1Third Misconceptions Seminar Proceedings (1993) Paper Title: The Lexical Analysis of Students ' "Scientific" Explanations: Implications for Learning Theory

Abstract: Words are the wagons we use to carry our concepts. If, as Novak (1977, p. 18) argues, "Concepts are what we think with, " then the words (concept labels) science students use betoken the degree of conceptual sophistication of their cognitive structures. Researchers in the alternative conceptions movement (ACM) have long recognized the importance of the words that science students choose to use in their spontaneous verbal explanations of natural phenomena, considering the propositions in which these words are embedded to be indicative of students ' understanding of science concepts and principles. In fact, the clinical interview is the research method of choice within the ACM principally because it is an effective generator of children's verbal knowledge claims about natural object