Andreas Georgiou

Andreas Georgiou undertook an MPhil in Education (Educational Research) during the 2004-2005 academic year, supervised by Keith Taber *. His thesis was entitled:

THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PHYSICS PROBLEM-SOLVING: ON INTUITION AND IMAGISTIC SIMULATION
 
Submitted July 2005

Abstract:
This study is part of a larger research agenda, which includes future doctoral study, aiming to investigate the psychological processes of thought experiments. How do thought-experimenters establish relations between their imaginary worlds and the physical one? How does a technique devoid of new sensory input result to new empirical knowledge? In this study I investigate the following claims as possible answers:  that intuition grounds the behaviour of an imaginary scenario in the experienced world; and that imagistic simulation provides the thought-experimenter with a quasi-perceptual analogue to direct perception through which they acquire novel empirical knowledge. Case methodology was adopted, the case being a pair of final year A-level physics students. Data was collected through non-participant observation over two sessions of collaborative problem-solving. The tasks drew upon Newtonian mechanics. A certain type of thought-experimental reasoning prevailed in the observation protocol. These thought experiments do not aim to induce unexpected results but to make intuitions about a situation experiencable in a concrete (imaginary) scenario. I interpret thought experiments of this type as a mental analogue to inductive discovery through physical experiment. A critical question for future research is whether all thought-experimental reasoning in general emulates physical experimentation, as the answer will potentially provide insights for exploring thought experimenting as an educable skill.
 
Keywords: thought experimentation, intuition, mental simulation, science education



To obtain a copy of the thesis (Copyright 2005 Andreas Georgiou): THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PHYSICS PROBLEM-SOLVING


To contact Andreas by email: a.georgiou.04@cantab.net

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* Dr. Keith S. Taber teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. He supervises student research projects in aspects of teaching and learning science. His interests include topics such as: conceptual development in science, 'misconceptions', alternative conceptions, intermediate conceptions, conceptual frameworks, conceptual resources for learning (p-prims etc), aspects of student conceptual structure (manifold conceptions, stability, coherence of ideas etc.) in science, models in teaching and learning science, aspects of language in teaching and learning science (analogy, metaphor, tautology, anthropomorphism), conceptual progression and integration, learning pathways / trajectories, explanations in science, the relationship between the sciences and schools science, teaching and learning about the nature of science, teaching the gifted/highly able in science, scaffolding learning in science, constructivism in science education, the development of a progressive research programme into learning science…

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