‘The Hole in the Sky Causes Global Warming’: A Case Study of Secondary School Students’ Climate Change Alternative Conceptions

Year 2015, Volume: 5 Issue: 3, 316 - 331, 31.12.2015

Chew-hung Chang , Liberty Pascua

Abstract

This study identified secondary school students’ alternative
conceptions (ACs) of climate change and their resistance to instruction. Using
a case-based approach, a diagnostic test was administered to Secondary 3 male
students in a pre-test and post-test. The ACs identified in the pre-test were
on the causes of climate change, the natural greenhouse effect and its
properties, the enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the elements involved in
heat-trapping and their characteristics. There were also notable ACs on the
effects of climate change, mostly on how the phenomenon is related to
non-atmospheric events such as tsunami, earthquakes, acid rain and skin cancer.
The students confuse the Montreal with the Kyoto Protocol as the primary treaty
aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Whereas there was significant
improvement in students’ understanding in the post-test, the distribution of
responses for each of the ACs showed that the reduction in erroneous responses
was not sufficient to reject the ACs fully. The authors recommend that
instruction should move beyond patchwork pedagogy to a more explicit
acknowledgement, incorporation and direct refutation of misconceived knowledge
structures. 

Keywords

Climate change, geography education, alternative conceptions (ACs), resilient ACs, Singapore

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