Taking Advantage of the “Big Mo”—Momentum in Everyday English and Swedish and in Physics Teaching (original) (raw)
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Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been the most effective investigative tool for discovering alternative conceptions (misconceptions) about Force and Motion among learners. Introduced in 1992 by David Hestenes, Malcom Wells, and Gregg Swackhamer, FCI had been administered among more than one hundred thousand students worldwide and major learning difficulties of students were identified. Remedial measures in the form of newer teaching methods were discovered and tested. But FCI was never used for understanding Indian students’ conceptual difficulties about Force and Motion. In a country where majority of students don’t take up Physics as their subject of post-secondary education as they find the subject difficult, I have planned to do an exploratory research to understand the state of conceptual understanding of Force and Motion among the students of the secondary and higher secondary level, and also among the teachers who teach them the subject. My objective is to understand the existing situation on one hand, and to find out the reason behind the situation on the other. My data clearly shows that the secondary level students have serious conceptual difficulty about Force and Motion, and the situation is no better for the higher secondary level students and the teachers.
2017
During the last four decades, the results of a great deal of research have indicated that, prior to any formal instruction in physics, students hold scientifically incorrect ideas about physics concepts in general, and about the force and motion concepts in particular, the latter being considered central in science teaching. To these days, students’ conceptual difficulties in mechanics have been well documented and a considerable body of research literature in science education has been formed. In the present study we first review briefly most commonly encountered students’ alternative conceptions and mental barriers in school mechanics. Subsequently, we present teaching approaches that attempt to confront the aforementioned difficulties in students’ thinking. Ultimately, with respect to the studies presented, we attempt to highlight potentially effective characteristics of learning environments and strategies suitable for the promotion of conceptual change in school mechanics.
Diagnosis of misconceptions about force and motion held by first-year post-secondary students
2018
The present study aims to detect misconceptions in force and motion among Maltese post-secondary students aged 16-17. The revised version of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) originally designed by Hestenes, D., Wells, M., & Swackhamer, G. (1992) was used. A total of 395 students participated in the study by answering the FCI test at the beginning of their first-year and again at the end of the said year. Data were analysed by using a method used by Martín-Blas, T., Seidel L. & Serrano-Fernández A. (2010). In this study all of the known misconceptions given in the original paper by Hestenes, but modified by Bani-Salameh 2017, were examined. The dominant misconceptions from the students’ wrong answers for each of the 30 questions in the FCI were determined. A comparison of the dominant misconceptions held by the cohort studied in the preand post-test showed that a number of misconceptions persisted. This study reveals that the impetus, active force and action/reaction pairs misconcep...
Conceptual development about motion and force in elementary and middle school students
American Journal of Physics, 2009
Methods of physics education research were applied to find what kinds of changes in 4th, 6th, and 8th grade student understanding of motion can occur and at what age. Such findings are necessary for the physics community to effectively discharge its role in advising and assisting pre-college physics education. Prior to and after instruction the students were asked to carefully describe several demonstrated accelerated motions. Most pre-instruction descriptions were of the direction of motion only. After instruction, many more of the students gave descriptions of the motion as continuously changing. Student responses to the diagnostic and to the activity materials revealed the presence of a third "snapshot" view of motion not discussed in the literature. The 4th and 6th grade students gave similar pre-instructional descriptions of the motion, but the 4th grade students did not exhibit the same degree of change in descriptions after instruction. Our findings suggest that students as early as 6th grade can develop changes in ideas about motion needed to construct Newtonian-like ideas about force. Students' conceptions about motion change little under traditional physics instruction from these grade levels through college level. † Funded by NSF grant MDR-9145015. Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation.
Toward a comprehensive picture of student understanding of force, velocity, and acceleration
2008 Physics Education …, 2008
Students' difficulties with conceptual questions about force, velocity, and acceleration have been well documented. However, there has been no single systematic study of student understanding of all paired relations among the concepts of force, velocity, and acceleration. For example, a student who believes an object with a net force on it must be moving might not believe an accelerating object must be moving. In this paper, we describe the development of a test to build a more comprehensive picture of student understanding. We describe modifications to increase the validity of the test by reducing false positives and unwanted inconsistencies. We also report preliminary data suggesting that there are definite patterns in student understanding of the various relations between force, velocity, and acceleration. For example, there are a higher number of students reporting that force and velocity are directionally related then that acceleration and velocity are directionally related.
Modeling students’ conceptual understanding of force, velocity, and acceleration
2009
We have developed a multiple choice test designed to probe students' conceptual understanding of the relationships among the directions of force, velocity, and acceleration. The test was administered to more than 800 students enrolled in standard or honors introductory physics courses or a second-year physics majors course. The test was found to be reasonably statistically reliable, and correlations of test score with grade, course level, and the Force Concept Inventory were moderate to strong. Further analysis revealed that in addition to the common incorrect response that velocity must be in the direction of the acceleration or net force, up to 30% of students gave "partially correct" responses, for example that velocity can be either opposite to or in the direction of the acceleration or net force but not zero. The data also suggests that for some students their evolution of understanding may progress through this kind of partially incorrect understanding.
The Process of Conceptual Change in 'Force and Motion
1997
The process of students' conceptual change was evaluated during a computer-supported physics unit in a Grade 10 science class. Computer simulation programs were developed to confront students' alternative conceptions in mechanics. A conceptual test was administered as pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests to determine students' conceptual change. Students worked collaboratively in pairs on the programs carrying out predict-observe-explain tasks according to worksheets. While the pairs worked on the tasks, their conversational interactions were recorded. A range of other data were collected at various junctures during instruction. At each juncture, data for each of 12 students were analyzed to provide a "conceptual snapshot" at that particular juncture. All conceptual snapshots together provided a delineation of the students' conceptual development. Many students vacillated between alternative and scientific conceptions from one context to another during instruction; i.e., their conceptual change was context-dependent and unstable. The few students that achieved long-term conceptual change appeared to be able to perceive commonalities and accept the generality of scientific conceptions across contexts. These findings led to a tentative model of conceptual change. The paper concludes with consequent implications for classroom teaching. Contains 51 references.
The Level of Understanding of Students and Teachers in the Concept of Force and Motion
2013
This studies the level of understanding among students, the level of understanding among teachers and the common types of misconception among students and teachers in Force and Motion in 4 schools in Johor Bahru. This research uses a simple random sampling technique that involves 4 physics teachers and 116 students. Ujian Kefahaman Konsep Daya dan Gerakan was used to measure the level of understanding. Pilot study shows that the instrument has Alpha Cronbach reliability value of 0.638. The data was analyzed using SPSS program version 17.0. In overall, the data shows that the students fail to understand the Force and Motion concept with an average of 19.23% and standard deviation of 11.09. 60.4% of the students fail to understand the concept. The data also shows that the teachers’ level of understanding, on average is 21.88% and standard deviation of 10.83. However, 75% of the teachers have reached the level of poor understanding of Force and Motion concept and 25% of the teachers fa...
What It Takes to Understand: One College Student's Mental Model of Force, Acceleration and Velocity
In this study one female freshman college student's understanding and obstacles to learning about force, acceleration and velocity were investigated in a grounded theory case study research before, during, after and long after a brief instruction. It was found that in her knowledge she lacked a proper understanding of the concept of 'rate of change' and her conceptions were highly persistent. Use of analogies worked at times to bring her understanding closer to that of scientific ones. However, sustaining new conceptions in her conceptual framework was rather difficult.