When learning science, students must often make sense of complex and counterintuitive ideas. However, this process of sensemaking is difficult, and consequently students risk emerging from science courses with highly fragmented understandings. In this study, I examine the ways in which students create conceptual connections to resolve such difficulties and defragment their understandings. Using three intersecting theoretical frameworks—Knowledge in Pieces, sensemaking, and conceptual blends—I analyze a case study of two undergraduate physics students making sense of the concepts of voltage, electric potential, and electric potential energy. I show how the students move through the different stages of the sensemaking process and how a conceptual blend was constructed and productively applied to help them resolve their knowledge fragmentation. Based on this case, I argue that conceptual blends can serve as a cognitive mechanism for the sensemaking process.

中文翻译：

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概念融合如何支持意义建构：来自物理学入门的案例研究

在学习科学时，学生必须经常理解复杂和违反直觉的想法。然而，这个意义建构的过程是困难的，因此学生可能会冒着高度分散的理解从科学课程中脱颖而出的风险。在这项研究中，我研究了学生创建概念联系以解决这些困难和整理他们的理解的方式。使用三个交叉的理论框架——知识、意义构建和概念混合——我分析了两个本科物理专业学生的案例研究，他们理解了电压、电势和势能的概念。我展示了学生如何通过意义建构过程的不同阶段，以及如何构建和有效地应用概念融合来帮助他们解决知识碎片化问题。