Conscious ignorance in learning science I: components of the incomprehension of a scientific text

Abstract

Much research in science education has focused on the processes involved in building knowledge and comprehension of scientific content. However, the positive roles of what is unknown or not understood have received much less attention. This article aims to contribute to the analysis of conscious incomprehension. We aim at identifying the structure of conscious incomprehension of a student who attempts to build a situation model of a scientific text, by analyzing the questions asked on this text.

The paper is organized into three sections. First, a general framework for characterizing conscious incomprehension is provided. Then, the results of some studies that analyze the structure of conscious incomprehension when reading science texts are presented. Finally, we synthesize some conclusions based upon the previous analyses.