Getting Involved: Context-Based Learning in Chemistry Education - Affective Dimensions in Chemistry Education - page 59

scientific evidence. Students, for example, kept claiming that “mineral water is
cleaner” or “mineral water is more thoroughly controlled” or “mineral water is
more healthy,” as they did before the unit. The data were used to develop a
typology that distinguished three types of student argumentation:

• Group a: students arguing mainly with ingredients and health aspects
• Group b: students arguing mainly with taste and lifestyle
• Group c: students arguing mainly with habits and routines
Especially students of the first type (a) were, to some extent, open to scientific
evidence. As expected, most of the (very few) students (5 out of 80) who
changed their opinion after the module were in group a (4 out of 5). In our
interpretation, the reluctance to give up opinions bears stunning resemblance to
the reluctance of students to change scientific beliefs and concepts, as discussed
in the frameworks of conceptual change or growth (Chinn & Brewer, 1998 ;
Menthe, 2012 ; Pintrich, 1999 ). Analyzing the reasons of the students who chose
not to consider the scientific evidence showed that affective aspects (e.g., the
image, attitudes, or routines) were more important for them than the scientific
evidence.
2. The application of science knowledge depends largely on the context and its
connection to beliefs and attitudes. An interview study on the same topic
presented cases. For example, a female student explained her confusion after
the series of lessons because she was convinced that lime in tap water was bad
and harmful and was, therefore, a reason not to drink tap water. On the other
hand, she now knew that mineral water contained minerals like calcium ions and
that those minerals are useful nutrients. Though chemically equivalent, she did
not connect the two terms (“lime” and “mineral”); and her negative attitudes and
feelings toward lime impeded the combination of scientific evidence and her
prior knowledge. It is likely that similar mechanisms happen in many students

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minds on various topics. And often, the confusion is not even expressed by the
students: scientific concepts are only applied in chemistry lessons and do not
seem to touch daily-life beliefs.
More generally spoken, topics that are related to daily routines that contradict
convictions and beliefs (as the statement “mineral water is healthier”) or that
raise strong emotions (“I don t feel comfortable drinking tap water”) can restrict

the application of school science knowledge. These findings are in coherence
with assumptions of the conceptual change framework: students can react to
unexpected information in various ways, and “entrenched beliefs” make it more
likely that scientific evidence acquired in school is not applied and does not
change one

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s thinking in everyday contexts (Chinn & Brewer, 1993 ).
Our findings are also in agreement with psychologists

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discussions about the

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role of students prior judgments for decision-making processes (e.g., Haidt,

2001 ; Kahneman, 2012 ; Strack & Deutsch, 2004 ). Advocators of the “two-
process models” of information processing perceive decision making as always
being influenced by quick, intuitive affects, based on attitudes and beliefs, in
contrast

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to a rational choice view of decision making, where deciding is