Knowledge organization, hyperdocuments construction and Earth sciences teaching

Abstract

This paper was motivated by the strong need of preparing instructional materials in electronic support (CD-Rom and others) or its diffusion through information nets (internet), as well by the scarcity of research studies, under a constructivist view, in the area of Earth sciences. We tried to investigate whether there is a relationship between the type of hypertextual organization of information and the resulting type of learning and/or reasoning, attempting to understand which are the best solutions in terms of hypermedia documents construction. In order to support theoretically our study we used the theories of meaningful learning and cognitive flexibility. Two hyperdocuments, constructed with similar contents but different organization (hierarchically and in network) were applied to a sample of 31 students (14 5o 16 years). In the construction of the hyperdocuments studies by Chi et al. on conceptual change were also taken into account. Research findings suggest that hierarchical hypertextual structure seems to favor subordinate and superordinate meaningful learning associated to descriptive and classificative reasonings. However, the network hipertextual structure, while favoring cognitive flexibility, might stimulate progressive differentiation and integrative reconciliation promoting combinatoria l learning associated to interpretive and explicative reasonings.