Abstract

A research-based approach in science education suggests the didactic elaboration of pupils’ conceptions about science concepts at a more general level and particularly at obstacle level. Obstacle elaboration mainly aims at developing pupils’ competence to identify obstacles in new problems and control new manifestations of the obstacles so that they could avoid them in case they reappear. The present paper focuses on the evaluation of a teaching sequence which aims to develop pupils’ competence to identify an obstacle that refers to thermal equilibrium states. A teaching sequence, relevant to “identifying” the obstacle, was designed and implemented in primary school pupils (aged 11-12). The qualitative analysis of pupils’ oral and written discourse during the teaching sequence brings out the differences among the “pathways” followed towards the development of pupils’ competence to identify the obstacles as well as the contribution of different teaching situations to the identification of obstacles by the pupils.