Extrapolating the role of affect into supporting conceptual change in scientific inquiry learning

The process of conceptual change in learning, wherein a student´s existing knowledge might be changed or fundamentally replaced, is influenced by the affective states of the student´s emotion during the learning process. Similarly, in a computer based learning environment, monitoring student´s affect is crucial in fostering fruitful conceptual change learning. As such, these studies aimed to propose and compare two conceptual change Bayesian network models; with the first model constructed based on the classical conceptual change theory, while another with the addition of affective factors in the model. Both models were evaluated and the findings suggested that the conceptual change model performed better when affect traits are incorporated into the student model.