We propose an expanded definition of Threshold Concepts (TCs) that requires the successful acquisition and internalisation not only of knowledge, but also its practical elaboration in the domains of applied strategies and mental models. This richer definition allows us to clarify the relationship between TCs and Fundamental Ideas, and to account…

First order knowledge and understanding, relating to the "stuff" of history, is, of course, absolutely fundamental to the development of children's historical knowledge and understanding. However, as Frances Blow shows, in a contribution to a series of articles exploring second order concepts in history published in Teaching History by…

Claims that people determine whether something is a member of a given artifact kind by inferring that it was successfully created with the intention that it belong to that kind. Discusses function-based and intentional-historical accounts of artifact concepts. Concludes that a rich set of inferential capacities is needed to constitute a theory of…

This article aims to contribute to the literature on conceptual change by engaging in direct theoretical and empirical comparison of contrasting views. We take up the question of whether naive physical ideas are coherent or fragmented, building specifically on recent work supporting claims of coherence with respect to the concept of force by…

Examined infants' use of configural and physical knowledge in segregating three-dimensional adjacent displays. Found that infants do use configural knowledge: they expect similar parts to belong to same unit and dissimilar parts to belong to distinct units. Also found that physical knowledge, such as impenetrability and support, influences their…

The roles that essentially contested concepts play in persuasive discourse are examined in this paper. The first section of the paper reviews W. B. Gallie's original explication of the nature of essentially contested concepts and the body of theoretical literature that has developed in response to it. It then notes three major areas of…

Children 3 1/2 and 5 years of age were tested for their intuitive knowledge of the psychological fact that one mental event may trigger or cue another related mental event. (JMB)

Human infants are predisposed to organize their experience in terms of certain concepts (natural) and not others (unnatural). Three formal, necessary conditions on the naturalness of concepts are offered. The conditions attempt to link the problem of naturalness to principled distinctions between sense vs nonsense, simplicity vs complexity, and…

Presents findings on sex differences in demonstrating the principle of horizontality. Initially, female subjects had more difficulty with the concept than males. It is suggested that women suffer from lack of appropriate experience. (MA)

Several experimental studies are reviewed, the results of which suggest that students often fail to acquire an understanding of some of the concepts, relationships, principles, and processes that are fundamental to traditional high school course material. Questions of what it means to understand something and of how to assess understanding are…

Children may perform computational operations readily when dealing with physical materials, but may have difficulty dealing with representational stimuli (pictures of objects) or symbolic stimuli. Describes and illustrates the function of mediators in moving from physical to representational or symbolic stimuli. (PR)

Article states that abstract thought and immediate self-representation or consciousness of "being-in-the-world" are not mutually exclusive, and that the integration of past with present, future or possible with actual, etc., enhances the immediacy of experiencing. (RW)

This paper examines research studies that have concluded that elementary school children can learn more difficult and abstract social studies concepts than are taught in the traditional social studies curriculum. Research studies that focus on constraints on cognition, the use of embedded concepts, and understanding knowledge restructuring and…

The Cooperative Work-Learn Conservation and Natural Resource-Use Program was undertaken to organize and conduct a summer program in conservation education for junior high school students, provide conservation in-service activities for local teachers, and to develop a K-12 conservation education curriculum guide. Following a brief review of the…

Proposals for teaching concepts have been dominated by traditional paradigms. A review of research on concept structure and formation reveals evidence for alternative paradigms, e.g., exemplar, probabilistic, and schematic models. The research also indicates problems regarding the traditional models. Implications for relating alternative models to…