: the law of hydrostatics p = po ? qgh, the ideal gas equation
pV = nRT, the mechanical energy conservation Ec ? Ep = E, Bernoullis theorem, etc. In
fact, these formal laws should be considered more descriptions than explanations. However, many scientists consider that a phenomenon is sufficiently and satisfactorily
explained when it is well described by this kind of law, in the sense that the law makes the
calculation of physical quantities possible.
The last category, bathygeneous explanations, includes explanations built on a deeper
level or an underlying structure such as a smaller scale (atoms, electrons, cells, grains,
fibers) or a more general, deeper theory (for example, electromagnetism explaining
classical optics, kinetic theory explaining the behavior of gases).4
Halbwachs (1971, pp. 7376) considers that reasoning in terms of reciprocal and circular causality is a useful bridge towards systemic reasoning and that in any case causal
reasoning remains an implicit support underlying formal explanations. The progressive
movement from simple to reciprocal and circular causality may constitute a necessary
cognitive path in order to prepare students to understand homogenous laws:
Thus, we have proceeded to a homogeneous explanation, which gives us a functional law, but about which one can only say that is how it is However, such laws
will continue to have an explanatory value, as the residue of simple, then mutual
causality, which lead to the homogeneous formulations, but continue to underlie
them.
After all, formal laws, as pV = nRT, Ohms law and others, describe steady state
situations which have been determined by dynamic interactions between the parts of the
system and they are the result of causal laws governing these interactions. Also the
Maxwells equations of electromagnetism can be derived from a causal law (Jefimenko
2004).
This distinction between formal and causal laws corresponds to the one between laws of
co-existence and laws of succession, a more common distinction among philosophers of
science. Dorato (2000, p. 80) discusses the problem of reducing the former type of laws to
the latter (2.4), concluding that complete reducibility does not seem possible.5
Duhem (1906) makes the drastic proposal that physics should not claim to supply
explanations, that a physical theory is not an explanation, but a description and a classification which can provide a useful economy of thought: a system of mathematical
4
It is possible to compare these three types of physical explanation to three of the four kinds of causes
indicated by Aristotle (350 B.C.). The efficient cause, the causes whence the principle of change occurs, all
that acts. The material and formal causes, the causes out of which, of these some as substrate [material],
others as concept [formal] e.g., the letters of syllables, the material of man-made objects, fire and other
elements of bodies, the parts of the whole, and the premises of the conclusion. Aristotle speaks also about
reciprocal causes, which act as fatigue causes vigor and vigor, fatigue. In Physics, book II (B), 3.
Here it seems me that the author commits a rather common error in the interpretation of the laws of coexistence (or formal laws). An equation of the type pV = nRT represents a relationship at a given time
between the indicated quantities for an ideal gas in a state of equilibrium. However, the author thinks that
the equation further asserts that if at a given time the pressure varies in a region of the gas, at the same time
the temperature and/or density will vary so as to maintain the relationship continuously valid. To the
contrary, this is not in fact the case. The law establishes a relationship between quantities for a state of
equilibrium. If something changes in a part of the gas, the gas is no longer in equilibrium; therefore the
equation is no longer applicable. It only says to us that if and when a state of equilibrium is re-established,
the indicated quantities will assume the values necessary to satisfy the equation once again. The passage
from the initial to the second equilibrium state happens in a finite time and as a result of local interaction
processes in the situation of non-equilibrium. The same reasoning holds good for Coulombs theorem of
electrostatics E = r/e, to which the author also makes reference.
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statements, deduced from a small number of principles, whose aim is to represent

experimental laws as simply and completely as possible. According to the Hempels
(1965) deductive-nomological model, a scientific explanation is characterized by its ability
to unify different empirical phenomena into a single category of facts described by the
same law. Further, an event is explained when its description can be obtained as a
deductive conclusion of a set of general laws and particular conditions. In this model, a
causal relation simply reflects the relations of explanatory dependency connected to the
unifying deductive structure of scientific knowledge. A causal relation is subordinated to
this structure and has a merely epistemic character.
According to the statement view of scientific theories, developed by logical empiricism and named also received view because of its broad acceptance in philosophy until
sixties, a scientific theory is a system of theoretical statements (axioms), expressing the
relations between theoretical terms in a formalized symbolic language, and a set of correspondence rules that interpret these terms empirically (Grandy 2003; Develaki 2007).
The statement view provides the frame of reference for a number of epistemological
positions, and is linked to the ideas of Duhem and Hempel.
Since seventies, a new view emerged which interprets scientific theories as sets of
models. This model-based view unifies different philosophical approaches.6 sharing
the common characteristic of ascribing particular importance to the concept of model,
understood as a basic structural element of the theories and as a mediator between theory
and reality (Develaki 2007, p. 728). The problem of how physical explanation is conceived according to the model-based view is a complex topic which cannot be explored
here. Nonetheless, it is clear that model-based reasoning and explanations are not limited to
logical conclusions and deductions, as asserted by the statement view.
3.2 Models in Science Education
The model-based view has had a great impact on science education research and psychologists recognized the ubiquity of models in human reasoning. Several science education
researches were devoted to the role of models in learning and teaching.7 According to
Koponen (2007, pp. 766768), in science education, models are currently considered a
means for a more authentic education, facilitating a scientific way to describe, explain and
predict the behavior of the world and acquire knowledge: the model-based view of science
and science education should focus on the empirically reliable models that are our bridges
to reality and on the notion of the empirical reliability of models, which is established in
the process of matchmaking with experimental data, theory and phenomena. Portides (2007,
p. 721) stresses that scientific models and the processes operative in their construction are
essential to science learning and to understand how theory relates to experiment.
Model is a term with manifold meanings. According to Grandy and Dushl (2007), it is
a functional kind concept, i.e., defined in terms of the function [it] perform[s] and not of
structural similarities. The authors provide the example of the concept of a clock: there is
little physical similarity among water, mechanical, and digital clocks, but they all serve the
same function. The common element to all models is that they are external aids to
6
This fact is reflected by the various other names attached to this view, e.g. semantic view (in contrast to
the linguistic-syntactic approach of the statement view), non-statement view, model-theoretic view,
structuralist (see Develaki 2007; Grandy 2003).
7
For example, a special issue of the journal Science & Education was recently devoted to this subject:
Science & Education (2007), 16 (78): 647881, Special issue: Models in Science and in Science Education.
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U. Besson
reasoning. They are primarily cognitive prostheses, but they also serve social and epistemic
ends (p. 149).
Nevertheless, a common core shared by the different possible meanings is that a model
in some way represents a target system by means a source system, mapping some
attributes and structures from one system to the other. (In education it is worth emphasizing that only some elements, and not all, can be represented by a model).
Norman (1983) distinguishes between personal mental models (what people have in
their heads and what guides their use of things) and shared conceptual models (tools for
the understanding or teaching of physical systems). Analogously Tiberghien (1994),
distinguishes between models of students and models proposed in instruction. She indicates
two features of student models that sharply differentiate them from instructor models: a
close and direct relation with the material world and its objects, and the frequent use of
causal links. By contrast, causal connections are often absent from the reasoning proposed
in teaching, which tends to privilege functional relationships. It is a matter of facilitating
the students passage from one type of model to the other by means of a conceptual change.
Gilbert and Boulter (1998) distinguish four types of models in science education: mental
models (personal, private representations of a target), expressed models (which are
expressed by an individual through actions, speech or writings), consensus models
(expressed models which have been subjected to testing by a social group, in our case by
the scientific community, and are considered valid or important), and teaching models
(specially-constructed models used to aid student understanding).
In constructing, evaluating and implementing models for teaching, they have to be
placed in this last category. That is, teaching models should be considered to be a bridge or
mediation between personal and consensual models, without attempting to situate them tout
court and totally in the model that is accepted at the level of scientific research. It is
important to be aware that a didactical transposition (Chevallard 1991) of scientific content
is necessary which involves reconstructions, adaptations and alterations of sense and scope.
Grandy and Dushl (2007) distinguish five types of models: mathematical, physical,
computer, visual and analogical models. Mathematical models provide the means to
manipulate data and information to produce predictions and evaluations. However, all the
different kinds of models do this by different means.
According to many researchers, including Hestenes, Grandy, and Tiberghien, physics
education requires mathematical models in which the properties of physical systems are
represented by quantitative and qualitative relationships between appropriate variables.
According to many physicists, to have a model means to have a set of equations describing
a problem.
By contrast Duit and Glynn (1996), emphasize the importance of analogical models in
science education (e.g., the planetary model of the atom, the corpuscular model of light, the
particle model of gas, the hydraulic model of electric circuits, etc.). On their view, some
analogical models are constructed and then explicitly used as teaching and learning aids to
provide a bridge to conceptual scientific models. In certain cases, once the conceptual
models have been learned, the analogies are no longer needed: the bridge may be pulled
down. These authors (see also Duit 1991) summarize as follows some findings of didactic
research on the use of analogies:
Students use analogies spontaneously.
For analogies to be fruitful, students need to be guided in their use and interpretation.
Analogies facilitate learning only in specific areas, therefore multiple analogies are
often necessary in order to facilitate learning in broader domains.
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Analogies based on superficial similarities have little inferential power; structural

analogies are needed for this purpose.
Analogies are accepted as teaching aids by students only when they find the target
subject matter sufficiently challenging.
According to these authors, analogies are valuable tools for conceptual change because
they can open up new perspectives, stimulate interest and increase motivation, permit the
visualization of abstract ideas, and facilitate the understanding of abstractions by means of
similarities between different real systems. At the same time, there are certain associated
risks. For example, students frequently over-extend analogies or may take them for
identities. Further, difficulties and misunderstandings associated with the source can be
projected onto the target.
Halloun and Hestenes (Hestenes 1987, 1992; Halloun 2007) develop a modeling theory
of physics instruction, aimed to promote student learning of model-laden theory and
inquiry in science education. In this connection, their primary examples are the mathematical models of classical mechanics. Hestenes (1987, 1992) affirms that a theory can be
put into relation with experience only via the construction of models. He employs Newtonian mechanics as a starting-point to develop a didactic approach to physics instruction
based on modeling activity, and then proposes to generalize this approach to other areas of
physics (for example, electrical circuits):
The great game of science is modeling the real world, and each scientific theory
lays down a system of rules for playing the game. The object of the game is to
construct valid models of real objects and processes. Such models comprise the
content core of scientific knowledge. To understand science is to know how scientific
models are constructed and validated. The main objective of science instruction
should therefore be to teach the modeling game Hestenes (1992, p. 732).
According to Hestenes (1987, p. 441), models in physics are surrogate objects, i.e.,
conceptual representations of real systems. They are mathematical models with four
components:
A set of names for the objects and agents which constitute the system and which
interact with it;
A set of descriptive variables representing properties of the system;
The equations of the model which describe its structure and evolution over time;
An interpretation which relates the descriptive variables to the properties of the system.
Halloun (2007) describes a pedagogical framework for science instruction based on a
modeling learning cycle. This cycle includes the phases of exploration, model adduction,
model formulation, model deployment, and paradigmatic synthesis. The teacher guides
students as they progress through the learning cycle, which presents an evolutionary
interaction among their own ideas, the physical world, and scientific models. Progress
through the cycle is facilitated by the use of appropriate tools, most notably modeling
schemata, which are organizational templates used to ensure that all concepts and models
are constructed in a way that is comprehensive, and also consistent with a given theory.
3.3 Piaget and the Genesis of Idea of Causality
Piaget (1971) studied the characteristics and genesis of the concept of causality in the
context of cognitive development, relating it to the attribution to objects of a set of
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operations. He distinguishes between functional laws and causality. The former concern
observation of perceivable, general regularities and imply operations performed on objects.
By contrast, causality concerns connections which go beyond the observable, which are
necessary, and implies operations attributed to objects.
Operations correspond to what the subject can make by manipulating objects, while
causality expresses what the objects can make by acting each other and on the subject.
Piaget thinks that the genesis of the concept of causality proceeds in interaction with the
genesis of operations, each favoring the other by means of convergences and conflicts. The
operations of the subject, elaborated by means of reflective abstractions, are first applied to
objects and then subsequently attributed to them. This occurs on the basis of an isomorphism between operational structures and objective properties (which requires that the
properties be considered as pre-existing their discovery by the subject). By permitting such
an attribution, this isomorphism supplies, precisely for this reason, the principle of an
explanation that satisfies the conditions of cognitive assimilation, that is, of the understanding of objects by the subject (p. 68). Reciprocally, the application and attribution of
operational structures to different physical situations produces different morphisms and
causal explanations, and thereby leads to restructuring and differentiating the previous
operational and conceptual structures of the subject (p. 72). Operations and causality have
a common origin in the subjects actions. Initially they are undifferentiated, and then
become reinforced and progressively differentiated during development. It is precisely the
persistence of non-differentiation and confusion between subject operations, on the one
side, and the causality inherent to objects, on the other, that would seem to be at the origin
of the typical undifferentiated notions of common thought (see above Sect. 1). Piaget
makes reference, for example, to the mixed notion of force-thrust-movement. At the stage
where thrust (elan) is considered both as a source and a result of the movement, the
force or thrust remain internal to the object in motion. Only at a more mature stage is a
differentiation made in which the force becomes the external cause of movement. Other
examples include those of the mixed notion of weight as action and as property-amount,
and the relative non-differentiation of time and speed.
4 Some Particular Features of Causal Physical Explanations in Common Thought

In a study (cf. Besson 2004a, b), conducted using interviews and questionnaires involving
high school pupils, university students and teachers, I highlighted three aspects, related to
one another, which can create problems in physics learning:
a tendency to displace or delocalize forces and causes, skipping intermediate objects;
confusion between efficient and contingent causes;
a difficulty in connecting local causes and global effects.
4.1 Delocalization of Forces
In the situation of Fig. 1, block B is placed on block A, which is pulled by exerting a force
F on it. There is friction between the two blocks. Students are asked to indicate all the
forces acting on block B.
Many students (37% of 253 Italian high school students) considered that the force F
acted also on block B, thus displacing the cause of movement beyond block A, because
they imagined some kind of link between the two blocks due to friction or adherence:
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Fig. 1 The two blocks question
Since F acts upon A, it also acts upon B, since there is friction between A and B
Because between the two boxes there is friction, F acts, with smaller intensity and
indirectly, also on box B.
The force F that acts on block A is transmitted to B through friction .
These students consider there is a transmission of forces from one object, which
forces actually are acting on, to another object in contact with it (moreover many students
think that no horizontal forces act on the upper block, whose movement is explained
without forces, by the idea of drag or adherence between blocks, see also Caldas and
Saltiel 1995).
I observed a similar type of reasoning in other situations, for example with the question
Pressure of liquid and atmospheric pressure (Fig. 2), submitted to 148 first university
year students in Belgium.
Sixty six percent answered, correctly, that the pressure changes and decreases, 27% that
it does not change. What it is interesting here are the justifications given for the correct
answers by many of these students; they express the idea that air acts directly on the bottom
of the container.
The atmospheric pressure exerts pressure on the top of the liquid and therefore on the
bottom of the container
The pressure exerted by the water itself on the bottom is identical, but the atmospheric
pressure is added to that.
According to these students, there are two distinct forces which act on the bottom of the
container, one exerted by the water, and the other by the air over the liquid, instead of a
single force, exerted by the water which is in contact with the bottom of the container. In
the students reasoning, the formula of hydrostatics law p = po ? qgDh, converted in
terms of forces, is transformed into an addition involving two forces exerted on the bottom
of the container by two different bodies, giving: p = po ? qgDh ) ptot = pair ?
pwat ) Ftot = Fair ? Fwat. In this way the air above the water, is considered to act directly
on the internal part of the bottom of the container.
Fig. 2 Pressure force of liquids and atmospheric pressure question. A cylindrical container is filled with
water. If the container is moved to a place where the atmospheric pressure is weaker, but gravity is the same,
does the force exerted by the water on the bottom of the container change or remain unchanged? Why?
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U. Besson
4.2 Efficient Cause and Contingent Cause

The examples given above can also be interpreted as a confusion between what triggers
an event (the pressure of the air, or the external force F) and what effectively acts to
produce it (the pressure of the water, or the friction force). I call this confusion, which is
relatively frequent in common reasoning, the confusion between efficient cause and contingent cause (or triggering cause).
Similarly Bachelard (1949, p. 209), speaks of a trigger (declic, in French) causality,
which sets objective causalities into action. Halbwachs makes a distinction between the
conditions of the production of a phenomenon (1971, p. 26) and the true cause, which
produces the phenomenon. From a philosophical point of view, it is difficult to distinguish
clearly between conditions and causes, and some determining factors of a given situation
can in fact be considered both as conditions or constraining relations and as concomitant
causes of the phenomenon. However, from the physical point of view it is important to
distinguish the different nature and significance of each.
Indeed, usually when we ask why in daily life, we are not looking for causes, but
for reasons, meanings, aims, or responsibility. Often conditions or factors considered
normal are not considered to be among the causes of an event, because they constitute the
so-called causal field, which remains in the background as a set of conditions that, for
pragmatic reasons, are not treated as causes (Benzi 2003, p. 39). What interest us are the
factors that are at the origin of a divergence from the customary course of events, or that
determine the peculiar characteristics of a specific event.
You are holding an object in your hand; you open your hand and the object falls. What
is the cause of the objects fall: that you opened your hand, or the gravitational force of
Earth? One might answer: both, there is no single cause, but various causes, yet one cannot
do without taking into account the different nature of the two causes considered.
Opening your hand enables the effect of the force of gravity to manifest itself as downward
acceleration, but it is the force of gravity that makes the object fall downwards.
If a person accused of a crime argues that he was not the real cause of his victims death,
since all he did was push him out of the window, and that gravity was what had caused him
to fall, the judges will not hesitate to sentence him.
This shows that in common life usually we take into account what triggers or activates
efficient cause, removes barriers or sparks off events.
It can also be said that in these practical cases, gravity is considered to be one of the
background conditions of the causal field of the situation. The problem is that physicists
often study precisely the processes that regulate the background and general way the
situation works. For example, when studying the motion of a ball, the student concentrates
on the launch phase and its modalities, establishing direct cause-effect relationships
between launch modalities and the point of arrival of the ball. To the contrary, the physics
teacher proposes to study the phenomena and forces at work during the flight of the ball,
and considers launch characteristics only as initial conditions for the development of
examples. Common thought tends to concentrate on the contingent cause and to identify it
with the efficient cause.
This ambiguity shows up clearly in the case of fluids in the presence of gravity. How is
the change in pressure with depth or altitude to be explained? What is the cause of this
variation? The force of gravity, weight, triggers an increase in the pressure forces, but it is
the interactions among parts of the fluid which relate directly to pressure, and it is the
interactions between the parts of the fluid and the solid sides of the container that produce the pressure forces, which are only the resultants, on a macroscopic level, of these
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interactions. The solid sides of the container prevent the fluid from falling, and they act as
boundary conditions, as a contingent cause. But here gravity is also a contingent cause, a
condition for the change in pressure to be occur, whereas it is the local, superficial
interactions, whose nature is electromagnetic, that produce this change and, therefore, are
the efficient cause.
To test whether in this situation there is confusion between efficient and contingent
causes, I submitted to 46 students (first university year) and 36 teachers (in initial or
in-service training) the question entitled Interactions, in which they were asked about
which of the four fundamental types of force or interaction (gravitational, electromagnetic,
strong or weak) a swimmer feels on his eardrums, when deep under water. The results were
very clear and homogeneous: 94% answered that it was a gravitational force:
The force is due to the weight of the water situated above
Because it is a phenomenon linked to weight force, and so to the attraction exerted by
Earth on the water.
Because it depends on the acceleration of gravity (Stevins law).
The force exerted is weight.
The justifications show the shift in meaning from descriptions involving the influence of
gravity on the value of pressure, towards an identification of the pressing force with weight
or gravity: pressure is due to weight, weight causes, creates pressure, the pressing force is
weight, that is a gravitational force.8
A similar problem appears in the analysis of contact forces between solids. In the
question entitled A book on a table, I proposed the simple situation of a book placed
upon a table, and students are asked to identify all the forces acting on the table. A great
majority of pupils mention the weight of the book in their answers (72% of 153 high school
pupils).
The table is subject to the force of gravity and to the weight force that the book exerts
on it.
The weight force of the book acts on the table
The table, interposing itself between the book and the ground, receives the action of the
weight force.
The attention of these students is centered on weight, which is supposed to trigger a
force between the table and the book, and contact interactions between the book and the
table are forgotten.
In an interview, a student (final year of secondary school), asked to be more specific as
to the origin and nature of this force, provided further details, for example:
It is like gravity, it is gravity it is exerted by the book, no, by Earth, by both If
there were no gravity, the book wouldnt exert any pressure on the table; therefore it
is Earth which exerts that force on the table, indeed on the Moon that force would be
smaller No, no, it isnt Earth, but the force depends on Earth, therefore,
It could be objected that the question is a trap question, because of an abrupt change of explanatory level,
passing from a macroscopic and phenomenological description to one microscopic which refers to fundamental theories. However, short talks, focusing on the contact interaction between water and ear, had been
sufficient for the teachers who answered the question to understand their error. This confirms that it was a
customary and automatic reasoning scheme and logical short circuit, therefore really representing a spontaneous tendency of thought.
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U. Besson
indirectly Earth exerts a force on the book, therefore, indirectly, on the table as
well
One can see the confusion this student is experiencing, he oscillates between different
typologies of explanations, he seems conscious of the problem but he does not arrive to
solve it by himself.
A similar problem arises in the explanations in which force causes the acceleration of a
car: is it the force of the engine or the friction force of the wheel-ground interaction?
Obviously, the engine triggers the appearance of a forward friction force in the wheelground interaction, but it is the friction force that directly produces the acceleration, as it is
the quantity F in Newtons law F = ma for the car.
In an article in a French scientific review, this dilemma is expressed by the authors as
follows:
The overly dogmatic physicist asserts that it is the road that accelerates the
vehicle. Surely this answer is not satisfactory What is the role of the will of the
pilot? If we think of the deformation of the surface layer of the tire It is this
modification that is responsible for the interactions between the road and the vehicle. (Roux and Seigne 2001, p. 506)
In this case, a clear distinction between what triggers and what produces could solve the
contradiction and uneasiness expressed by the authors of the article. Moreover, precisely
the evocation of the local deformations of the tire layers in contact with the road could
have led the authors to consider the forces of interaction involved in this contact as the
forces that directly provoke the acceleration of the car.
4.3 Local Causes and Global Effects
The above observations lead us to think that these types of reasoning may also be linked to
the fact that the student (and more generally the common thought) has a global and
undifferentiated view of the physical system, and does not go into a more detailed analysis
considering local properties and interactions. Focused on global forces acting on the whole
bodies, students do not consider what happens locally, in the little spots of the bodies in
contact, to understand the behavior of the physical system. This brings to another important
characteristic of common reasoning: neglecting to connect (or having difficulty in connecting) global descriptions, in terms of formal laws and quantities concerning the whole
system, and local analysis, on a smaller scale, in terms of local interactions and causal
laws.
For example, Stevins law, mentioned above, tells us that the pressure in a liquid
increases with depth. To explain this, one usually takes into account the weight of the
liquid above, and in this way, to determine the pressure at a given point one has to consider
the total height of the liquid above, as far as the surface that is in contact with the
atmosphere. That is a form of global reasoning. The pressure at one point is linked to what
is happening in very remote parts of the liquid. But one might ask oneself in what way the
liquid below is different from the liquid above, to account for this increase in pressure. If
nothing changes (temperature, density), this difference becomes a mystery. One might
say that the liquid at one point does not know what is happening at a distance from it. To
take another example, if one takes a sample of New York air in a container with an
absolute manometer, and takes this container to the mountains, the manometer still indicates the same pressure as in New York. It is easy enough to accept that the air in New
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York is not like the air in the mountains, and not just because it is more polluted; likewise,
one must accept that the water at the bottom of the container has something different than
the water at the top, and that, locally, is where one must look for the origin of what
produces the difference in pressure. This problem stems clearly in many answers to the
Two fish question (Fig. 3), where students are asked to compare the pressure for two
fishone in the open sea, the other in an underwater caveat the same depth.
Many students show that they know the Stevins law, the formal rule, according to
which at the same depth the pressures are equal, but they dont understand how this can
happen, because they are not able to coordinate the global effects with the local property,
in order to obtain a systemic reasoning:
It is true that the fish are at the same depth, so they ought to feel the same pressure.
But the water above the fish in the sea is a greater mass than the mass of water that is
above the fish in the cave. The fish in the sea therefore feels greater pressure than the
other fish.
The difficulty to connect global effects and local actions appears clearly in the case of
the Archimedes upthrust. In the Ball in water situation (Fig. 4) students were asked,
among other, if the pressure forces exerted by water on the ball have something to do with
the Archimedes upthrust.
Only 11% (of 111 high school and 214 university students) clearly and explicitly
connected the buoyant force with the pressure forces, 31% answered that the buoyant force
has nothing to do with these forces, and 30% said it concerned only, or coincided with the
pressure force at the bottom of the ball. Many students stressed the global nature of
Archimedes upthrust, in contrast with pressure forces, which are the local, contact forces,
acting upon each part of the ball surface.
No, because the buoyant force is proportional to the volume of the object and the
density of the liquid, whereas the pressure acts on the surface and is not affected by the
volume of the object.
No, the buoyant force only pushes from the bottom up; it has nothing to do with the
pressure a liquid exerts around an object in all directions.
At the bottom there are in fact two forces that are added together: the pressure forces
and buoyancy.
Fig. 3 Two fish question. Students are asked to compare the pressure in the position of two fishone in
the open sea, the other in an underwater caveat the same depth
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Fig. 4 The ball in water

question
It is interesting to note that similar answers were given by some French teachers in
initial training (6/17 answers). For example: At equilibrium, it is: FC ? FD ? FA ?
FB ? p ? P = 0, where P = weight of ball, p = buoyant force.
5 Implications and Proposals for Teaching

As described above, the characteristics of causal reasoning and physical explanation used
by students and common thought differ in several ways from those employed by scientists
and teachers. As a consequence, certain didactic issues arise:
(a)
how to introduce the problem of explanation in science, and the role of laws, theories
and models;
(b) how to manage the problem of the consistency of what is proposed and practiced in
teaching with current philosophical elaborations;
(c) how effectively to exploit the types of reasoning and physical explanation typical of
students and common thought to overcome cognitive and affective obstacles, as well
as conceptual and methodological errors.
In the following, I will focus primarily on problem (c), and limit myself to some brief
comments on problems (a) and (b).
Extensive research has been devoted to the problem of how to introduce into the
classroom themes concerning the logic and methodology of science, and the nature of
science.9 As already stressed in Sect. 2, we need to remember that the goals of the
philosophy of science are different from those of science education. Science education
research does not aim to solve theoretical epistemological problems, nor to define the most
logically coherent epistemological system. Science education research should aim to
design learning paths which take into account the varying characteristics of students. These
paths should include a range of philosophical approaches from which students can pick and
choose according to their own specific cultural tendencies. Instruction should put students
in a position to choose their own philosophical positions in a rational manner, based on
knowledge of the available philosophical options, and on the mastery of appropriate reasoning tools. The didactic objective is to supply resources useful for a better understanding
of scientific facts and theories, and for building a rational methodology and modern image
9
See for example the books Matthews (1994) and McComas (1998). The journal Science & Education
published many articles on these themes, as an example a recent issue is dedicated to the teaching of nature
of science (2008, Vol. 17, n. 23, Special Issue: Teaching and Assessing the Nature of Science). In USA,
the National Science Education Standards (http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/overview.html)
and the Standard for Science Teachers Preparation (http://www.nsta.org/pdfs/NSTAstandards2003.pdf and
http://www.msu.edu/*dugganha/NOS.htm), include a section dedicated to Nature of Science.
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of science. Sections 2 and 3 have shown that a universally accepted philosophical conception does not exist. On the contrary, a heated debate prevails among scientists and
philosophers. As a consequence, correct deontology entails that the teaching objective
should be to provide knowledge that problematizes the different approaches, rather than
privileging the one particular conception considered sound epistemology by the teacher
or researcher.10
Concerning problem c), the differences between reasoning and explanation preferred by
students and common thought, on the one side, and those employed by scientists and
teachers, on the other, can be summarized, with some simplifications, as follows.
Students mainly:
reason in terms of changes;

are interested in the transitory phases, and in the processes leading to a given situation;
consider causes and effects in temporal succession;
need intuitive models and physical analogies.
While often instead teachers:
reason in terms of equilibrium or steady-state situations;

are interested to the maintenance conditions for a situation;
consider relationships between quantities at a given time;
propose formal laws and abstract mathematical models.
Moreover, I have emphasized some particular characteristics of common reasoning

(Sect. 4): a tendency to delocalize forces, confusion between efficient and contingent
causes and the difficulty in connecting local causes and global effects. These aspects are
related to one another. Failing to analyze the local details of interactions and properties
may result in a global view, one which does not properly identify the specific, localized
spots where interactions are at work, and therefore misplaces or displaces forces and
causes. Moreover, this sort of approximation and global analysis may lead to, or be related
to, a confusion between what triggers or initiates a phenomenon, and what produces it
directly.
The students need to understand is often connected to the ability to form a mental
model of the physical situation which would allow them to imagine a causal connection, a
mechanism that could explain the concatenation of events. A purely formal and mathematical model expressed in terms of equations, rules, and constraints, does not seem
sufficient for effective learning at the school level. Thus it is matter of finding the
coherence between, on the one side, the laws that establish how things must be and, on
10
This is not always what happens. For example Guilbert and Meloche (1993), hold that many teachers
have what they term an empiricist-realist conception of science. This supposedly ingenuous, antiquated
view involves, among other things, the myth of the progressive construction of knowledge, and the idea that
science concerns the description of the world as it really is: it seems, according to some students, that it is
even possible to distinguish the true from the false. Against this conception, these authors counter that
students should be led to a subtle, modern constructivist model, according to which theories are merely
speculative constructions allowing a more systematic collection of observations, and reality does not exist
independently of us. It is odd that precisely the authors who support instrumentalist and relativist conceptions, and who maintain that true or false, better or worse theories do not exist (each one with its own
field of validity and effectiveness, depending on context and aims), at the same time introduce their own
conception as the proper and correct epistemological model, and contrast it to others denigrated as ingenuous and antiquated. If no scientific theory is better than the others and there is no truth to discover, then to
be consistent, epistemological theories as well would have to be considered all at the same level, with no one
better than others.
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the other, an explanation of how it comes about that things effectively are thus, how a
new state of equilibrium is stabilized, and by means of which mechanisms and processes.
According to Silva (2007, p. 845):
People understand and reason by constructing mental models with mechanical
features To appeal to material entity is a necessary intermediate step towards
the construction of abstract concepts [author refers particularly to the electromagnetic field] It is not sufficient that students are able to deal with the mathematical
aspects of a theory. [Moreover] the historical analogies can help students in
constructing mental models of difficult scientific concepts and developing qualitative
understandings of mathematical expressions [and] in constructing mental models
of physical phenomena which will be as close as possible to currently accepted
scientific models.
The different approaches discussed in Sect. 3 show that authoritative scientists use
various types of explanations, models and reasoning patterns in their work, and refer to
different philosophical positions. This suggests that in order to be complete, science
education needs to present all these different possibilities. Moreover, the research of Piaget
and Halbwachs quoted in Sect. 3 indicates that mature scientific reasoning is constructed
progressively. This cognitive development needs some intermediate steps using simpler
types of reasoning in order to evolve towards more complex and abstract reasoning patterns. For this reason, even quite elementary, nave models and forms of reasoning can be
useful, and perhaps necessary, in order to achieve the stable acquisition of knowledge.
According to many researchers, some student ideas and conceptionseven those that
are incorrect or do not coincide with scientific onesneed not be considered merely as
obstacles to oppose and surmount. Rather, they can also constitute a useful basis, raw
material with which to construct a cognitive structure nearer to the objectives of instruction. In this connection, we find discussions of anchoring conceptions (Clement et al.
1989), conceptual clay (Ogborn 1993) and cognitive resources (Hammer 2000).
Brown (1992) showed the effectiveness of instruction based on visualizable, qualitative, mechanist models to help students to make sense of the more abstract principles often
invoked to explain the phenomena.
According to Chabay et Sherwood (1999):
Reasoning from a mechanistic mental model involves running the model in ones
head, and observing the consequences. An auxiliary benefit is a concrete sense of the
process by which the system moves from one state to another. Psychologists have
found that reasoning from runnable mental models is often more natural than is
constraint-based reasoning.
Matthews (2007, p. 648) stresses that:
Good teachers start instruction with what is familiar and known, and build to what
is unknown As models, analogies and metaphors are central to this bridging from
the known to the unknown education researchers have focused on various aspects
of model utilization in childrens learning.
Some researchers proposed using common causal reasoning as a basis for teachinglearning sequences in electricity (Steinberg 1983; Psillos and Koumaras 1993; Sherwood
and Chabay 1993; Gutwill et al. 1996). They propose teaching situations involving changes
(the transient states in electrical circuits for example), more accessible to pupils intuition
and in which pupils are encouraged to reason in terms of causality, before broaching steady
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state descriptions, as a first step towards acquiring a physicists systemic reasoning. Psillos
stress that:
the classical treatment of simple DC circuits is based on the study of functional
relationships between their basic macroscopic parameters. The reasoning which is
expected presupposes a systemic view and is a-causal [whilst] students reasoning
is causal they are looking for causes which would lead a circuit to its new state.
(Psillos 1995, pp. 6768)
Physical, analogical models and formal, mathematical models are both useful in science
education, much as are reasoning in terms of changes and mechanisms, and reasoning in
terms of stationary situations and simultaneous relationships. Formal, mathematical models
are widely used in common teaching, textbooks and research (see, for example, Hestenes
1987, 1992; Tiberghien 1996; Grandy 2003). Here I focus primarily on the role of physical
analogical models, and reasoning in terms of changes and causal mechanisms. With this
aim, in Sects. 6 and 7 I briefly describe two research projects elaborating teaching
sequences which rely on spontaneous causal reasoning and the common need for explanations based on visual models and appeals to intuition.
The examples concern two topics already mentioned in the first part of this paper
(Sect. 4): pressure in liquids and solid friction.
6 Fluid Statics
A study involving a few hundred high school and college students (Besson 2004a) demonstrates many of the difficulties involved in understanding pressure and forces in a static
fluid.
We take as an example the case of three containers with equal bottoms but different
shapes, all filled with water to the same level (Fig. 5). Here a majority of students think
that the force exerted by the water on the bottom is greater in the case of the container (c),
because it contains more water.
Only slightly fewer than half the students correctly described the magnitudes and
directions of the forces exerted by the water on the four discs, A, B, C, D drawn on an
immersed football (see Fig. 4; the question did not ask for calculations, but only to list the
forces in order of magnitude and to indicate their direction by an arrow) and only a small
minority clearly connected such forces to Archimedes upthrust. Moreover, the majority of
high school students thought that water pressure is different at two points at the same
elevation, one in the open sea and the other within an underwater cave (Fig. 3). The most
frequent reasoning was: pressure depends upon depth; pressure depends upon the amount
or weight of the water directly above the considered point; in a smaller space, the pressure
is larger. Above all, we observed a strong persistence of reasoning based on the idea that
pressure depends on the weight of the water directly above the considered point (the water
column above, or the overhead water, according to the actual words of one pupil).
Moreover, many students believe that the roof of an underwater cave does not exert any
force on the water:
The rock does not push on the water, also without water the rock does not fall.
The rock does not rest on the water, its weight does not exert any force; it is static.
These results as well as others show that knowledge of formal rules (e.g., Stevins Law of
Hydrostatics or the famous and nearly mythic rule of Archimedes principle) is not
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U. Besson
Fig. 5 The three containers

question. The bottoms of the
containers are equal
sufficient to produce a satisfactory understanding of the proposed situations and to connect

such rules with a local analysis of what happens in the various small parts of the fluid, and of
the interactions of these small parts between themselves and with the solid walls. It
sometimes happens that students give a correct answer on the basis of known formulas, but
then in their discussions they wonder how this result can be possible, how to explain it;
and even change their answer, unsatisfied with the clear indications given by the formula
(see Sect. 4.3). There emerges the need for a mechanism which could explain how an
equilibrium situation has come about. A global view of the fluid is not sufficient to satisfy
this demand. What is required is an analysis in terms of the transmission of changes which
can reconcile global properties and rules with the local behavior of the fluid. This necessitates moving to a smaller scale of description to construct an explanation based on the
behavior of the elements or particles into which we imagine the fluid to be decomposed.
This analysis has led to propose a mesoscopic model for describing the behavior of a fluid
in the presence of gravity (Besson and Viennot 2003, 2004). In the model, a liquid is
imagined to be composed of many small elements, analogous to little rubber balls, which fill
the container. The balls are in contact with each other, pushing against their neighbors, and
are only slightly compressible. In this analogy, the little balls do not correspond to the
molecules of the liquid, but rather to the fluid elements. In fact, the mesoscopic approach
is the standard method in fluid mechanics and more generally in continuum mechanics. In it,
the kinetic aspects remaining hidden inside the mesoscopic elements and their effects are
represented by average macroscopic quantities (pressure, temperature, etc.). Usually the
decomposition into small parts is carried out in an abstract and mathematical way. By
contrast, the idea of our model is to make this mesoscopic breakdown concrete and accessible to the students intuition by suggesting objects that can be taken to behave analogously
in the narrowly circumscribed field of fluid statics in the presence of gravity. The small
elementary quantities typical of the language of calculus, the vanishing quantities evoked
by Newton,11 become objects that are capable of interacting, pushing and being compressed.
Unlike molecules, these mesoscopic elements keep the essential properties of macroscopic
objects, and can therefore be treated as small pieces, small objects possessing temperature,
density, elasticity, and able to act on one another through contact interactions. One could say
that they do not resemble so much the atoms of Democritus as the homeomeries of
Anaxagoras, who held that bodies are composed of similar small parts.12
11
I. Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, book I, section I, especially the final Scholium. The adjective vanishing and the verb to vanish (evanescensevanescentes and evanescere, in
Latin) are also attributed by Newton to parallelograms, angles, segments, arches, triangles (cf. Lemmas III,
VI, VII, VIII, XI etc.).
12
Anaxagoras, Greek philosopher (500428 B.C.): In his treatise On Nature, he explains the origin of
bodies without positing elements like water, fire, etc., but by means of homeomeries (a term introduced by
Aristotle): material particles that join together in order to form the bodies but which, in contrast to atoms,
have the same qualities as the bodies that they constitute (Durozoi G. & Roussel A. Dictionnaire de
Philosophie, Paris, Nathan, 1997, pp. 1920).
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We focus attention on local interactions and the transmission of changes so as to help

students see the consistency of formal rules and laws with the local behavior of the fluid.
To this end, it is important to avoid asserting that liquids are incompressible. This is in part
because it is not true, the compressibility of liquids constituting an important field of
scientific research (see Aitken and Tobazeor 1998; Bridgman 1958). Moreover, incompressibility would exclude any local modification in a fluid, and therefore any difference in
its action on the wall of the container or on surrounding fluids. How could an element of a
fluid transmit the effect of a disturbance to adjacent elements if the element itself is not
changed in any way? As a matter of fact, the variations in the volume of fluids are often
negligible in calculations, but they are essential to understanding.13 Calculating well does
not always mean understanding well and in physics there can be a very important difference between a small quantity and a null quantity, that is, between zero and very small.
Obviously, the proposed model has certain limitations. For example, it does not take into
account phenomena due to molecular attractive forces (surface tension, adhesion) and
molecular kinetics (diffusion, thermal dilatation). Furthermore, it could create confusion
between liquids and granular materials. Nonetheless, the model can constitute a productive
didactic instrument within a limited field of application. It is important here and in general for
students to become aware not only of the possibilities but also of the limitations of the models
they use.
A short teaching sequence based on this model was tested with first year university
students in Belgium, after a traditional course of fluid statics involving lectures and laboratory activities. The short sequence was inserted into this context with only minor
changes in the usual curriculum. The aim was to promote a progressive construction of
reasoning based on discussion and analysis of diagrams and figures. The sequence began
with a mechanical consideration of the rubber balls. Three situations were studied: first a
series of balls aligned horizontally and pushed against a vertical barrier; second, the balls
set in a vertical position and pushed downwards; and finally, the balls set vertically and
given an upward push. The forces of interaction between the balls and the wall were
analyzed, as well as how these forces vary with harder pushing, taking small deformations
into account. Next, the analogy between liquids and the rubber balls in a container with a
piston was proposed (Fig. 6). The students were asked to answer questions of the type In
which points is the pressure equal to the pressure at a point close to the piston, or at a point
in the low or high part of the container? In the final session, the students were divided into
groups of two or three and asked to compare the forces exerted by the water on the bottoms
(of equal areas) of three differently-shaped containers (|__|, /__\ and \__/) filled to the same
level (Fig. 5).
The written answers to the final questions and the recorded discussions showed that
many students had modified their view of the physical situations and enriched their reasoning with more elaborated and productive arguments. For example, in the situation of the
two fish (Fig. 3):
The pressure is equal if you consider the rubber ball model, the ball at the far
left is submitted to forces, which are reproduced from ball to ball till they reach
13
Arons (1990, p. 64) thinks that Students need explicit help and guidance in learning to visualize effects
that elude direct sense perception. The deformation of apparently rigid objects in the context now under
consideration is usually the first opportunity in a physics course, and its importance should not be underestimated. Later, such visualization is essential to understanding what happens in many physical
situations.
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U. Besson
Fig. 6 The analogy between a liquid in a container and the rubber balls
those in the cave . The pressure is equal, because the difference in height is
compensated for by the force which the wall exerts .
In the situation of the three containers (Fig. 5):
Because the balls have weight they tend to be squashed and therefore to exert a
lateral horizontal force on the balls next to them, and that force is transmitted to
the walls and as the wall is sloping it induces a force towards the bottom.
These quotations show that a significant change was produced in the reasoning of many
students by use of the model, which motivated a systematically more articulate analysis
directed towards finding coherence among the different aspects of the proposed situation. It
can be said that the model favors coordination among the three types of physical explanations described in Sect. 3: the formal one, i.e., of the law of hydrostatics, with the causal
one, and partially also with that one bathygeneous, introduced by the transmission of the
interactions between the mesoscopic elements.
7 Friction Between Solids

In secondary education and in introductory physics courses friction is generally presented
as a marginal topic, briefly dealt with in the chapter on mechanics, in an abstract and
schematic way: apart from a brief mention of the effect of the roughness of surfaces, the
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solid bodies between which friction takes place are nearly always considered as rigid
bodies. The excessive schematization hinders any attempt at creating an image of the
underlying microscopic phenomena that may be the basis for a causal explanation of
friction, an image and an explanation that students need in order to be able to understand
physical situations, as previous research has proved. This schematization may be sufficient
to calculate, on the basis of simplified laws, the physical quantities necessary to solve a
problem, but it cannot make one understand the physical situation.
Research on students conceptions has singled out a few specific difficulties with
friction between solids (Caldas and Saltiel 1995; Caldas 1999). Students rarely acknowledge that friction can play a motive role: friction is almost exclusively considered as
resistive. It is often represented by one force only, opposed to the actual motion and not
to the relative motion between the two solids in contact. It is also commonly thought that a
solid can be dragged by another solid by adhesion, without necessarily requiring the
presence of a force to act on it explicitly (dragging effect). There is also a tendency to
identify normal force with weight, a trend favored by the examples in handbooks, which
focus too much on situations of horizontal motion or motion on an inclined plane in which
normal force is equal to weight or to a component of weight.
A teaching learning sequence on friction phenomena has been elaborated and tested at
the University of Pavia, Italy (Besson et al. 2007, 2009) with the aim of overcoming
some common difficulties and erroneous or overly simplistic conceptions concerning the
topic. This sequence is also designed to help students acquire the elements of an
explanatory model which will allow them to construct an image of the mechanisms
producing friction.
The objective is for students to acquire some elements of explanatory models based
on properties and processes on a mesoscopic scale, not directly visible to the naked eye.
This will permit them to construct a simplified but functional image of the mechanisms
producing friction, and to elaborate reasoning, explanations and qualitative predictions.
The proposed models attempt to satisfy the dual requirement of didactic effectiveness, on
the one hand, and adequacy to current physical knowledge of the material structures and
processes involved, on the other. In fact, besides recognizing the importance of models
in human reasoning and for an effective learning, what educators and scientists are
interested in is what mental models are true, which ones more accurately reflect the
world and its processes, which models are conducive to genuine knowledge (Matthews
2007, p. 649).
To show the variety of phenomena and situations involving friction and to motivate the
student interest, the sequence begins with simple qualitative experiments illustrating the
different typologies of friction, in different practical situations, in which friction is considered either an obstacle and a disturbance or a useful and desired phenomenon. Then
more systematic and quantitative experiments are proposed, concerning first vertical then
horizontal friction forces, leading students to obtain the classical quantitative relations,
discussed as phenomenological laws deriving from a multitude of underlying processes on
surfaces in contact. The problem of the surfaces topography is discussed with the distinction between apparent and real area of contact, which is propaedeutic to any approach
to the mechanisms of friction. Figures and drawings are shown which illustrate the
irregular nature, on a micrometric scale, of the surface of apparently smooth objects, with
protuberances and hollows (the asperities of the surface) (Fig. 7). The analysis of the
topography and behavior of micrometric scale surfaces is interesting, also from a point of
view of the method and nature of physics investigation. It shows, in fact, two typical
characteristics of science: going beyond what is visible to the naked eye, revealing new
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U. Besson
Fig. 7 Topography of surfaces. Apparent area A and real area Ar of contact
details, new invisible worlds and new entities; looking for the explanation of phenomena in
mechanisms involving entities on a smaller scale, such as microorganisms, cells,
molecules.
The typical behavior of the surface asperities under load is discussed (increase of the
area of each contact and of the number of contacts, small approach of the two bodies in
contact), together with the dependency of real contact area on the load and the role of the
elastic and plastic deformations.
As for the mechanisms producing friction, it is to be explained that there is a variety
of phenomena, the relevance of which varies according to the situations and materials
considered. Some mechanisms are presented in a descriptive, simplified and intuitive
form: adhesion between the asperities of surfaces; the deformation, tracking or scratching
of surfaces; the impact and interlocking among asperities; the wear due to the relative
motion of the two contact surfaces; the effect due to particles trapped between the
surfaces (third body). Some models presented by scientists in different periods to explain
sliding friction phenomena are illustrated. Three examples are showed in Fig. 8.
The testing of the sequence among teachers at the initial training stage has provided
encouraging results, both from the point of view of overcoming some of the typical
difficulties with the topic and from that of activating new and richer lines of reasoning.
Many reasoning produced by the students, although incomplete, raise the topic to a much
more refined level than the simple repetition of fixed and abstract rules based on idealized objects. Often, the specific characteristics of proposed models have been the basis
for quite articulate explanations. For example, in the answers to questions concerning the
situation of Fig. 9, many students drew sketches of surface roughness in which the
asperities were represented as deformed in different ways according to the different
accelerations of the system. Thus in this case the model were not merely a passive
figurative representation but assumed an operational explanatory role, even if only in a
very simplified and schematic way.
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8 Conclusion: Calculating and Understanding

Causality has long given rise to controversy and criticism, and is not always highly
regarded among philosophers and scientists. In any case, there is an active debate on these
issues, as different ideas are set out authoritatively.
On the other side, didactic research has shown the extensive presence and role of causal
explanations in common sense reasoning. Although from the philosophical and ontological
Fig. 8 Models of friction. From above: Coulombs model (1785), schematic representation of the Bowden
and Tabors adhesive junction model (1950) and a more recent spring-like model (Persson 1998, p. 291)
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U. Besson
point of view the causal connection and the idea of cause may be evaluated very differently, even to the point of being considered myths without sense, from the psycho-cognitive and didactic point of view, the importance of causal reasoning in cognitive and
learning processes makes carrying out a deeper study impossible to avoid.
Didactic research has shown that the reasoning and physical explanations preferred by
students and common thought differ in many cases from those accepted in science and in
physics teaching.
Common thought has a preference for causal reasoning based on a logical and chronological linear sequence of one causeone effect chains. This is similar to what takes
place in a story or novel with its unfolding of events, or in a mechanism in which one
piece acts on another and so on. By contrast, physics teachers more often focus on
equilibrium or steady state situations, using formal explanations and functional relationships between physical quantities at a given instant. Pupils require a causal explanation, a
mechanism, which can account for the physical phenomena.
Common thought is mostly interested in transient phases during which something
happens, as well as the dynamics of the facts and effects that have led to a given situation,
that is, to how things are the way they are. Science as well concerns itself with transitory
phenomena, studying processes of change and evolution with time. However, the need to
introduce adequate simplifications results in instruction that neglects these aspects, limiting
itself instead to the study of how a system is maintained and behaves in the regular
phase. These differences can create difficulty in learning physics, especially if the simplifications employed are not made explicit or discussed, but rather remain, as often
happens, among the implicit elements of the content taught.
The didactic experiments described in Sects. 6 and 7, as well as others present in the
literature, propose to use certain tendencies and preferences of common thought so as to
favor a connection between physical contents and students conceptions. In fact, for
learning to be meaningful, the new contents proposed by instruction have to be connected
to and interact with the students world. This can take place even via contrast and cognitive
conflict, but with methods and reasoning that have meaning and value for students.
Otherwise, there is the risk that what is taught will slide away without leaving stable
effects, and will give a feeling of abstractness and extraneousness.
In particular, the experiences described briefly above propose the didactic use of
explanatory models based on images and simple mechanisms, and appeal to intuition and
analogies. Models and physical analogies of this type can change the students view of the
physical situation and encourage new forms of reasoning and more articulated analysis
aimed at establishing coherence between global and local aspects. It has been observed
that, independently of the particularities of the model, the representation of mechanisms
and structural details at a smaller scale can promote higher quality student reasoning.
The appeal to intuition and analogies is often criticized and considered dangerous,
because it can favor wrong conceptions and unsuitable identifications between different
Fig. 9 A question proposed to students. A cart with a dish placed on it is put in motion with a small
acceleration, then moved at uniform motion and finally slowed down. Students are asked to indicate the
forces acting on the dish during each phase of motion and explain their answers
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phenomena. However, in their speeches and reasoning on specialized subjects, even

physicists and engineers use a particular expert intuition that allows them to obtain predictions and interpretations before proceeding to calculations and rigorous deductions.
Such intuition has been formed progressively with the habit of dealing with certain subject
matters. When knowledge and procedures have begun to sediment into a network of mental
schemes at the unconscious level, it constitutes the physical intuition that plays such a large
role in the difference between novices and experts in the resolution of physics problems.
An objective of instruction should be to develop new schemes of physical intuition in the
student, approaching a semi-expert intuition on specific subjects and situations. Without
these physical references, the manipulation of laws and formulas runs the risk of becoming
a syntactic game.
Maxwell (1856) thought the use of physical hypotheses was essential, but at the same
time cautioned against the risks of extrapolations:
The first process in the effective study of the science, must be one of simplification
and reduction of the previous investigation to a form in which the mind can grasp
them. This simplification may take the form of a purely mathematical formula or of a
physical hypothesis. In the first case we entirely lose sight of the phenomena to be
explained; and though we may trace out the consequences of given laws, we can
never obtain more extended views of the connections of the subject. If, on the other
hand, we adopt a physical hypothesis, we see the phenomena only trough a medium,
and are liable to that blindness to facts in assumptions which a partial explanation
encourages In order to obtain physical ideas without adopting a physical theory we
must make ourselves familiar with the existence of physical analogies (pp. 155
156).
By now it is clear that some spontaneous tendencies of reasoning can create difficulties
for students. However, it also seems to me to be opportune to take critical stock of the
excessively artificial character of some reasoning proposed in teaching. Purified of its
defects and naivety, common reasoning, based on processes of change and causality, seems
in some cases closer to physical reality than the still image described in certain situations
by the physics teacher.
For example Rozier and Viennot (1991), observe that when a teacher wants to explain
the expansion of a heated gas at constant pressure, he or she usually thinks of a stationary
situation described by means of mathematical relationships such as pV = nRT, where the
quantities V and T vary simultaneously. By contrast, many students imagine a causal chain
with effects that follow successively in the time: heat is given, therefore T increases, then p
increases and then (after a short time) also volume increases. In this way they also contradict the given condition that pressure remains constant.
Actually, it is difficult to understand how a piston can be put in motion, and increase the
volume, without there also being an increase of pressure in the zone of the gas close to the
wall where the heat is given. This pressure increase would then be transferred (in a finite,
albeit short, time) to the other parts of the gas and to the zone close to the piston, thus
provoking its movement. To be sure, we often suppose that it is matter of a quasi-static
transformation at constant pressure, but such transformations do not exist in reality, and in
any case it is difficult to imagine a static transformation, an expression which is itself
oxymoronic, even if it is corrected with a wiser quasi. To what extent can reasoning
neglect this quasi, and what is hidden behind it? To be sure, this works in calculations, but
for a student who is approaching physics, to be able to calculate does not always mean to
have understood. Finally, these two typologies of explanations, the one focused on the
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U. Besson
description of the equilibrium situations and the other on the dynamic processes leading
from one equilibrium situation to another, are not to be considered conflicting but complementary. They both have their usefulness and meaning, while at the same time being
both incomplete (look at note 5). Freed from imprecision, errors, and naiveties, they should
both constitute objectives of instruction. This is necessary to obtain a coherent and sufficiently complete understanding, within the limits of the desired level of investigation.
Moreover, this expulsion of time and becoming can appear a perverse negation of
reality and give the feeling that much of science does not concern the real world and life,
but only a separated and stranger universe. If what we want is instruction connected to
student thought and the students world, perhaps it is necessary to try to explain change
without denying it, looking for a way to reconcile global and formal reasoning, based on
stationary situations, with local, causal explanations based on the transitory and change.
Obviously, it is not a matter of renouncing the idealizations and schematizations by which
physics lives and prospers, but of introducing them into the classroom with caution,
pointing out the approximations and simplifications, and showing and discussing how they
are connected with real phenomena and processes.
Duhem (1906, chap. IV) contrasts two types of mentalities: that of strong and limited
minds, who prefer abstract and deductive reasoning, and descriptions in terms of mathematical equations; and that of the weak and wide (and imaginative) minds, who tend to
build physical hypotheses on material structures and on underlying mechanisms and
processes, in order to form a mental image of the phenomena.14 We should take into
consideration that many students belong to the second category, even though actually it is
matter of a preference more than of an absolute characteristic of individuals. On the other
hand, in a sense this difference resemble to that one between the intuitive and heuristic
logic of discovery and the objective and rigorous logic of demonstration, two modalities of
thought that are both present in the activity of physicists and mathematicians.
Bruner (1963) stresses the importance for students of intuitive, rather than formal
understanding,15 even if he emphasizes the pedagogical difficulties tied to the solicitation
of the intuitive thought during instruction, because
it requires a sensitive teacher to distinguish an intuitive mistakean interestingly
wrong leapfrom a stupid or ignorant mistake, and it requires a teacher who can
14
Duhem develops many examples to demonstrate that the first typology supposedly prevails among the
French (and Germans), and the second among the English (apart from Napoleon, who is classified among the
second category). In particular, he strongly criticises the exaggerated details of mechanical models elaborated in that period to explain electric phenomena: the theory of electrostatics constitutes a set of abstract
notions and general statements, expressed in the clear and precise language of geometry and algebra,
connected by the rules of a strict logic this set totally satisfies the thought of a French physicist It is not
the same for an Englishman; these abstract notions do not satisfy his need to imagine concrete, material,
visible things It is in order to satisfy this need that he creates a model The use of similar models is a
constant in English physics; some make only a moderate use of these models, others appeal to them at each
step. Here is a book that aims to expound modern theories of electricity; we find only ropes that move on
pulleys tubes that pump water cog-wheels that mesh into one on another; we thought we were entering
into the calm and ordered realm of the deductive reason, and we find ourselves in a workshop. The book to
which Duhem refers, published in French translation in 1891, was obviously of an Englishman, O. Lodge.
15
The distinction must be considered more operational and didactic (intuitive?) than psychological and
theoretical, because a rigorous distinction between intuitive and analytical knowledge presents many difficulties and it is not even clear what we mean by intuitive knowledge (Bruner 1963). In the same book,
Bruner gives a short definition of intuition: the intellectual technique of arriving to plausible but tentative
formulations without going through the analytical steps by which such formulations would be found to be
valid or invalid conclusions.
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give approval and correction simultaneously to the intuitive student. To know a

subject so thoroughly that he can go easily beyond the textbook is a great deal to ask
of a high school teacher. (1963, chap. 3)
In any case, the existence of these two cognitive channels, intuitive-imaginative and
analytical-formal, has to be assumed, and both should be considered essential to learning.
Physics education must therefore cover and cultivate both, with their mutual connections,
as well as the ability to pass from one to another. Similarly, descriptions of both stationary
and transitory situations should be used and coordinated with one another. Precisely this
variety in the modality of description, reasoning and explanation constitutes the strength of
scientific thought and can contribute to making scientific instruction more welcoming to
students with various cognitive styles, and therefore to contrast the widespread idea that the
physics studied at school is an abstract and distant thing, that is not truly concerned with
the real world and life.
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Sci & Educ (2010) 19:225257

Calculating and Understanding: Formal Models

Published online: 8 August 2009

1 Physical Reasoning and Causal Explanations in Common Thought

students conceptions (representations, ideas) about specific subjects in physics, with a

Calculating and Understanding

The classical treatment of simple DC circuits is based on the study of functional

Calculating and Understanding

Max Planck wrote:

Calculating and Understanding

3 Typologies of Physical Explanations and Cognitive Development

Calculating and Understanding

statements, deduced from a small number of principles, whose aim is to represent

Calculating and Understanding

Analogies based on superficial similarities have little inferential power; structural

4 Some Particular Features of Causal Physical Explanations in Common Thought

Calculating and Understanding

Fig. 1 The two blocks question

4.2 Efficient Cause and Contingent Cause

Calculating and Understanding

Calculating and Understanding

Fig. 4 The ball in water

5 Implications and Proposals for Teaching

Calculating and Understanding

reason in terms of changes;

reason in terms of equilibrium or steady-state situations;

Moreover, I have emphasized some particular characteristics of common reasoning

Calculating and Understanding

Fig. 5 The three containers

sufficient to produce a satisfactory understanding of the proposed situations and to connect

Calculating and Understanding

We focus attention on local interactions and the transmission of changes so as to help

7 Friction Between Solids

Calculating and Understanding

Fig. 7 Topography of surfaces. Apparent area A and real area Ar of contact

Calculating and Understanding

8 Conclusion: Calculating and Understanding

Calculating and Understanding

phenomena. However, in their speeches and reasoning on specialized subjects, even

Calculating and Understanding

give approval and correction simultaneously to the intuitive student. To know a

Calculating and Understanding

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