• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.445-452
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• 2009

In this study, the influences of the context of discrepant events on the conceptual change process using cognitive conflict strategy were investigated in terms of students' cognitive and motivational variables such as cognitive conflict, situational interest, attention, effort, conceptual understanding. A preconception test was administered to 536 seventh graders. A test of response to a discrepant event and a situational interest questionnaire were then administered. The context of discrepant events, either scientific or everyday, was randomly presented to the subjects. After learning the concept of density, the tests of attention, effort, and conceptual understanding were administered. The reponses of 194 students who had been found to possess the target misconception were analyzed. The results revealed that the scientific-context discrepant event induced higher cognitive conflict than everyday-context one. The context of discrepant events, however, did not show significant correlations with situational interest, attention, effort, and/or conceptual understanding. The result of path analysis indicated that the context of discrepant events both directly influenced cognitive conflict and indirectly influenced conceptual understanding via cognitive conflict.