THE ROLE OF ANALOGIES IN PROMOTING CONCEPTUAL CHANGE IN BIOLOGY

Four analogies which were used to teach biology topics by four differe nt teachers were analysed from different theoretical perspectives to d etermine the key role they had to play in the process of conceptual ch ange. A supermarket analogy for the classification of living things wa s described using the Posner et al. (1982) view of conceptual change a s having the role of a sense maker. A car cooling system analogy for h uman temperature homeostasis was found to play the role of a memory ai d and was best explained by considering Vosniadou's (1994) framework t heory and mental models perspective of conceptual change. A fluid mosa ic analogy for cell membranes was used by the teacher as a transformer and was best explained by Chi et al.'s (1994) ontological category pe rspective of conceptual change. Finally, a bucket and pump analogy use d to teach the structure and function of the heart was described as a motivator and was viewed through the motivational perspective of conce ptual change of Pintrich et al. (1993). The paper concludes that learn ing in different situations can best be explained by different perspec tives of conceptual change and that these perspectives have much to te ll us about the ''normal'' shifts in conceptual understanding as well as ''radical'' conceptual change.