Science & Education 12: 773–777, 2003.

773
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

What Are Models and Why Do We Need Them?

RICHARD E. GRANDY
Philosophy Department, Rice University MS 14, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA;
E-mail: rgrandy@rice.edu

Abstract. Educators and philosophers tout the virtues of the ‘new’ view of theories. Unfortunately,
there is no agreed-on name for the new view, but a recently a favored term has been ‘model based’. I
address what a model might be in the context of science education. I am concerned about when and
why we need to make the transition from implicit mental models to explicit external models.
I explore two theories/models in physics. One draws on misunderstandings of rotating objects.
The second concerns density and flotation.
I offer two morals:
1. ‘Models’ in physics are often mathematical, and more attention needs to be devoted to integrating
mathematics and science
2. Models are required in physics when we need an equation in which two variables occur and
which is not linearly additive.

The official demise of the ‘Received View’ of scientific theories occurred at a con-
ference at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in March 1969 (Suppe
1974, 2000, p. S102). Since then, science educators (Duschl 1990) and philosoph-
ers of science concerned with science education have touted the virtues of the new
view of theories as an important tool in improving science education.
Surely having an erroneous view of the nature of scientific theories was an
impediment to science education, and having a correct one will be a boon. There
is no generally agreed on name for the new view, unfortunately. It has been called
‘semantic’, ‘structuralist’, ‘model-theoretic’, ‘set theoretic’, ‘non-statement’, and
more recently a favored term has been ‘model based’. This may just be an issue of
nomenclature, but it may also reflect some important uncertainty about details.
The best statement of the philosophers’ new views is probably Suppe’s. His
‘nuanced sloganistic analysis’ of the new view is that ‘Scientific theories are
causally-possible collections of state-transition models of data for which there is a
representation theorem’ (Suppe 2000, p. S111).
Developmental psychologists have also shown an interest in the new view and
used it in arguing for cognitive continuity between infant and adult science. The
prospect of bringing together philosophy of science and cognitive developmental
psychology in the service of science education is exciting and promising. However,
to fulfill the promises, the various parties must pull in the same direction.
774 RICHARD E. GRANDY

Gopnik is one of the most explicit of the cognitive psychologists, and her
account is that ‘A person’s theory is a system that assigns representations to in-
puts . . . .’ These representations are distinctive in having ‘. . . abstract, coherent,
causal, ontologically committed, counterfactual supporting entities and laws . . . .’
Moreover, ‘The representations are operated on by rules that lead to new rep-
resentations; for example, the theory generates predictions’ (Gopnik 1997, 43).
The most sophisticated attempt to bring together psychology with the new view is
Giere (1988, 1999). His account is that a theory is a family of models and that a
model is an abstract entity having all and only the properties ascribed to it by an
accompanying representation.
I do not want to worry here whether Suppe’s models are the same kind of
creature as Giere’s, nor whether Gopnik’s representations have anything to do with
Suppe’s representation theorems. Instead, I want to consider what a model might be
in the context of science education and to think about how the implications of the
newer and older approaches differ. I would also like to investigate why and when
we need to make the transition from implicit mental models to explicit external
models.
According to the Received View, a theory was an axiomatized set of sentences
in the formalized symbolic language of first order logic. (Any damage done by
the Received View to science education must, however, have been indirect since
I know of no textbooks that present theories in this form.) Since the objections to
the Received View seem to center on its axiomatic and linguistic form, consider an
alternative, the Received View∗ :
A theory is the class of models of an axiomatized set of sentences in the formalized symbolic
language of first order logic.

On this alternative, a theory is a non-linguistic abstract collection of models.

Presumably, there is still something wrong with this view, or else the whole fuss
about overthrowing the Received View was just hype. And presumably it must be
either that these are the wrong kind of models or else they are the wrong kind of
collection of models. Or both.
Rather than worry about this problem in the abstract, the remainder of my paper
explores two specific instances of theories/models in basic physics. The first draws
on the work of Profitt and Gilden (1989) on the understanding and misunderstand-
ing of rotating objects. The simplest problems in mechanics have only one relevant
parameter, the location of the center of mass of the object. However, when rotating
objects are considered, the distribution of mass sometimes becomes relevant. Given
two objects sliding down a frictionless plane, their distribution of mass is irrelevant.
In contrast, given two cylinders of the same size, shape and mass, on an inclined
plane, one still needs to know the distributions of mass in order to predict which
cylinder will roll to the bottom first.
In their studies, a variety of subjects were able to provide correct answers much
more frequently to the one-parameter problems than to the two-parameter prob-
lems. Most telling was that when the two-parameter problems were presented to
WHAT ARE MODELS AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM? 775

high-school physics teachers and the teachers were forced to answer rapidly, their
answers were no better than those of undergraduates without time constraints.
Summarizing:
• Given problems about rolling cylinders in which mass distribution is a relevant
parameter, over 80% of U Virginia undergraduates gave incorrect responses
• Given the same problems, members of the UVa Bicycle club did no better
• Given the same problems and required to answer immediately without calcu-
lations, UVa physics faculty did no better
• Given the same problems and required to answer immediately without calcu-
lations, high school physics teachers did no better
To quote from Profitt and Gilden’s conclusion,

. . . physicists have a dual awareness of the characteristics of mechanical systems. This awareness is
quite interesting to observe and it is easily elicited . . . . Prevent competent physicists from making
explicit calculations about such events as rolling wheels, and they exhibit the basic confusions that
are found in naive observers . . . . However, most physicists could work the problem out in a few
minutes. (Profitt & Gilden 1989, 391)

What is required for the experts to solve the problems is the opportunity to make
explicit calculations. This suggests that the most pragmatic understanding of ‘hav-
ing a model’ is ‘having the ability to deploy relevant equations to describe the
problem’.
My second example is drawn from a piece of middle-school curriculum devised
by Duschl and collaborators in SEPIA (Science Education Portfolio Instructional
Assessment). Students were given a square piece of aluminum foil and were asked
to produce a ‘vessel’, that is, to fold the aluminum foil so that it would float and
carry a weight. The goal for them was for them to investigate how to choose
the shape that would carry the maximum weight. This was done with 6th-grade
students, and a large part of the instructional objective was for them to learn that
the shape with the greatest volume would carry the greatest weight. Auxiliary ex-
periments and repeated trials were provided. Students worked in groups and many
groups eventually converged to near optimal solutions (Duschl & Gitomer 1997,
Goldman & Duschl 2000).
Even after coming to the conclusion that the maximum volume will displace the
maximum amount of water and thus will carry the greatest weight, the problem is
not trivial. It is non-trivial because of the constraints of using the single piece of
foil, which means that any increase in the height of the sides of the vessel decreases
the size of the base.
We let S be the length of a side of the piece of aluminum foil, H the height
of the side of a vessel obtained by folding the corners inward, and L the length of
the base. (For reasons of time, we will just assume that a symmetric shape will be
optimal.)
Given this set of labels for the problem, students could measure the length S
of the given piece of aluminum foil and then construct by calculation a chart that
776 RICHARD E. GRANDY

would give the volume of the vessel for each choice of H . Of course this would
require the equation for volume, which in this case turns into V = H · L2 .
Is this equation a theory? A model? I don’t know, but I want to underline that
what the equation provides is the ability to calculate the result of constructing
various shapes without having to actually produce them. Students could arrive
at approximately the same results by constructing vessels with various S and H
and measuring how much water they hold. And perhaps the equation could be
discovered that way. But having the equation is a major conceptual and practical
step because it gives the beginning of an exact articulation of the trade off between
increasing H and decreasing L.
The more exact articulation comes from more mathematics, from the fact that

S = L + 2H,

so

L = S − 2H,

and with a little algebra we find that for this problem

V = H (S − 2H )2 = 4H 3 − 4H 2 S + H S 2 .

Students with this equation now have a more articulated model of the problem
giving an exact description of the tradeoff between increasing H and decreasing
L. For students with slightly more sophistication or technology, a graph of the
equation could be drawn or computergraphed
This much could be accomplished at the level where students have Algebra
101, but of course, with calculus the next step can be taken of differentiating the
equation with respect to H , which gives

dV /dH = 12H 2 − 8H S + S = (6H − S)(2H − S).

This gives extreme values when H = S/2 and H = S/6. The first is the minimum
in which the L = 0, and the second is the desired solution. Unpacking the solution
just a little, we notice that L = 2S/3, i.e., the maximum is achieved by putting one
third of the square into the height of the vessel and two thirds into the base.
One advantage of this equation/model is that it shows that the ratio of height to
length is independent of the size of the square of foil. Calculating specific numbers
might eventually suggest that this was the case, if you represented the data in the
right way, but would hardly give a proof. Certainly, you would not arrive at the
conclusion that the optimum ratio is exactly 1.666666666666666666 . . . .
However, the model only works for the particular problem that we chose, that
of using a square piece of foil to begin with. If we consider the more general case
of a rectangular piece of foil, then the solution is somewhat more complicated to
WHAT ARE MODELS AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM? 777

arrive at and certainly not as elegant. With this in mind, if one were designing a
spiraling curriculum that would begin this problem in 6th grade and rework it two
or three more times later, then it would probably be optimal to start with the square
piece of foil knowing the outcome that is wanted at the end. So this problem also
illustrates the value of the teacher having in mind an explicit model of the solution
at the very beginning.
Another point of this little problem is equally important, and quite different. Our
solution has effectively assumed that the vessel, once folded into the desired shape
is rigid. We have ignored the effects of water pressure on the sides of the vessel.
In the real non-mathematical world, we ignore water pressure at our peril, and in
fact, the sides of vessels collapse under the pressure of water relatively quickly.
Contrary to our model the effect, and thus the optimum height, depends on the size
of the piece of foil we start with. For larger pieces of foil, the optimum solution
involves double-folding the sides of the vessel to resist water pressure.
Of course this point about the limitations of models and their assumptions is a
very important lesson, and the observation can be used in more advanced classes
to begin pursuit of a more complex mathematical model that takes water pressure
into account.
In conclusion, I offer two morals:
1. My analysis suggests that ‘models’ in physics are very often mathematically
represented, and if this is correct, more careful attention needs to be devoted to
integrating mathematical and scientific curricula.
2. Models are required in physics when the proper representation of reality re-
quires an equation in which two variables occur and which is not linearly
additive.

References
Duschl, R.: 1990, Restructuring Science Education: The Importance of Theories and Their Develop-
ment, Teachers College Press, New York.
Duschl, R.A, & Gitomer, D.H.: 1997, ‘Strategies and Challenges to Changing the Focus of
Assessment and Instruction in Science Classrooms’, Educational Assessment 4(1), 37–73.
Giere, R.: l988, Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Giere, R.: l999, Science without Laws, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Goldman, S. & Duschl, R.A.: 2000, ‘Formative and Summative Assessments of Inquiry
Science Deliverable #2: Report on the Implementation of the SEPIA Vessels Unit’,
www.cilt.org/images/Goldman-Duschi-report-2.doc.
Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A.N.: 1997, Words, Thoughts and Theories, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Profitt, D.R. & Gilden, D.L.: 1989, ‘Understanding Natural Dynamics’, Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 15, 384–393.
Suppe, F.: 1974, The Structure of Scientific Theories, University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Suppe. F.: 2000, ‘Understanding Scientific Theories: An Assessment of Developments, 1969-1998’,
Philosophy of Science 67, 5102–5115.