Intentional Conceptual Change

This book assembles researchers who are exploring the role of intentional level cognition in changing students’ thinking. Traditional views of conceptual change have viewed student’s knowledge reconstruction as primarily driven by basic cognitive processes or by the instructional contexts and materials designed to foster change in students’ conceptions. Recently however, a small group of researchers have begun to explore the extent to which students’ intentional level processes - goals, beliefs, interests, dispositions - contribute significantly to whether or not change will occur. The volume brings together an international panel of scholars drawing on a variety of disciplines, including educational psychology, science education, philosophy and social psychology, to explore and define the construct of intentional conceptual change.