**Author details**

*Theory of Complexity - Definitions, Models, and Applications*

assessing the presence of an already existing belief.

coordinate experiences).

**5.3 How to replace mistaken beliefs with scientifically valid insights**

The challenge in science education has been largely attributed to the presence of mistaken beliefs. However, the results are mixed on the recommendation to assess existing beliefs first, prior to administering a science lesson [142–144]. Complexity science can again shed light on the issue. Specifically, lessons derived from thermodynamics provide a cautionary note to the logic of first providing children with an assessment. This is because, in the language of complexity, assessments are equivalent to the pressure on the system to organize itself. This pressure might force children to come up with ordered behavior that resembles a belief. The risk, therefore, is that the assessment pushes the learner to form an ad-hoc belief, rather than

The solution lies in combining pressure (the assessment) with support (the information relevant to the solution), rather than offering the assessment on its own. This recommendation is in line with the resubsumption theory [144, 145]. It is also in line with the finding that a child's explicit goal to change mistaken beliefs has a positive effect on learning [146–148]. This is because such explicit buy-in from the learner shifts the nature of the pressure in ways that allows children to actively search for scientifically valid patterns (vs. latch onto the most obvious patterns to

Ultimately, the complexity viewpoint implies that the challenge of science learning lies in the nature of science itself, rather than in the presence of mistaken beliefs. This is because the patterns of order relevant to science concepts are often hidden behind more salient but irrelevant science concepts. For example, in the case of balance beams, visual features are likely to have priority over haptic features, making the irrelevant aspect of the beam's shape more readily available than the relevant weight distribution. Therefore, to improve science learning, one would need to invest in ways of making relevant patterns of order more salient than irrelevant ones, paired with gearing children's action toward detecting these relevant patterns.

In this section, we sought to address practical implications of a complexity view of learning. On the question of the nature of knowledge, for example, complexity science provides details on how to conceptualize the interaction of mental elements that gives rise to knowledge. And on the question of learning, complexity science can pin down the pedagogy that could help children ignore irrelevant aspects of the context. The complexity angle can even address questions about conceptual change: It undermines the common suggestion of assessing children's naïve beliefs in the absence of instruction; and it highlights strategies that can help children learn about abstract science concepts. While these suggestions are merely hinted at, they can

In line with the volume's goal of deepening the meaning of complexity, we traced the connection between complexity constructs and children's learning. Our specific focus was on children's science education, a topic with remaining open questions despite previous attempts to apply complexity ideas. Our rationale was that neither the field of complexity nor the field of children's learning are streamlined: Both areas feature inconsistencies and gaps [149]. The synthesis we offered was designed to substantiate this link, potentially fostering progress in both fields.

**5.4 Summary of complexity-based answers to open questions**

offer an important impetus to science-education research.

**56**

**6. Conclusion**

Michael J. Droboniku\*, Heidi Kloos, Dieter Vanderelst and Blair Eberhart Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United States

\*Address all correspondence to: drobonmj@mail.uc.edu

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
