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Students’ understanding of light and its properties: Teaching to engender conceptual change
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Metadata
Title
Students' understanding of light and its properties: Teaching to engender conceptual change
Abstract
Over the past 15 years there has been strong international interest in students' ideas concerning phenomena taught in science. Many of these ideas, which students may have prior to instruction or have developed during instruction, have been well documented in physics content areas such as heat, motion, the particulate nature of matter, and light. If the students' ideas conflict with generally scientifically accepted ideas they are labeled variously as students' conceptions, misconceptions. preconceptions, childrens' science, alternative conceptions, or alternative frameworks depending upon the researcher's view of the nature of knowledge (Gilbert and Watts, 1983). Students' conceptions which are different from the scientifically acceptable ideas are often strongly held, resistant to change, and can hinder further learning (White and Gunstone, 1989). Students may undergo instruction in an area in science, perform reasonably well in a test on that subject, yet not undergo any meaningful change in their conceptions regarding the phenomena being investigated. Indeed, even if a measurable change did occur, in time the learned school science may be forgotten and supplanted by these earlier, firmly held beliefs. The topic of light presented the authors with similar concerns that instruction in the regular high school curriculum resulted in many students constructing knowledge which was not congruent with acceptable scientific understanding.
Date
01/01/1992
Citation
Fetherstonhaugh, T., & Treagust, D. F. (1992). Students’ understanding of light and its properties: Teaching to engender conceptual change. Science Education, 76(6), 653–672. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730760606
Type of Publication
Author(s)
Fetherstonhaugh, Anthony R. | Treagust, David F.
Content
Construct
Conceptions/Conceptual Change | Content Knowledge | Reasoning
Methodology
Research Setting
Target Group
Students > Middle School Students | Students > Secondary School Students
Institution(s)
Curtin University of Technology
Journal Name
Science Education
Peer-Reviewed Status
Publisher
Wiley & Sons
Volume
76
Issue Number
6
ISSN
1098-237X
Resource Type
Nation(s) of Study
Australia
Language
English