This paper describes the conceptions of first-year University students, about 'measuring'. A teaching sequence has been provided, involving a theoretical lecture course on the analysis of measurement errors, followed by laboratory work in optics and in electricity. Data have been gathered during the laboratory work. Their analysis shows that the students establish a hierarchy in the series of measurements and do not really understand the need to make several measurements. Few of them have critical insight into the notion of confidence interval. Random and systematic errors are not distinguished. The general view is that, the more measurements one makes, the 'better' the result is, without understanding the nature of this 'better'.
ABSTRACT:A research project about labwork at Upper secondary and Undergraduate levels was launched in 1996, funded by the European Commission. Seven research groups from six European countries participated in the surveys at European scale and carried out a number of case-studies. This common work allowed numerous discussions which, months later, permit to articulate renewed directions of research about labwork. In this paper, new research questions are presented, drawing upon the outcomes of the project. One of them was to disclose numerous potential objectives which can be aimed for in a laboratory. This means that conscious choices must be taken among objectives. These are studied in this paper under the three classical headings of conceptual /epistemological /procedural objectives.
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