Misconceptions and light: A curriculum approach

This paper describes the method used by the author to teach a class of Year 8 students about light and its properties so that the students’ own ideas were considered and their misconceptions addressed. To achieve this a series of teaching modules were designed using a model of conceptual change suggested by Posner and his colleagues at Cornell University. Students’ prior misconceptions about light were identified using a pretest developed by the author. After teaching a posttest was used to determine if the teaching method resulted in a lower level of misconceptions. Interviews from seven students selected at random and the observations gathered by a participant observor were used to verify results. It was found that the teaching method resulted in a lower level of misconceptions in the sample and this was confirmed by the results of the interviews and participant observation. This paper concentrates on the design and content of one of the teaching modules

Countering fundamental misconceptions about light: An analysis of specific teaching strategies with year 8 students

A comparative study of prevalent student understanding about light (Fetherstonhaugh et. al. 1987) indicated how secondary and tertiary students from Western Australia, France, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States held similar misconceptions in terms of how light travels and interacts with mirrors and lenses and how we are able to see objects. A secondary aim, following on from this comparative study, was to use the central misconceptions about light in the design and implementation of specific teaching strategies which might better address some of those misconceptions held by students. This paper describes part of an on-going study that monitors some misconceptions about light as found in one class of year 8 students at a Western Australian secondary school. Additionally this paper discusses the learning of a small group of students within that class as it interacted with the teaching program dealing with light

Students' understanding of light and its properties: Teaching to engender conceptual change

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

Student misconceptions about light: A comparative study of prevalent views found in Western Australia, France New Zealand, Sweden and the United States

Science educators have continued to show interest in the identification and documentation of students' alternative knowledge frameworks as they relate to school science and learning outeomes. This interest has been highlighted in recent publications of scienee education journals sueh as the 1985 and 1986 volumes of Researeh in Seienee Education and conference proceedings such as Arehenhold et al. (1980), Helm and Novak (1983), Jung, Pfund and v. Rhoneck (1981). Although there is ample scope and need for researchers to expose student understanding in many unprobed areas, seienee educators are already shifting their efforts toward the utilisation of established data in terms of instructional design. The investigation reported here elicited views about the nature and propagation of light as identified by 13-16 year old students at one Western Australian secondary school. Initially, this paper considers the existing literature on children and adolescent understanding of light as reported from France, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States. Seeondly, these doeumented understandings are compared with those eneountered in Western Australia. The final aim of this study, which is not reported here, is to utilise this overseas and local information to plan instruction which takes into account student misconceptions to bring about conceptual change