JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 40, NO. 5, PP.

443–463 (2003)

Social Interaction and the Use of Analogy: An Analysis of Preservice Teachers’

Talk during Physics Inquiry Lessons

Randy K. Yerrick,1 Elizabeth Doster,2 Jeffrey S. Nugent,2

Helen M. Parke,2 Frank E. Crawley2
1
School of Education, North Education Building #90, San Diego State University,
San Diego, California 92182
2
East Carolina University, Flanagan Hall, Greenville, North Carolina 22858

Received 6 September 2002; Accepted 22 October 2002

Abstract: Analogies have been argued to be central in the process of establishing conceptual growth,
making overt connections and carryover into an intended cognitive domain, and providing a generative
venue for developing conceptual understanding inherent in constructivist learning. However, students’
specific uses of analogies for constructing arguments are not well understood. Specifically, the results of
preservice teachers’ knowledge gains are not widely studied. Although we would hope that engaging
preservice science teachers in exemplary lessons would assist them in using and generating analogies more
expertly, it is not clear whether or how such curricula would affect their learning or teaching. This study
presents an existence proof of how preservice science teachers used analogies embedded in their course
materials Physics by Inquiry. This fine-grained analysis of small group discourse revealed three distinct
roles of analogies including the development of: (a) cognitive process skills, (b) scientific conceptual
understanding, and (c) social contexts for problem solving. Results suggest that preservice teachers tend to
overgeneralize the analogies inserted by curriculum materials, map irrelevant features of analogies into
collaborative problem solving, and generate personal analogies, which counter scientific concept develop-
ment. Although the authors agree with the importance of collaborative problem solving and the insertion of
analogies for preservice teachers’ conceptual development, we believe much more needs to be understood
before teachers can be expected to construct and sustain effective learning environments that rely on using
analogies expertly. Implications for teacher preparation are also discussed. ß 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
J Res Sci Teach 40: 443–463, 2003

Scientific Arguments in Preservice Teacher Preparation

As science teacher educators we are interested in sharing with our teacher candidates
constructivist notions of learning and teaching. The construction of knowledge is contingent on

Correspondence to: R.K. Yerrick; E-mail: [email protected]

DOI 10.1002/tea.10084
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

ß 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

444 YERRICK ET AL.

the shared values and accepted methods of interaction in a given community. This notion of
knowledge construction is an integral part of the educational and psychological underpinnings of
current reform-based teacher recommendations. Knowledge construction can be characterized
as individual and collective, explicit and tacit, and cognitive and social. Our work has been
influenced by the body of research explicating the nature of scientific discourse (Latour &
Woolgar, 1986; Lemke, 1990; Traweek, 1988) as well as research that describes classroom
discourse, teacher beliefs, and interpretations students formulate about teaching and learning
before their enrollment in university teacher education (Brickhouse & Bodner, 1992; Duschl &
Wright, 1989; Hodson, 1993; Lantz & Kass, 1987; Lederman, 1992, 1995; Lortie, 1975). From
these two perspectives we propose to help science teacher candidates come to understand certain
norms of scientific discourse (e.g., the formulation of rational argumentation, the use of evidence
and backing), engage them in authentic problem settings (Schön, 1979), and assist students in the
practice of higher-order process skills (Roth, 1993; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993; Hammer, 1995;
Padilla, 1991). By facilitating collaborative problem solving through exemplary curricula we also
aim to assist prospective teachers in their interpretation of science education reform
recommendations [American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1989;
National Research Council (NRC), 1996] that serve to guide future teacher evaluation and
research.
A large part of scientists’ work is the formulation of arguments and theoretical frameworks.
Many researchers have identified key components of these frameworks as emerging through
specific discourse norms and artifacts shared by the community.
Researchers argue that scientific communities have developed cogent analogies as ways to
gauge much of their native talk, work, and socialization of new members (Clement, 1989, 1993;
Lemke, 1990; Traweek, 1988). Scientists’ use of analogies in their reasoning has been well
documented (Glynn, Doster, & Law, 1997; Harre, 1961; Hesse, 1966; Nersessian, 1984).
However, researchers suggest that content experts such as scientists use analogies, metaphors, and
figures of speech in different ways than do students. One explanation for the discrepancy between
novice and expert use of analogies is the vast difference in the common ground they share to view
the world. For example, scientists collectively operate within a community that necessarily must
agree on a connected set of canonical constructs useful for explaining and predicting new events.
By contrast, novices communicate in groups using commonsense forms of rationality that are
often typified by a fragmented and disjunct set of immediate principles that may or may not be
useful in describing future events.

Analogies as Intellectual and Social Tools for Sense Making

Recent literature has focused on the use of analogies as a tool for constructing classroom
knowledge. Some researchers (Clement, 1988; Glynn, 1994; Schön, 1979) have suggested that
analogies are useful for helping students make comparisons between personal knowledge and
alternative perspectives, whereas others have extended this claim toward a more metacognitive
examination of the consistency and refinement of personal understanding (Wong, 1993).
Researchers have also argued the usefulness of analogies for the various purposes of establishing
conceptual growth, providing a generative venue for developing conceptual understanding
inherent in constructivist learning (Wong, 1993), and performing a dynamic role in making overt
connections and carryover into an intended cognitive domain (Gentner, 1983; Gick & Holyoak,
1983; Wong, 1993).
There has been a concerted effort to write curricula with the intention of immersing students
into problem-rich spaces and providing more scientific analogies to guide novices in the
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 445

comparisons of other ways of making sense of available evidence (Camp et al., 1994; McDermott
et al., 1996; Steinberg, 1992). Throughout these exemplary curricula, opportunities are woven
for students to engage in scientific process skills. Science concepts and inserted analogies are
objects of student testing, application, and scrutiny as students formulate hypotheses, design
data collection, identify pertinent variables and interpret, transform, and analyze data—process
skills that are promoted by several reform documents (AAAS, 1989, 1993; NRC, 1996).
Conceptual change curricula integrate efforts to elicit students’ experiences and prior knowledge
and to engage students in authentic applications of expert representations. Studies confirm that
process skills need not be taught as separate entities in as much as higher-order process skills
develop in their sophistication among students in a variety of settings (Hammer, 1995; Roth,
1993).
There is much uncertainty surrounding effective inquiry teaching. Indeed, the challenge of
controlling and orchestrating cognitive growth has been a source of much consternation for
curricula authors. Roth (1993) argued that cognitive skills are not context independent or easily
transferable. Rather, cognitive skills often are bound to the context in which they are developed
and practiced. Other researchers have found that guided-inquiry lessons represent cogent
activities and rational scientific arguments; research reveals that students engaging in these
activities often maintain their own sense making for reasons other than rationality (Eichinger et al.,
1991; Richmond & Striley, 1996; Roth, 1994, 1995; Vellom, 1993). One weakness the cognitive
study of analogies has revealed is the limited examination of the social and cognitive uses of
analogies as separate purposes. The reality of classrooms requires that teachers consider complex
group interactions, including those in which they are prominent players, to make sense of their
actions as a learner and a teacher.

Purpose of Study
Recognizing that preservice teachers construct their own understanding of science, we sought
to understand how preservice teachers interpreted curricular materials that promoted both explicit
use of analogies for understanding physical science and that facilitated practice of process skills in
a guided inquiry environment. We explored the use of analogies in naturalistic settings. Given the
uncertainty of personal and collective sense making and the ordered, seemingly rigid structure of
some curricula, we sought to examine the possibilities for how students might use analogies and
process skills in collaborative problem-solving sessions. In doing so we produced an existence
proof to explicate some of the uses of analogies, knowing that students of this background will not
completely embrace nor effectively use analogies in their normal discourse. To this end we asked:
How do preservice science teachers use and interpret analogies embedded in collaborative inquiry
physics activities?

Methods

Instruction
Data for the study were gathered in a physical science course for preservice teachers.
Classroom structure and interactions were organized around collaborative group problem solving,
journal writing, and guided inquiry. Students commonly worked in groups of 3 or 4 to conduct
investigations, gather evidence, and construct models to help them explain the functioning of
simple electric circuits involving bulbs, wires, and batteries. The majority of class time was
446 YERRICK ET AL.

devoted to small-group work in which students explored and discussed their own understandings
of scientific concepts with little direct input from the instructor. Traditional instructional strategies
such as lecturing and teacher-led demonstrations were largely absent from the class interactions
that we observed. There were, in contrast, a number of whole-class discussions initiated by the
instructor that were concerned with providing a rationale and justification for the class structure.
The final component structuring the course, guided inquiry, was influenced by at least three
distinct but connected factors: the programmed course materials that served as the lens to focus
student inquiry, collaborative group interactions, and both individual and group discussions with
the instructor.
Physics by Inquiry (PBI), the instructional materials for the laboratory-based investigations,
were developed by Lillian McDermott and the Physics Education Group (1988) at the University
of Washington. These materials consisted of a series of carefully designed modules to assist
students in developing a sound understanding of basic concepts of electricity, as well as the
scientific reasoning skills needed to apply these concepts to the everyday world. Working in small
collaborative groups, students conducted investigations and used their observations as evidence
for constructing explanations and models for electric phenomena. The basic design of each section
began with experiments, followed by exercises directly related to and expanding on the
experiments, and finally the resolution of a hypothetical dispute between two students. Intentional
gaps were designed into the modules to encourage students to develop the capacity to apply the
concepts learned in a particular context to a novel situation. Although developing the capacity to
apply learned concepts to novel situations is a core notion in the construction of scientific
knowledge, this process is not often promoted by traditional science textbooks. However, the fact
that a primary feature of PBI is intended to encourage students to apply their knowledge in
multiple settings reveals the reasons for its selection and use.

Data Collection
Three professors and one graduate student served as primary researchers for the study.
Researcher roles within the class were varied, although all fell along Patton’s (1990) continuum of
possible roles for the participant-observer. The graduate student researcher had an additional
appointment as a bona fide member of the class, and as such his role at the study site was largely
participatory. We did not attempt to conceal his identity as a researcher: Other members of the
class were informed of his status at the beginning of the semester. The remaining researchers
assumed more detached roles, one as a complete observer and the other as a primary observer who
occasionally participated in small-group discussion.
Primary data sources included nearly 16 hours of videotaped class meetings of both large- and
small-group interactions, field notes, student journals, and researcher journals. Data sources were
gathered and organized into a research catalog to facilitate data analysis. Student journals and field
notes were chronologically correlated to each videotape. A list of general open-ended questions
regarding students’ participation and investigation within the group guided the initial inquiry.
These correlations served not only as sequential markers but also as important sources for
comparative analysis of the videotaped episodes. Copies of daily researcher journal entries were
also included in the research catalog. Our data collection was focused on understanding what
sense the group members were making of the activities, what prior knowledge influenced their
thinking, and what reasons they provided for thinking in the ways that they did.
In summary, the research catalog consisted of the videotape index documents, copies of
student journal entries for that day, our own notes and comments, and references to the supporting
materials the students happened to be working with on that particular day.
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 447

Data Analysis
We viewed each video as soon as possible after taping and constructed an initial catalog
document to index each videotape using a software package called CVideo. The initial tape
viewing involved indexing or tagging real-time markers of the tape to which we added descriptive
text of the interaction to facilitate later viewing. These documents with tagged times and
descriptive text were constructed for each tape and became the central component of a research
catalog, which was maintained for each tape. Given the recent focus on understanding how student
argumentation influences learning (Eichinger, 1993; Eichinger & Anderson, 1991; Gil-Perez &
Carrascosa-Alis, 1994; Kuhn, 1993), we were especially interested in how the group worked
through the hypothetical debate sections of the PBI materials and the reasons they provided for
agreement or disagreement.
The initial index documents served as an organized record of the data as well as a research tool
to facilitate later viewing and analysis of the tapes. After construction of all the initial documents
for each tape was complete, the research team returned to the tapes to review each of them for
possible emerging patterns in group interactions and problem-solving strategies. Members of the
research team analyzed tapes on an individual and group basis with the team meeting for
discussion at least once a week. Data analysis continued for several months. From the original
index documents we constructed a primary analysis of each tape that included more in-depth
descriptions of group interactions as well as partial transcriptions of student dialogues. The
collection of each analysis document then combined to form a more focused picture of the video
data. The complete dialogue from these portions were transcribed verbatim for further analysis.
During the secondary analysis of the data, the collection of key classroom episodes were reviewed
again for the purposes of identifying detailed patterns and for comparative analysis of problem-
solving strategies and group interactions. Emergent patterns and themes from the primary analysis
served as a guiding framework for the secondary analysis of data. The construction and reflection
entries provided researchers with critical insight into how the students were making sense of the
learning tasks.
In subsequent sections, we provide verbatim transcripts and the researchers’ analysis of data
vignettes. Through the analysis of the discussions that occurred within the key collaborative
group, our main concerns are to reveal the tacit ways in which talking science (Gallas, 1995)
developed within the group and to consider how group members supported the learning that
occurred.

Results
Our results focus on the interplay of three aspects that shape the use of analogies in solving
scientific problems in collaborative groups: (a) the role of analogies in learners’ conceptual
understandings of learners, (b) the inquiry processes supported and confounded by students’ use of
analogies, and (c) the social fabric of collaborative settings and its effect on personal and scientific
analogies. Each of these were found to be brought to the problem-solving foreground at different
junctures, and at times it was difficult to determine which of these three aspects was ultimately the
driving force behind the constructed meaning of the learning tasks. The use of analogies in
collaborative work often shaped the students’ individual and collective interpretation of the
instructional intent of PBI, discussion of available evidence gathered from PBI activities,
tangential experimentation unintended by the PBI text, and, subsequently, the negotiated next
course of action as students worked through their activities. Our goal is to provide an existence
proof for the flexible and nonrational approaches that students employ with exemplary curricula in
448 YERRICK ET AL.

collaborative problem-solving settings. We report in the following sections attributes that best
define the use of analogies of students we observed: (a) students’ opportunity to challenge beliefs
through the use of analogies, (b) students’ overgeneralization of analogies inserted by curricular
materials, (c) students’ mapping irrelevant features onto analogies, and (d) students’ generation of
personal theories elevated to the role of analogy and employed for a variety of purposes.
The excerpts from classroom dialogue we report stand in sharp contrast to traditionally
structured classroom discourse patterns. For the most part, student discussions took place with
limited direction and input from the instructor. Whenever possible, we use a chronological report
of these excerpts so that the reader may have a better sense of the evolving nature of
experimentation and social interactions as we recorded this small group working together for 6
weeks (18 hours) of instruction.

Assertion 1: Curricular Insertion of Analogy Provided Challenges for Personal Beliefs

and an Authentic Backdrop for Practicing Inquiry Process Skills
The insertion of appropriate analogies for limiting ambiguity and addressing naive
interpretations of evidence is a common theme of many research-driven curricular documents.
Analogies serve a primary function in promoting conceptual development of core scientific ideas
as well as promoting the practice of process skills representative of scientific activity. In our results
the most efficient student use of analogies was the curricular insertion of an appropriate analogy or
model for the purpose of focusing student learning. Such activities are carefully structured to
involve students in gathering discrepant data, present students with appropriate analogies that
contrast commonsense understandings, and facilitate students’ functional use of these analogies
by explaining and predicting future events using the analogies. The PBI text asks

Does the observation suggest that the flow in an electric circuit is one way (e.g., from the
battery to the bulb) or round trip (e.g., from the battery to bulb and back again through the
battery)? Explain.

What does your answer above suggest is a major difference between the flow in an electric
circuit and the flow of water in a river? (McDermott, 1996, pp. 390)

In the following excerpts, students who had been studying electricity were asked to explain
whether electricity flows in one or two directions within the circuit. The curricular insertion of the
analogy of river flow promoted the engagement in fundamental processes of scientific inquiry.
Having completed part of their investigations, students began negotiating what counted as
evidence, debating multiple points of view, and constructing models to explain scientific
phenomena related to simple electric circuits. For example, students were jointly deciding what
kinds of common experiences can be used to talk about flow and how relevant each of the pieces of
evidence are to the problem at hand.

Chris: [Reading aloud] In what way does the flow of electric current differ from the water
in the river? [To the group] Is it the actual electron moving? Is it the areas of
impulse moving?
Mike: I think the river is completely different.
Curt: Yeah, I do, too.
Mike: I think it might be compared to maybe a wave in the ocean or something. Where a
wave is different water and it isn’t the same water stretched across the ocean or
something. I think that is a better analogy there.
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 449

Chris: That’s a good point. That’s kind of what I was saying. Are they looking at a river
like from Point A to Point B and only the difference would be the mass? Or are they
looking at an electron going from . . . //
Mike: That’s what it sounds like to me. They’re wanting us to say there is one electron
moving here. Now is that what you get from that question?
Jeff: Yeah, I think they’re linking up that idea, but I am trying to follow the first question
about whether it is asking about one way and a river that goes around. Or is it about
a river flows out into a lake and stops and then goes back into the river again?
That’s how I am understanding the question.
Chris: Hmmm.
Chris: So if you compared it that way, then you’re not thinking that they’re similar in any
way. Because when the river flows on, it doesn’t return to the source except in the
evaporation phase. Where electrons flow atom per atom, add an electron moving
down a path. They may be similar in that manner. I think that you’re right [Mike]. I
think they’re talking about a river that goes one way.
Mike: I don’t understand this one-way thing. I think that they’re trying to get us . . . //
Chris: The concept let’s say the water flows one way. Let’s say that what he says is
true, the water flows down over a waterfall and returns back to its source. I think
that . . . //
Mike: Is that the way it is?
Chris: I think that is the concept they are looking for here and we have to say, ‘‘No, it’s
not.’’ The water goes on and on and on and it runs into the ocean and the ocean runs
into something else and the only way we get it back is through a different system.
Mike: Why is it dissimilar? Is it because it’s evaporating . . . ?

It is clear students are using a curriculum-generated analogy and not a personal analogy as
students refer to the author’s intended use in the third-person ‘‘they’’ (10, 24, 26). At this stage in
the investigation students are interpreting the intentions of the author and actively negotiating the
meaning of the author’s voice and purpose. The questions raised about the use of the inserted
analogy are in part an exercise in exploring the social parameters of the text and manipulatives
students were given. After all, in their minds, students are acting within a social context of learning
physics in a university classroom rich with meaning and hidden curricula implied in grading
procedures and correct answers. Questions like these are anticipated because inquiry-based
approaches are not common experiences for preservice elementary science teachers. Prospective
elementary science teachers are not encouraged or regularly provided with opportunities to
practice science in ways that promote experimental design, hypothesis generation, or individual
interpretation, and these students believed it was important that they accurately interpret the text
and their task within this social context. Mike’s and Jeff’s challenges serve to clarify the group’s
contextual use of the analogy (5, 8, 16–18) and to help to bound the appropriateness of the group’s
use with the intentions of the author and the usefulness of the analogy in synthesizing available
evidence.
In addition to the general inquiry processes implicit in this PBI task and the evolving social
context, the analogy promoted the insertion of students’ prior experience. The inserted analogy
provided a venue for inserting individual conceptions of flow for both water and electricity. During
the process of interpretation students made their conceptual understanding more explicit to one
another through a range of experiences and personal constructions activated by the inserted
analogy. Analysis of student arguments revealed several conceptions of current flow, including

 current as a river flowing in one direction

 current as conserved as in the case of the water cycle conserving energy and Mikeer
450 YERRICK ET AL.

 current driven by forces represented as waterfalls and flowing rivers

 current as an impulse wave phenomenon versus individual charge migration
 current altered by the shape of the conduit as in the case of a hose and water pressure, and
 current represented by charges traveling on highways (both one-way and divided
highways).

These personal constructions arose spontaneously from arguments concerning both the com-
monly observed phenomena as well as the intention of the curricula. Student contributions freely
moved from discussions of how the electrical charge migrated in the wire to discussions of what
the author expected students to know at their stage of the activities. Flipping forward and
backward through the curricula and making comments such as ‘‘So what do we write in this
space?’’ revealed a complex, nonlinear kind of discourse in which students continually juggled
conceptual versus contextual parameters.
The small-group collaborations generated many interpretations and provided a venue for
negotiating ways of deciding what counts. However, not all ideas hold equal predictive power in
science. Therein lies a tension for having students generate from their own personal knowledge
and observation to arrive at the intended goal conception. Coupled with the PBI goal of soliciting
contrary private beliefs is the confrontation of less useful ideas through data collection and theory
development. During one of the small-group interactions Chris led many rounds of brief debates
surrounding the actual motion of electrons in comparison to river water motion. After all
members’ personal interpretations had been voiced, the group appeared to agree on a use of the
analogy that was not only compatible with the author’s use, but brought them to the desired
outcome of concluding that a circuit is a round trip flow of charge.

Mike: What is a round trip, anyway? I don’t understand. Is it . . .

Jeff: Right. So is the flow of the river similar or dissimilar to the flow of the circuit?
Frank: Right cause if you say it’s one way then you say that the battery is . . .
Chris: You’re saying it goes off in the distance and it never goes back to the battery. That’s
what we’re saying in essence.
Jeff: That would be a one-way flow.
Chris: Yes one way. A round trip would be it goes out into the circuit and comes . . . //
Frank: I don’t think . . .
Chris: // . . . back to the battery.
Frank: I don’t think that they’re talking about groundwater and that sort of thing. With
precipitation and the water cycle and the river flowing and that sort of thing.
Chris: No I think they’re probably . . . it goes on forever [pause] . . . Unless indeed we’re
talking does it mean it takes kind of like what we we’re taking about [Mike]
physically, like we’re talking about an atom or electron moving down a line.
Jeff: Is it a round trip? Is that what you guys are arguing for?
Mike: Is it an electric circuit?
Jeff: Yeah. Electric.
Mike: I think so.
Frank: I think it’s one way, but it’s meeting one way [gestures hands from both ends of the
battery meeting in the middle at the bulb].
Jeff: I think where you get to Section 2.3 where the students are where they’re arguing
about that . . . .We’re asked to resolve the dispute between two students, I think
that’s the place where we resolve the point that we’re at right now.

The power of a single analogy for becoming a conduit for generating student discussion is
evident in this interaction despite the accurateness of students’ prior beliefs. There is one
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 451

exception to this group consensus during the use of the flow analogy. Frank harbored what
researchers (Osborne & Freyberg, 1985; Ball, McDiarmid, & Anderson, 1989; McDermott, 1996)
clearly documented as a common naive conception about the flow of electrical charge and the
production of light. Frank supported the position that flow is unidirectional, but through his
objections and hand gestures (57–59) revealed that he believed that charges flow from both ends of
the battery and meet at the bulb to produce light.
The PBI authors were well aware of this reasoning and thoughtfully built experiences into
subsequent activities to challenge students’ notions. The group members continued to synthesize
past activities and discussions to bolster their claim that electrical charge did in fact circulate in a
round trip, one-way path of flow out one end of the battery, through the bulb and back to the other
end of the battery. Only Frank appeared to maintain an alternative belief about the flow, conceding
that flow was one way but from both ends of the battery. Although there is little direct evidence
available to contradict Frank’s interpretation, conservation laws and the usefulness of other
interpretations are intended to replace Frank’s view. However, in the interest of the emotional
comfort of the group, the intention of the curriculum was subverted for a more consensual
yet artificial agreement. Jeff attempted make the activity go more smoothly but at the same
time missed the opportunity to confront the naive notion that current flows from both ends of the
battery.
It is evident that the social context of the group compromised the intended opportunity to
critically examine Frank’s naive conception of the flow analogy as well as other personal
constructions. In some ways Frank was allowed to believe he was correct in that his group
members chose to postpone or squelch argument selectively. Without an expert to draw attention
to imperative nuances in inquiry processes, scaffold alternative discourse, and redirect student
efforts, students will negotiate their own uses of curricula for their shared purposes. These
examples represent a challenge to curricula writers aiming for a singular conceptual outcome.
Some authors have even argued that inappropriate usage of analogies does more harm than good
and may even lead students to formulate somewhat complex misconceptions (Duit, 1991; Gilbert,
1989; Thagard, 1992). When students engage in unsupervised use of analogies in logical
reasoning, the danger of forming misconceptions arises as ideas are overgeneralized and
connections are drawn among noncorresponding features of the concepts (Glynn, 1994).

Assertion 2: Students’ Engagement in Curricula Separate from

Their Instructor’s Guidance Allowed Opportunities to Adapt Analogies Incorrectly
and Subvert Synthesis and Disagreement during Collaborative Work
Students used the analogies presented in PBI in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes.
Inserted analogies such as flow were instrumental in expanding students’ process skill expertise.
Routinely students would engage in a cycle of posing hypotheses, designing data collection
procedures, and discussing their individual interpretations while inserting and reevaluating their
use of analogies such as flow. Less time was spent daily in reading and interpreting instructions and
more time was spent on performing generating experiments—some of which lay outside of the
intended focus of PBI—evidence of the level of engagement and student interest generated by the
inquiry setting.
Despite the provision of focus for problem solving and data synthesis, analogies often
provided students with opportunities to distort the intention of the inserted analogies. This
occurred in at least two different ways: (a) Students transferred other features onto analogy that
rendered it inappropriate to the desired concept, and (b) students overgeneralized the use of
analogies. These deviations from the intended use of analogies were primarily observed when the
452 YERRICK ET AL.

group was functioning in small collaborative (4 members) and not whole-class discussions
following the hypotheses generation and data collection surrounding their investigations with
electrical circuits.
During several small-group discussions analogies that had been inserted in prior lessons
would reemerge and spiral into a host of other kinds of representations of the initial, more
simplified analogy. The role of the analogy in group discussion served as an aggregating point for a
variety of personal experiences, only some of which maintained the conceptual integrity of the
inquiry. For example, while investigating the heat of the wire and resistors at different points of
the circuit, students were asked to debate the notion of conservation of current and the origin of the
heat and light energy observed leaving the circuit. In just a few short minutes the students went
from introducing the original flow analogy to adding the features of water speed, conduit diameter,
and direction of charges. Although these are important attributes, their introduction launched the
group into comparisons of automobiles as charges, fumes or emissions as light, and blood
converting food to energy. In their fervor to assimilate experiences and observations into new
schema, students often added features to analogies that promoted misconceptions. The freedom
to adapt analogies to personally significant events often led to misuse of the analogy and the
promotion of misconceptions in unrelated content areas (e.g., blood flow does not convert food
into energy). Instead of analogies serving continually to refine and converge experiences with
canonical scientific knowledge, analogies were just as likely to result in discussion of
misconceptions than expert conceptions as students found it important, even necessary, to insert
other ways of speaking about current that the lesson structure did not supply.
Another example of misuse of the intended analogy was seen in students’ tendencies to
overgeneralize the usefulness and appropriateness for interpreting experiments. Analogies
supplied a necessary framework for conceptual development for co-constructing common
understanding of rather complex scientific representations. The utility of the flow analogy requires
the juxtaposition of opposing models against the synthesis of data—data that have implied
significance and do not supply direct proof or refutation of hypotheses. In the following excerpt,
Frank attempted to promote his naive model for the third time, arguing current flowed from both
ends of the battery. The focus of the intended task was to use the heat given off by the wire as
evidence of what current is and how it flowed within the wire. Frank’s notion is a commonly held
naive conception that PBI curricular authors anticipated—hence their inclusion of structured
investigations of the wire’s induced magnetic fields, conservation of the wire’s mass and charge,
and polarity of devices in circuits. Instead of debating Frank’s conception using any of these ideas
or data, the group sidestepped Frank’s contribution yet another time through Chris’s over-
generalizing flow as through a garden hose to explain why the wire heated up.

Frank: It’s about like a highway; everybody is going to start at one place but some people
are going to get off at the exits . . . at the light bulb you’ll lose some, you lose some
through the heat of the bulb, you lose some through the heat of the wire, you
lose some through the heat of the battery . . . but eventually some of it gets around
to the end . . . I’m not sure how it completes the circuit . . . so the other stuff can get
back out the other end.
Mike: I think it compares to like a wave in the ocean because a wave is different water
stretching across the ocean, I think that’s a little better analogy there.
Jeff: So is it a round trip?
Mike: I think so.
Frank: I say it’s one way but that it’s meeting in the middle that causes the electric[ity].
The positive and the negative are meeting and that forms the electricity.
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 453

Mike: So you’re saying that something is traveling this way and at the same time
something is coming out here traveling this way and then they meet? So there is no
return . . . it’s one-way?
Frank: No return at all.
Curt: What would happen if I assumed I had a pump here, not a battery a pump; I had a
hose and connected the hose together, and right here I put some sort of spinning
wheel . . . maybe because the element here has got more resistance . . . that’s the
reason it’s getting hot because it slowed something down . . . but let’s say for
instance I put a spinning wheel in the middle. Is that water not going to come back
here to be pumped? And doesn’t the system cause it to have the same pressure even
after the middle?
Mike: You think it has the same pressure here after it’s turned the wheel?
Curt: Yeah, because of the size of the tube, and I’m looking at the battery as a water
pump it provides the force it needs to shoot that thing out through the system.
Mike: So the energy coming through this wire is the same as energy coming through this
wire?
Chris: Just slower because these two restricters are slowing it down.
Mike: I understand what you’re saying; I’m just having trouble comprehending it. I just
have this picture of the flow of current as being the power source.
Chris: Compare this to a highway: Nobody can enter or exit; you come in one side you got
to go out the other side. The lights may slow them down, but they stay on the
highway.
Mike: But something is leaving that highway in the form of light energy you know . . .
Chris: We’re calling it something else; in this case let’s call the cars current . . .

[Discussion continued for 10 minutes as Frank watched silently.]

Frank inserted his personal highway model as another equally valid tool for explaining
available evidence connecting current flow and the ways that cars travel on a highway (74–80).
Frank clarified to others that his notion of positive/negative charge flow complemented his
highway analogy. It seemed reasonable to Frank that adding opposite charges will somehow
produce the energy seen as light emerging from the filament. Frank’s conception contrasted the
intended concept accepted by the other group members that moving negative charges lose their
kinetic energy as it is transformed into light and heat by the filament. The group members,
however, did not capitalize on the opportunity to contrast these conceptions but instead avoided
debating Frank’s conception although the highway model of flow in two directions supported both
models in the creation of light in a circuit.
How could the authentic engagement in inquiry process skills and solicitation of conflicting
conceptions be subverted and not result in PBI’s intended debate? Our answer was found
repeatedly in the social dynamics of the group. Many researchers studied the members’ roles in
collaborative problem solving (Eichenger, 1993; Vellom, Anderson, & Palincsar, 1993; Roth,
1995) and found that agendas within the group superceded intentions of curricular tasks. In the
case of our 4-member collaborative group, progress through the tasks of PBI was perceived as slow
by group members because they often encountered impasses to consensus. Such impasses were
often precipitated by social agendas at work within the group rather than the nature of the
discrepant data or concepts themselves. For example, Chris, a dominant member, often controlled
the direction of discussions toward his own unique synthesis. Chris, an older student who entered
into the teaching ranks laterally, was a talkative and charismatic student able to lobby support for
his ideas for reasons other than their rationality. Sometimes Chris would overgeneralize the
intended meaning of analogies to demonstrate his mastery or to avoid criticism of his own
454 YERRICK ET AL.

adaptations. One of the tactics Chris invoked was the extrapolation of a single analogy for
generalizing common experiences he wanted to promote. Chris repeatedly demonstrated his savvy
in maintaining the focus on his own conceptions, sometimes even inserting incorrect but scientific-
sounding explanations like Bernoulli’s principle and Newton’s laws.
The fallout of one or two individuals’ control over group discussion topics was most evident in
student journals’ daily reflections on the learning experience. Frank demonstrated in his journal
the differences between outer compliance and inner appropriation of the tasks. Frank did not favor
working in this group though two of his partners evaluated learning in this way positively. In part
Frank’s reservations were attributed to the uncertainty of the task and partly because of the
exclusion of his own ideas. In his daily journal Frank reflected on the difficulties of being asked to
construct knowledge that he thought was better to receive first. Frank also extended his frustrations
into predictions of the usefulness of these inquiry investigations in his plans for future teaching.

I am ready to suspend the problem because I am tired of talking about it. I don’t think it is
that big of a deal. As far as real-life experience, as long as the light works and turns on, I’m
happy . . . We seem to go off on tangents on specific experiments . . . I won’t do this with my
own students. We don’t even know what the words mean. We’re struggling just to get that
first . . . It’s hard for me. I wouldn’t use the same approach with my students because I feel
like we need some background knowledge before we jump into it and we don’t have it. I
don’t remember doing it in elementary school and I feel like an elementary student
learning this for the first time myself.

Clearly Frank perceived working through personal and collective sense making in this way as
too frustrating and uncertain. Frank never acquired the means to generate tests for emerging ideas
or influence his group’s means to prove or promote different conceptions. Further analysis of
Frank’s journal revealed that he held traditional views of teaching and how children learn. Frank
had come to expect that his teachers would regularly disseminate answers coupled with positive
reinforcement for recitation of laws and observable facts. Frank also thought that it was wrong and
harmful to allow students to define unpredictable paths of inquiry—designing their own tests for
emerging questions—or to flounder in speculation without immediate closure.
After this third exclusion of his idea, Frank chose simply not to engage in subsequent
discussions for several class meetings, deliberately weighing his contributions. Several have
argued that teachers’ beliefs drive their interpretations of learning experiences and Frank’s case is
further proof that preservice majors’ experiences are profoundly influenced by beliefs they bring
to teacher education courses and that Lortie’s (1975) socialization process occurs in teachers
during their K–12 experiences as students. If preservice candidates believe that science is a set of
facts to be acquired through traditional or hands-on methods, they will likely rate the experience of
inquiry promoted by materials such as PBI as not useful for promoting understanding, and perhaps
even harmful in their preparation as teachers.

Assertion 3: Students’ Personal Theories Often Functioned as Analogies Given Equal

or Greater Weight to Inserted Analogies during Collaborative Inquiry
Over the course of data collection, small groups were observed to engage in design and
analysis tasks longer and more expertly used process skills to resolve interpretive discrepancies as
well as problem generation. Our findings coincide with those of other researchers (Roth, 1993,
1994) that the learning curve for participation in collaborative inquiry settings is initially steep but
results in fundamental shifts in the rules of group discourse and the tasks they design and engage
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 455

in. However, their demonstrated increased proficiency and resultant confidence sometimes led
them to insert their own personal theories in place of those offered by the curriculum. We
distinguish the insertion of a personal analogy from the use of intended analogies on the basis of
the explicit connection to present or past curricular artifacts. We also discriminate between the
insertion of personal experience versus the insertion of personal theories by the explanatory power
associated with its use. In short, if a student introduces an event or model intended to synthesize
observed data or promote a revised, cogent explanation that has not been introduced by the
curricula, he or she has introduced a personal theory. The following excerpt demarcates each by
way of example.

Curt: Right here for some reason they are at maximum . . . letting off all their energy
because of the restriction and speed and at this section here they have lost their
energy.
Jeff: Where did you get that idea from?
Curt: Spaceships. Spaceships when they hit their highest resistance they start glowing.
Jeff: Okay, now what’s going fast?
Curt: The electrons.
Mike: Its heating at different speeds at different places for some reason I don’t
know . . . when it gets out here it gets to pick up speed or energy until it gets to this
point where the air then maybe absorbs the heat and it cools until it gets to the
negative terminal.
Curt: Its just like a kid in the front yard; you got a gate and it’s gonna slow him down
until he opens it . . . if you put a light bulb in there that’s the gate which slows down
things and meters them. They have to come through at a certain rate . . . they are
squeezed through that resistance, but if I shut this it’s just like opening the gate; the
kid can run continuously right straight out.

In this example we observe both the insertion of personal experience and theory. Students are
engaged in analyzing temperature data they have collected from different positions in a complex
circuit. The PBI activity has directed students to use the curricular flow analogy for interpreting
varied phenomena to generate potential explanations for the heated wires. Chris inserted his
general knowledge of how spaceships heat upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, likening it to
electron’s speed and the heat released from the wire (101). Chris defined not only the variables of
temperature and current but also encouraged the group to make causal explanations for differential
heating of the wire. Two other group members demonstrated their acquired sagacity and refined
process skills by demanding clarity of the proposed explanation (103) and by using Chris’s
contribution to propose a new hypothesis (107).
The phenomenon of spaceship heating was different from the insertion of personal theory
such as the analogy of children passing through a gate in that it incorporated comments from his
group and promoted an overarching theory for the altered electrons’ speed and resistance of
electron movement in the wire. Chris’s gate analogy shared many attributes with prior PBI tasks
and was consistent for connecting direct evidence to scientific explanations—although transcripts
and other artifacts did not reveal its origins in the curricula. The gate analogy was an attempt to
explain the observed heat as the result of speeding electrons giving off energy, slowing them down
to an appreciable lowered reading on the thermometer. It was so compelling that it served as a
guiding precept in two subsequent investigations. Chris and Mike noticed that wires heated up in
certain parts of circuits and not others. Although the text directed students to compare complex
networks and later Kirchhoff’s rule, this group departed from the PBI text to investigate their
own hypothesis, left the lab to find thermometers, and designed experiments to measure the
456 YERRICK ET AL.

temperature of the wire at each junction. Students tried to prove their hypothesis using indirect
evidence—reading temperature and connecting it to the abrupt decrease in speed of electrons—to
make sense of what they had observed.
The insertion of a personal theory resulted in the promotion of certain desirable process skills
including the group’s ability to formulate hypotheses, plan and design experiments, and interpret
data (AAAS, 1989). There were, however, consequences resulting from the unbridled use of
personal analogies, including overlooking contradictory evidence, drawing incorrect conclusions,
and creating increased stress and uncertainty among group members. Mike and Chris designed
their circuit temperature around the assumption that the gate analogy was wholly accurate and
substantiated by differential heating of wires. To the group’s dismay, their results were con-
founding. In their initial tests, data confirmed their hypothesis for differential heating of the single
wire circuit. After a second run of the experiment, different results were obtained; all three
thermometers attached to the wire maintained equal readings. Two subsequent rounds of data
collection of experimental results were discrepant; all three thermometers attached to the wire
maintained equal readings. These unexpectedly contradictory data raised doubts and additional
questions for the group, engaging members in debate in which they reconsidered their prior
consensus regarding their personal theories. Uncertain about how to proceed, the group invented
the idea that larger wires have more resistance and smaller wires help charges move faster through
the wire. Instead of questioning the accuracy of the gate analogy, they discarded their non-
conforming data and generated an explanation adopted as a rule that ‘‘larger wires must offer more
resistance than smaller wires.’’
We were troubled by the group’s ability to retain the gate analogy as valid despite the available
evidence to refute it or limit its explanatory power. It appeared that the unabated usage of personal
theories as analogies allowed students to create reality rather than observe or measure it. We
investigated the origin and authority of this personal theory by examining student journals and
discussion transcripts. Mike believed that the larger area of the wire allowed it to hold and equally
distribute more heat, whereas Curt believed ‘‘the larger wire could hold more of the electricity’’
being sent through it by the battery. Both of these personal beliefs functioned to maintain the
original explanations for unequal heating of the wire promoted by the gate analogy. The problem
of discrepant data from the uniform temperature of the wire became a question of how the gauge of
the wire affects its temperature. However, scientists do not believe that electrons move at different
rates in different parts of simple circuit wires, that electrons come slamming to a stop at the first
resistor, or that air cools circuit wires differentially toward the negative end of the battery, as
students suggested. Though inaccurate, none of these explanations was refuted publicly among
group members. Rather, they were used to retain the personal theory as an appropriate analogy
though they contradicted McDermott’s intended conceptual outcomes for students.
Part of the social context that added to the bias of their experimentation was different
interpretations of the group task. We argue that the instructional context and students’ beliefs
about learning influence the acceptance of personal theories as analogies. In part personal theories
offer resolution to conflict, a kind of balm for uncomfortable debate and disagreement. In part,
personal theories also bound the problem and often divide it up into recognizable and manageable
parts. The following excerpt once again demonstrates the strong influence of social norms on the
texture of arguments involving analogies as students subverted the most well-intended inquiry
curricula.
Chris: I proved that both of them were the same brightness . . .
Frank: I think current is used up . . . Some of it is anyway.
Chris: Well, at one point I thought the same thing but I proved that the current was the
same throughout that wire; then it can’t be used up.
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 457

Frank: But you’re losing some to heat energy in that.

Chris: That’s what I was thinking at first too, but we came to the consensus . . .
Frank: If it wasn’t used up then the battery would never die.
Chris: The battery is not used up just the only thing is its ability to produce chemically . . .
Mike: Yeah, it gives it the chemical charge because that gets used up.
Chris: Well, it won’t produce any more electrons so the pump has stopped.
Frank: But ya see? Do we have to come to the same opinion?
Chris: No. Frank: Because this is where we get behind I mean . . . whatever.
Jeff: So what are you saying Frank? . . . What is your point again?
Frank: As far as electricity or moving on in the group?
Chris: No, but you’ve got a good point because in asking that I’m starting to: think . . . No,
I don’t have to agree; it’s good not to agree. But if we don’t agree somewhere one
of us is gonna go into the next step with the wrong analogy . . . Then we’ve got old
baggage; you’ve got to unlearn all those things and it’s harder to unlearn it.

Although the discussion began as an examination of a personal theory about the consumption
of charge in a battery, the debate was quickly stifled as Frank announced his discomfort of having
to reach consensus. Students adopted personal theories as analogies to end the arduous task of
reaching consensus within a collaborative group because they believed they were getting behind in
their work relative to the rest of the class. Clearly there existed a range of interpretations within the
group for what constitutes scientific knowledge, how it is acquired by students, and the role of
inquiry tasks in learning such knowledge. Students’ references to unlearning content, obtaining
only correct answers, and negotiating when and how consensus was reached demonstrate the
challenge of establishing norms of discourse within a small group—norms that shape the way
analogies are used and are essential to a positive and successful learning experience while
imparting profoundly different dispositions for learning science.
In our attempts to reconstruct students’ interpretations of tasks and their use of analogies in
collaborative contexts, we encountered reflections that did not always represent positive inquiry
experiences. Through interviews we explored students’ value of personal learning experience,
their conflicts they were experiencing between their personal beliefs about teaching and learning
their current tasks, and their plans for teaching their own students with such a model for
collaborative inquiry. These results were synthesized with journal entries, student commentary,
and group transcripts to reveal a wide range of interpretations within this one small group. The
range of perspectives and beliefs that students harbored while engaging in the PBI tasks
reveals the difficulty of establishing acceptable norms within a small group with strong histories
of what it means to do and know science in university classrooms. When group members do
not agree on the value of inquiry learning for themselves or their future students, it is unlikely
they will engage similarly or all attain similar expertise in conceptual understanding, use of
process skills, or desired social skills and dispositions associated with current views of scientific
literacy.

Conclusions
Our analysis of collaborative problem solving using PBI materials revealed that analogies
played a vital role in the individual and collective construction of scientific knowledge.
Specifically, students were observed to use electric circuit analogies for introducing and debating
prior knowledge and experience, increasing authentic engagement in problem solving, promoting
higher-order process skills, and negotiating a social climate necessary for substantive scientific
discourse. We concluded from the analysis of the evolving dialogue, interviews, artifacts
458 YERRICK ET AL.

collected, and student journals that analogies played a highly personalized role in developing rich
descriptions about electrical phenomena and related scientific conceptions.
Analogies also played a central role in the joint construction of that knowledge. As in the case
of PBI’s river flow analogy and Chris’s gate analogy, they gave voice and substance to private
knowledge and experience, acting like a handle onto which each member could grasp the public
ideas and evidence and pass them on to other members. Analogies gave students opportunities to
test hypotheses related to current flow and practice other higher-order process skills central to
reform rhetoric as documented by other researchers. Students’ proficiency increased in (a)
identifying and defining pertinent variables, (b) interpreting and analyzing data, (c) planning and
designing experiments, and (d) formulating hypotheses. As demonstrated in the group’s
investigation of heat released from the circuit’s resistors, students not only engaged in hypothesis
testing and data analysis, the analogies and subsequent personal theories extended their process
skills to actually formulating new hypotheses and designing data collection to test their
hypotheses. The frequent use of analogies was most likely influenced by PBI’s inherent student
accountability to complete investigations, decide what counted as evidence, debate multiple
points of view, and construct models to explain scientific phenomena related to simple electric
circuits.
Analogies served as a both tools for sense making as well as a backdrop for interpreting
students’ use of larger conceptual frameworks. Students used analogies for interpreting observed
evidence at the same time analogies and assisted them in talking about phenomena in a way which
members found inviting. However, group members took certain liberties in their appropriation of
analogies inserted by the curricula. Group members overgeneralized the validity of analogies in
certain problem contexts. Students also mapped inappropriate properties onto the given analogies.
For example, students extrapolated from the highway model the notion that light energy acts like
fumes from cars and that the corresponding energy was produced in similar ways. An unfortunate
feature of this particular group’s social context was that many of these misapplications of
analogies went unchecked because the group avoided most direct confrontations.
Not only did group members demonstrate a strong tendency to overgeneralize analogies and
map irrelevant features from the analogy to the target concept, they also engaged in the generation
of their own analogies that emerged first as personal theories, many of which were poor conceptual
matches for the target concept. David Wong (1993) suggested the value and importance of
students’ constructing their own understandings for scientific phenomena. He identified self-
generated analogies as playing a significant role in the development of new understandings not
only in classrooms, but also in scientific communities. Self-generated analogies serve to make new
situations familiar while also encouraging the development of multiple explanations as opposed to
the strict pursuit of a single correct answer. However, sometimes self-generated analogies were
treated with equal or greater authority than the intended analogy, which often resulted in harbored
misconceptions about the scientific phenomena they investigated. Although this type of
interaction is arguably characteristic of the scientific endeavor, during the course of the study the
repeated and frequent formation of misconceptions resulted in a notable degree of frustration and
anxiety for the students. Our study suggests that when students are working collaboratively with
guided inquiry materials, frequent questions and guidance from the instructor may be effective in
averting many of these extended conceptual detours.
Finally, we observed an interplay between social and intellectual uses of analogies in
discourse settings, an interaction that sometimes resulted in subverting the intentions of the PBI
curricula. Student motives that rarely came to the surface during collaborative problem solving
would bring untimely closure to debates and sometimes the merging of dichotomous
interpretations for the sake of comfort or efficiency. Throughout the processes of experimental
 SOCIAL INTERACTION AND USE OF ANALOGY 459

design, data collection, interpretation, and hypothesis testing, the collaborative process was
influenced by many factors. Students found themselves at unforeseen impasses, most likely
because of the novelty of this context, and sometimes chose to ignore discrepant data or recast their
solutions in problematic ways. Although spaceships and backyard gates have personal appeal and
allow students to develop an initial understanding of the phenomena observed, they do not have the
tested generalizability to related events that scientific analogies have the power to explain. Unlike
canonical scientific explanations, which are usually concise, eloquent, and consistent in their use,
explanations and the use of analogies and personal theories fostered by collaborative settings were
used interchangeably in a variety of settings despite their inappropriateness

Implications
It has become increasingly popular to suggest that students should be provided with more
classroom opportunities to engage in constructing their own understandings of and telling their
own stories about scientific phenomena. Although this increased focus on talking science
undoubtedly offers tremendous potential for sustained practice of critically reasoned discourse,
descriptive accounts of preservice science teachers engaged in such educational settings have been
slow to emerge. The inquiry-based PBI curriculum materials offered an excellent venue for
investigating this phenomenon. This study contributes toward the generation of further discussion
about the ways that preservice science educators make sense of scientific phenomena in settings
that bring into question commonly held perspectives on teaching and learning.
Making a personal connection to scientific concepts appeared to crucially support the learning
that occurred in this group. Mike, Chris, and Frank seemed to send a message that the learning of
abstract scientific concepts such as electric current needs to be understood within the context of
students’ own highly personalized ways of making sense. The process of joining new knowledge
to existing knowledge is intrinsically motivating, and analogies play an important role in forming
this type of conceptual bridge (Glynn, 1994). In our collaborative group setting, analogies were
important for several reasons: They emerged from the learners’ own prior knowledge, they helped
to frame problems based on the learners’ perception of the situation, and they allowed the learners
to confront and reshape their own representations with little direction from the teacher. These are
all important components that can, in our view, contribute to the development of a scientifically
literate citizenry.
Although we support the inquiry-based instructional philosophy of the PBI materials and the
activities and interactions that transpired in the classroom, many of students’ personal analogies
and explanations were unsuccessful at leading them to scientifically accepted ideas about the
concepts they investigated. In addition, given the highly personalized nature of meaning making
that was developed in the cooperative group, we find a dilemma concerning how to engage our
students in scientific discourse while also supporting their own highly personal and socioculturally
mediated ways of knowing. Complex problems can emerge when students are brought into contact
with the discourse practices of science in ways that contradict their own personal ways of knowing
(Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Delpit, 1988; LeCompte & McLaughlin, 1994).
We question what it means to privilege the technical rationality of science in favor of other varying
normative discourses that govern action and belief. How can learners be supported in their own
ways of knowing while simultaneously developing new ways of reasoning, speaking, valuing, and
acting? We think that the account of learning portrayed here has demonstrated one way that
prospective teachers can engage in scientific inquiry. Surely others need to be explored, described,
valued and understood.
460 YERRICK ET AL.

We suspect that one resolution is found in the role of the teacher, not as subject-matter
authority or information disseminator, but rather as an insider to the discipline with unique insight
regarding how knowledge is created. Our study is a reminder that teachers serve an important role
in classrooms by guiding and scaffolding ways in which knowledge, particularly analogies, gets
shaped, refuted, and promoted. Exemplary curricula alone are no substitute for the teacher’s role
as the primary driver for rules of discourse in collaborative settings. This kind of classroom
interaction stands in sharp relief to the kinds of talking science that are found in more
conventionally managed classrooms. Traditionally, school scientific discourse is a teacher-
directed monologue that masquerades as a student–teacher dialogue, in which students have little
opportunity to discuss and pursue questions in ways that are meaningful to them (Lemke, 1990). In
significant ways, Frank, Chris, and Mike are anomalies not only because they asked many of their
own questions, but more important, because they developed ways of answering their questions that
were useful and meaningful to them. If we are to produce teachers able to facilitate a more
representative discourse in elementary classrooms, we need to alter the experiences of our
prospective elementary teachers long before they announce their candidacy in their third year of
higher education.
Although we have emphasized the importance and value of the learning that occurred in this
group, it clearly did not develop without complications and drawbacks. Indeed, there are many
concerns and questions generated in the study. Collaborative learning situations offer tremendous
potential for the development of critically reasoned discourse, yet the nature of group work as
social interaction raises questions about competition for the domination of discussions and how
ideas are promoted, supported, and accepted. A great deal of schooling seems to support the
socialization of individuals to be participants in a highly competitive society. We have concerns
about how to shift this focus toward interactions that support multiple interpretations of problems.
Given the intense sociocultural focus on competition and the discrimination that often
accompanies it, how can collaborative learning groups be structured so that all members have
equal access to shape and benefit from discussions? There is no readily available solution; the issue
stands as an indicator of the challenges of successfully incorporating collaborative groups into
instructional designs. Perhaps teachers would greatly benefit from continuing, connected
experiences in collaborative settings that attempt to address these issues, with opportunities that
support reflection and discussion of tolerance, cooperation, and understanding. Teachers
themselves need to develop skills in collaboration before they can be expected to construct and
sustain effective learning environments that rely on these skills.

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