Chinese Journal of Science Education

Abstract

The main purposes of this study were to investigate the mental states of ninth grade students in learning about the concepts of plate tectonics in an earth science course, and to study the reasons behind the difficulties students had by investigating the impacts of mental states on conceptual learning. Based on the classifications of mental states (Liu and Hou, 2002), a questionnaire was developed to measure mental states in learning about the concepts of plate tectonics. The questionnaire was administered three times to eighty-eight ninth graders while they were learning about plate tectonics. After instruction, eleven students were selected for further interviews. The important findings showed that emotions, intentions, internal mental representations, and external mental representations of mental state were cross linked. The mental states of students while they were learning continuously affected achievement. Students with different levels of achievement had different changes in metal states during learning. For low-achievement students, the changes in the category of intention affected their learning the most. On the other hand, the middle-achievement and high-achievement students were affected mainly by the changes in the category of internal mental representations. Teachers can use this questionnaire to understand the mental states of their students and improve the mental states of students to promote their learning.

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