In the first issue of 2013 (36/1) the Prospectives section, launched in the second issue of 2012 and continued in the third and fourth issues, continues its development, featuring Stella Vosniadou's Model based reasoning and the learning of counter-intuitive science concepts.

As announced in the Editorial introduction of Infancia y Aprendizaje's new stage, all articles published in the Prospectives section will be freely accessible in the journal's electronic edition. We thus invite all our readers to view and spread the articles published in this section if they cater to their interest.

Read the abstract or access directly the full text article.

 

The capacity to create and manipulate models is a fundamental form of human reasoning and plays an important role in scientific discovery and in the learning of science. In this article I argue that model based reasoning is available even to very young children who are capable of constructing mental models to represent their everyday physical reality. These mental representations can act as mediators in the interpretation of counter-intuitive scientific information as well as in the understanding of cultural artifacts. Model based reasoning can be developed through appropriate instruction in ways that foster conceptual change processes and the learning of science.