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Introduction: Bridging the Cognitive and

Sociocultural Approaches in Research on Conceptual
Change: Is it Feasible?
a
Lucia Mason
a
Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology , University of Padua , Italy
Published online: 05 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Lucia Mason (2007) Introduction: Bridging the Cognitive and Sociocultural Approaches in Research on
Conceptual Change: Is it Feasible?, Educational Psychologist, 42:1, 1-7, DOI: 10.1080/00461520709336914

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 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 42(1), 1–7
Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
INTRODUCTION
MASON

Introduction: Bridging the Cognitive and Sociocultural

Approaches in Research on Conceptual Change:
Is it Feasible?
Lucia Mason
Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology
University of Padua, Italy
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Since the late 1970s, traditional research on conceptual troduced to explore the reasons that might lead to bridging,
change, mainly in science domains, has been situated within which are at the basis of the idea of this issue.
the constructivist perspective on learning and instruction,
which values the active and interpretative role of the learner.
This research has been characterized mainly by a cognitive THE COGNITIVE APPROACH
approach that focuses on analyzing personal mental repre-
sentations (Murphy & Mason, 2006; Sinatra & Pintrich, Individuals construct knowledge around their everyday expe-
2003; Vosniadou, 1999). More recently, within the socio- rience or informal learning, which are often alternative to the
cultural approach to cognition, more emphasis has been scientific knowledge taught in school. The shift from naïve to
placed on the situated, interactional process of learning, accepted representations of phenomena and events has been
which includes learning the discourses and social practices the main focus of mainstream research on domain-specific
of scientific communities. Although several positions can be knowledge restructuring. Two main traditions can be identi-
found in the literature on cognition and understanding in the fied in this area of research, the cognitive-developmental
school context as reflecting the sociocultural approach— psychology tradition (e.g., Carey, 1985; Hatano & Inagaki,
from the more to the less extreme—it is grounded on an epis- 2000; Vosniadou & Brewer, 1987) and the science education
temology and ontology that differ from those of the cognitive tradition (e.g., diSessa, 1983; Glynn & Duit, 1995; Mintzes,
approach (Packer & Goicoechea, 2000). After a decade of Wandersee, & Novak, 1998; Posner et al., 1982). Both tradi-
debate on the potentials and limitations of each approach, a tions have addressed the change in personal cognitive struc-
crucial question remains open: Are they so conflicting and tures, although to different extents.
incompatible that researchers should situate their work con- According to developmental psychologists, children’s
sistently within one or the other? Or can these approaches be cognitive development is the change in their conceptual
complementary or even combined and integrated, at least to structures concerning a domain (Carey, 1985). Increased do-
some extent, leading to further understanding of the intricacy main knowledge leads to restructuring and that results in
and complexity of conceptual growth and change processes? more sophisticated representations. Schemata (Rumelhart,
In other words, is it theoretically feasible to consider a recon- 1980), domain-specific theories (Carey, 1985; Wellman &
ciliation of views focused on the internal processes of the Gelman, 1992), mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983; Vos-
mind or on the sociocultural genesis and appropriation of niadou & Brewer, 1992), and ontological categories (Chi,
knowledge? 1992) are all types of knowledge representation, found in
The two approaches will be reviewed in the next sections. cognitive or developmental psychology, and used to charac-
This review is intended to focus only on those aspects and terize the structure of personal conceptions. Different ex-
concerns that are central to this special issue of Educational planations for why conceptual change is often difficult to
Psychologist, and not to examine all aspects and concerns in achieve have been proposed (Chi, Slotta, & de Leeuw,
the extant research. Crucial aspects of the tension between 1994; Vosniadou, 1994), however, they all indicate the im-
the approaches, underlying the ongoing debate, are then in- portance of the cognitive structures underlying individuals’
conceptions.
Correspondence should be addressed to Lucia Mason, Department of
Comparisons between individual conceptions are used as
Developmental and Socialization Psychology, University of Padua, Via a method of inquiry to examine changes in mental repre-
Venezia, 8, Padua, Italy 35131. E-mail: lucia.mason@unipd.it sentations induced by instruction (pretests vs. posttests) or
 2 MASON

produced spontaneously over time as children accumulate science should be conceptualized as the construction of mul-
and broaden their experience in everyday situations. tiple representations for use in appropriate contexts. It means
The science education tradition has also focused on the that a student is able to use a certain conception in one con-
nature of intuitive knowledge and has examined the mecha- text and another in a different situation (Pozo, Gomez, &
nisms and conditions underlying conceptual change in the Sanz, 1999; Spada, 1994). However, more radical criticism
classroom. However, a theoretical differentiation emerged: of traditional views of conceptual change has come from the
on the one hand, alternative conceptions or misconceptions sociocultural approach to learning and instruction.
were conceived as internally coherent and consistent explan-
atory frameworks similar to theories, although naïve (Posner,
Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982). On the other hand, nov-
ices’ representations were posited as “knowledge in pieces,” THE SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH
that is, fragmented knowledge that needs to attain internal
coherence and systematicity (diSessa, 1983). According to the sociocultural approach, inspired by
From the constructivist perspective in science education, Vygotsky’s (1978) work, what is learned is specific to, and
learning scientific concepts was considered to be a change in grounded in, the situation in which it is learned. The situative
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conceptual structures, as the successful integration of new in- perspective views learning as a process of enculturation into
formation implies knowledge restructuring (Duit, 1999). a community, which is reflected in the various processes of
The metaphor that summarizes and vividly illustrates the participation in the community of discourse, practice, and
cognitive approach to learning is the acquisition metaphor thinking (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Greeno, Collins,
(Sfard, 1998, p. 5)—a term that refers to such entities as & Resnick, 1996; Kirshner & Whitson, 1997). If from the
knowledge, concepts, conceptions, ideas, notions, and con- cognitive point of view, knowing means possessing, from the
tents. The metaphor implies these constructs can be obtained sociocultural perspective it means belonging, participating,
or become one’s own. When knowledge or any other entity is and communicating. In other words, knowledge is not an en-
acquired, it can be applied, shared with others, or transferred tity in the head of an individual, which can be acquired, en-
to another situation. riched, or changed, but rather an activity that cannot be con-
A remarkable event in the literature on conceptual change sidered separately from the context in which it takes place.
was the classic 1993 article by Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle, Therefore, learners do not accumulate knowledge from the
who called for researchers to move beyond cold conceptual outside, but rather participate in activities that are distributed
change to consider affective, motivational, and situational among the individuals, tools, and artifacts of a community.
factors that may affect knowledge restructuring. The influ- Issues from cognitive anthropology led situativist scholars to
ence of this article was profound. The models of conceptual conceptualize learning as legitimate peripheral participation
change after the 1993 publication followed a “warming (Lave & Wenger, 1991) or cognitive apprenticeship (Rogoff,
trend” (Sinatra, 2005). Their attention to noncognitive vari- 1990).
ables led to taking into account how cognitive (e.g., prior As a method of inquiry, researchers from a situative per-
knowledge, processing ability) and motivational (e.g., spective conduct microlevel analyses of learners’ interactions
epistemic beliefs, interest, self-efficacy) factors interact with through their participation and communication over a period
the characteristics of a message in a particular context (Dole of time. The unit of analysis is not the individual, but the situ-
& Sinatra, 1998; Gregoire, 2003). ated collective activity constructed by individuals. In science
In addition, the most recent models of conceptual change learning, for instance, these analyses focus on explanations
are dual-process models as they assume that cognition ranges of construction as interactional achievements shaped by the
from automatic or algorithmic processing (i.e., low cognitive sociocultural context of activity (Kaartinen & Kumpulainen,
engagement) to intentional, self-directed processing (i.e., 2002).
high metacognitive engagement) (Sinatra & Mason, in The alternative metaphor used to summarize and vividly
press). Calling for the inclusion of variables other than the illustrate the sociocultural approach is the participation met-
cognitive as the focus of research on knowledge restructuring aphor (Sfard, 1998, p. 6), whereby learning a subject domain
was an important step toward a wider and more comprehen- is viewed as a process of becoming a member of a particular
sive understanding of the processes underlying it. community. In other words, participation is “taking part” and
Other criticisms of traditional cognitive research came “being a part of.”
from scholars who pointed out that conceptual change should The implications of situativist learning have been drawn
not be considered in terms of new conceptions replacing old for all aspects of education but especially for mathematics
ones. Rather it should be considered in more “diffuse” terms, (e.g., Cobb, Yachel, & Wood, 1992) and science education
that is, in terms of changes in ways of thinking about knowl- (e.g., Kelly & Green, 1998). Science learning, for instance, is
edge domains and differentiation among contexts of interpre- viewed as implying a new way of seeing and talking by par-
tation (Caravita e Halldén, 1994; Halldén, 1999). It was also ticipating in a community of discourse and practice
underlined that the purpose of learning in domains such as (Kaartinen & Kumpulainen, 2002).
 INTRODUCTION 3

The sociocultural approach applied to research on con- Reder, and Simon (1996), who mitigate its stronger claims
ceptual change entails three main interrelated issues. The which, on the basis of the empirical literature, were consid-
first is that change is conceived not in terms of modifications ered overstated and educationally misguided. According to
to conceptual structures, but rather in terms of a change in these cognitive scientists, not all knowledge is tied to the situ-
embedding of these structures. Differentiation of contexts ation in which a task is performed; under certain conditions
and discourse practices, as well as successful participation in transfer can take place from one context to another; if inte-
the contexts, becomes the essence of conceptual learning grated by concrete examples, abstract instruction can be
(Wertsch, 1998). powerful; and finally, both individual training and training in
The second issue, directly connected to the first, is that social settings is the most effective method for teaching skills
concepts are not to be conceived of as mental entities within in complex tasks.
our heads, which reflect internal representations of the world, In Educational Researcher we also read about a com-
but rather as part of the social practices in which people par- plementarity of the two approaches. Driver and colleagues
ticipate. Concepts are intended as conceptual and discursive (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994) pointed out
tools that are used when people think intramentally and com- the discursive nature of scientific knowledge and that science
municate with others intermentally (Säljö, 1999). In this re- learning is an enculturation process. Through the cocon-
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gard, schooling is essential for the communication of more struction of scientific knowledge, students enter a new com-
specialized types of conceptual/discursive tools. More spe- munity of discourse, that is, a new culture, and are socialized
cifically, learning physics means, for instance, the appropria- into the ways of knowing and practicing school science.
tion of new modes of reasoning based on the use of concepts Driver et al. did not opt in favor of one of the two theoretical
such as force, energy, and acceleration, which are defined in perspectives, but rather underlined that both personal and so-
a particular manner within the community of discourse and cial processes are necessary. The complementarity of the two
practice of physics. Appropriation means to be able to reason viewpoints was also highlighted by Cobb (1994), who, in the
and act in situations using certain conceptual tools as well as field of mathematics education, argued in favor of learning as
physical tools, that is, artifacts such as calculators, units of individual construction and enculturation. Sfard (1998), who
measurement, and computers that are products of human so- critically examined the two metaphors of learning mentioned
cial activities. above, maintained that choosing just one metaphor can imply
The third issue of the sociocultural approach applied to re- a theoretical distortion that leads to undesirable practices;
search on conceptual change is that knowledge does not one metaphor is simply not adequate. In contrast, “An ade-
transfer between tasks as it is wholly tied to the context of its quate combination of the acquisition and participation meta-
use, as some empirical evidence supports (Lave, 1988). In phors would bring to the fore the advantages of each of them,
general, transfer appears to be difficult to achieve. Studies on while keeping their respective drawbacks at bay” (Sfard,
the street mathematics of Brazilian children who sell coco- 1998, p. 11).
nuts documented their great arithmetic abilities in the context Greeno, one of first prominent scholars to advocate the
of street vending and their poor ability in the school context. situative perspective (Greeno, 1989, 1991), gave an interpre-
In addition, no effect of schooling emerged for their practical tation of the transfer question aimed at combining the old no-
arithmetic skills, activated through procedures totally differ- tion and a new meaning. He conceived transfer in terms of
ent from those used in the classroom (Carraher, Carraher, & “transformations of constraints, affordances, and attune-
Schlieman, 1985). ments” (Greeno, 1997, p. 12), in line with his conception of
Considered together, these three main issues lead to the learning as “improved participation in interactive systems,”
argument that learning is essentially a social phenomenon to give an account of what is repeated, and when it can be re-
and thus should occur in very rich social and physical envi- peated.
ronments in which learners deal with problems of everyday Nurtured by the work of sociologists of science (e.g.,
life and appropriate specific linguistic registers to think and Latour & Woolgar, 1986), who underlined that scientific
act within a discipline. knowledge is socially constructed, the sociocultural perspec-
tive gained value in research on science education (e.g., Roth,
1993) and learning in general.
REASONS FOR A BRIDGE? It is worth noting that in recent years a purely cognitive
approach on research on conceptual change has given way, as
The tension between the cognitive and sociocultural ap- the most recent models document (Dole & Sinatra, 1998;
proaches was the focus of a particularly rich exchange of Gregoire, 2003). Scholars who proposed theoretical models
ideas, reflections, and proposals among international schol- of knowledge development and change that can be consid-
ars in extended conversations appearing in the Educational ered as more cognitively oriented (e.g., Vosniadou & Brewer,
Researcher from 1994 to 1998 regarding mathematics and 1987, 1992; Vosniadou, 2003) have also taken into account
science learning, as well as the nature of learning in general. the role of social and cultural factors in designing and imple-
We read criticism of the situative perspective by Anderson, menting powerful learning environments for science learning
 4 MASON

(Vosniadou, Ioannides, Dimitrakopoulou, & Papademetriou, ing and reasoning processes. Hatano and Inagaki (2003) also
2001; Vosniadou & Kollias, 2003). maintained that conceptual change takes place in individual
On the other hand, it can also be said that both a radical students’, minds but it is induced socioculturally. It is a
perspective in favor of the sociocultural and an integrate per- teacher’s responsibility to arrange sociocultural factors to
spective, which conceives sociocultural and cognitive as- stimulate and support knowledge restructuring.
pects as complementary, on cognition and learning emerged. Within general discussions on learning, not exclusively
More radically situativist scholars (e.g., Säljö, 1999, focused on the question of knowledge change, a reconcilia-
Ivarsson, Schoultz, & Säljö, 2002) do not consider the level tion has also been proposed for aspects of cognitive and
of mental representations when they examine conceptual de- sociocultural theorizing that may lead to understanding
velopment. They do not attribute an ontological status to con- thinking and acting more deeply. On the basis of the
cepts, which are conceived in terms of linguistic or discursive complementarity of the two perspectives, social sources of
devices that construe phenomena and events as something knowledge and individual cognition have been examined in
belonging to a particular class. In this regard, class inclusion their interactions. For instance, Billett (1996) analyzed six
is not intended in the formal logic sense. Membership of a areas of complementarity of the two approaches (acquisition
particular class, as well as what constitutes the class itself, of domain-specific expertise, problem solving, compilation
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varies according to social practices. For instance, the concept of knowledge, transfer of knowledge, effortful engagement,
of “banana” as a botanical object has a meaning and a classi- and dispositions) to propose some initial bridging between
fication, but it has also alternative meanings and classifica- cognitive and sociocultural theorizing, which can be
tions when used by consumers who like to eat a fruit whose extended further. A reconciliation between both the
characteristics do not correspond strictly to the abstract and epistemological and ontological assumptions of the two ap-
neutral ones defined in botany (Säljö, 1999). proaches to the study of human learning has been proposed
In addition, it is claimed that thinking and reasoning are by Packer and Goioechea (2000). In their analysis of school-
tool-dependent in nature. Using or not using artifacts as ing, they posited that learning implies both constructing
mediational tools (e.g., a map or a globe), for example, can knowledge at different levels of expertise as a participant be-
shape different types of reasoning on earth gravity. The comes member of a community and taking a stand on the cul-
mentalistic traditional notions of concepts and conceptual ture of ones’ community, that is, a transformation of the per-
knowledge are abandoned in favor of a view of concepts as son as well as of the social world.
located between minds and conceptual knowledge as insepa- In this regard, Sinatra and Mason (in press) have recently
rable from the social practice of discourse and communica- cautioned that attention is needed to cognitive aspects of the
tion. From this perspective the divergence between scientific conceptual change process, which have recently been over-
and alternative conceptions reflect that individuals do not looked to avoid the “replacement” trap. In their view, so-
have access to contexts in which practices of scientific talk ciocultural perspectives should not to be conceived of as re-
are necessary and powerful. placements for cognitive views dichotomizing perspectives.
A combined approach has also been proposed as a more Rather, a finer-grained understanding of the complexity and
sustainable and supported view for explaining the phenome- intricacy of knowledge revision requires that both cogni-
non of knowledge change among scientists. In a thorough tive-information processing and sociocultural lenses be used
critical review of three viewpoints on the role of society in to capture the multiple facets of learning characterizing the
shaping scientific knowledge—cognitive (traditional), social conceptual change process. This integrated point of view on
constructivism, and integrated constructivism—Chinn knowledge construction and reconstruction is aligned with
(1998) provided sound arguments in favor of the latter. Ac- the notion of “knowledge in context” as described by
cording to integrated constructivism, the content of accepted Jovchelovitch (2007) in social psychology, which combines
scientific theories is the product of an interaction between so- both its cognitive and social natures.
cial and cognitive factors and the constraints imposed by na-
ture. In Chinn’s thought, the role of the social world appears
to be stronger among science learners than scientists. How- OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE
ever, according to Chinn, the most important social process
in students’ conceptual change is the tendency to accept ideas Given that discussion on the two theoretical (and method-
on the basis of trust or authority, a tendency to be mitigated ological) approaches to the study of conceptual change con-
by making them aware that scientists’ ideas, as tentative tinues, a symposium was organized for the annual meeting of
models, may by proven incorrect. the American Educational Research Association in Montreal
Vosniadou (1999) pointed out that a theory of conceptual in April 2005 to explore whether a bridge between the two
change must offer an analysis of the internal representations perspectives could be built. Well-known scholars who situate
of an individual but also relate them to the external represen- themselves mainly on one or the other side of the issue pre-
tations, that is, the situational factors as well as the cultural sented their current views on the enduring debate. Two dis-
artifacts (symbolic expressions or systems) that affect think- cussants, who also situate their work on one or the other side,
 INTRODUCTION 5

critically reviewed their arguments. The well-attended ses- conception of the situation at hand and the content being
sion was a great opportunity for an intensive discussion on talked about. If utterances are examined as the verbal actions
concepts, cognition, culture, and learning between the sym- of individuals who are communicating in the specific inter-
posium presenters and discussants, and among the panel and view setting, inferences about their underlying conceptions
audience members. The idea for this special issue arose in re- can be drawn properly and the bridge can be built.
sponse to this symposium. The goals was to bring this discus- In the third article Murphy posits that both cognitive and
sion to a wider audience to sharpen our understanding of the sociocultural influences are crucial catalysts in the change
frameworks that inform psychological and educational process. Moving from a philosophical analysis focused on
research, and to entertain the feasibility of an integration be- the differences between rationalism and empiricism with re-
tween them. We hope this issue will be useful not only for re- gard to the source and justification of knowledge, she situates
searchers in conceptual change, but for educational psycho- in the debate by focusing on the epistemic views that underlie
logists and educators in a variety of domains. It is the hope of cognitive and sociocultural approaches. Murphy examines
the contributors to this issue that other researchers will bene- students’ definitions of belief and knowledge, as well as their
fit from reflecting on the theoretical perspectives described understandings of the relations between belief and knowl-
in the following articles to conceive coherent research pro- edge, and proposes a framework for the analysis of concep-
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grams. The articles in this issue have implications beyond tual change process that is built on those understandings. She
conceptual change in areas as diverse as discourse analysis, documents that students draw on both cognitive processing
constructing learning environments, and designing instruc- and social interactions in framing their understandings. Stu-
tion. dents’ minds appear to reflect both perspectives: Students
In the first article Greeno and van de Sande propose that a hold coherent framework theories to think about phenomena,
bridge between the cognitive and sociocultural approaches but such theories are mediated by the discursive practice,
can be built simultaneously from both sides in a more sym- tools, and signs of the classroom. Murphy also provides evi-
metrical way than in previous efforts. The bridgehead on the dence that two pedagogical approaches—persuasive peda-
cognitive side describes information structures and processes gogy and collaborative reasoning—assume that conceptual
(schemata, propositional networks, goals) that serve as activ- change in students’ understandings involve the sociocultural,
ity organizers. They are not interpreted as properties of indi- motivational, and cognitive dimensions.
vidual cognitions, but rather as informational contents of In the fourth article Vosniadou argues that we can move
interactions in activity systems. The bridgehead on the socio- toward bridging the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives
cultural side begins with the idea of distributed cognition be- in research on conceptual change as long as we do not focus
tween the components of a system, that is, the individuals on either mental structures or sociocultural processes alone.
who interact within the system and the resources they use. Rather, she proposes we soften the boundaries between in-
The proposed bridge is not a mere combination of key con- side and outside the head. Vosniadou criticizes the radical po-
cepts taken from the two approaches. It has additional struc- sition of situativist scholars who maintain that the introduc-
ture, which aims at explaining the generation of information tion of external cultural artifacts, for instance a globe, as
structures in interaction. The authors introduce the notion of resources for reasoning can lead students to give totally dif-
“perspectival understanding” to give an account of how ferent responses compared with a situation with no artifacts.
learning a conception implies taking into account the point(s) On the basis of empirical studies, she underlines that even in
of view of an activity. By referring to a classroom episode in the presence of a globe, prior knowledge interferes with chil-
which a teacher and two students interact, the authors show dren’s reasoning. Nevertheless, Vosniadou acknowledges
that the construction of perspectival understanding, which is that cognitive perspectives cannot account for performances
a constraint-satisfaction process, is implied when learners do that are highly situated. To move forward in the debate, she
not possess or recognize a schema for successful problem proposes a theoretical position that keeps the advantages of
solving and reasoning. both approaches. The unit of analysis is not the individual,
In the second article Halldén, Haglund, and Strömdahl sit- but rather the individual’s activity situated in the physical and
uate in the debate by focusing on a methodological question, social environment and mediated by symbolic structures,
that is, the interpretation of interview data. Often interviews some internal and some external. Vosniadou refers to
are used to reveal aspects of the conceptual structures of the Hutchins (1998) notion of “cognition in the wild” to argue
interviewees: from what they utter, a researcher infers their that cognition should be considered in its natural habitat, so-
conceptions. The authors argue that within the cognitive ap- cial and cultural, without denying the influence of internal,
proach utterances are examined regardless of the impact that mental representations.
the context and discursive norms have on their production. In the first thought-provoking commentary, Alexander ex-
They maintain that utterances do not reflect mental entities, amines the four articles from the point of view of their per-
but rather are cultural tools that are used in discursive prac- spectives on the nature, source, and location of knowledge
tices. Halldén et al.’s attempt to bridge the two approaches is and argues that their theoretical frameworks imply the con-
their proposal for taking into account both the interviewee’s sideration of both the mind and social, interactional factors.
 6 MASON

In the second thoughtful commentary, Mercer analyzes search on conceptual change. Finally, my thanks go to all the
the four articles with the aim to underline their arguments reviewers who contributed to the quality of this issue.
against a crude and simple dichotomy between the two ap-
proaches in favor of a more complex and integrated theoreti-
cal resolution.
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