Triangular Model of Concept Structure in Curriculum Design

This paper presents a triangular model of concept structure and four developmental levels of physical concepts: primitive, empirical, exact, and formal. The model is built upon Vygotsky’s concept theory and derived from the semantic modeling of concepts. The basic components of the model are: core C, meaning M, meaning layers M1, M2, M3, sense S, and their relationships. This model also distinguishes between the concept’s meaning and sense as being two disjunctive sets following Frege’s idea of meaning/reference (Bedeutung) and sense (Sinn). Besides the description of spontaneous concept development, it distinguishes several stages in the development of scientific concepts during physics and math concept learning. Based on this model, a specific method of cognitive analysis of concepts has started to develop. This method enables cognitive modeling – the construction of cognitive models of single external concepts and their mental representations.