Fen Bilgisi Öğretmen Adaylarının Serbest Düşme Hareketine İlişkin Kavramsal Algıları

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to identify the free fall motion, the characteristics of this motion, the level of knowledge and use of knowledge about the motion of prospective science teachers and the misconceptions they have about the issue and their reasons. The study was carried out with 61 science prospective teachers studying at the science teaching department of a state university of the 2022-2023 academic year, and a special case research design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. Data collection forms containing three open-ended questions were created by the researchers in an attempt to identify the opinions of the prospective teachers on the subject, and the data were collected through these forms. If we evaluate the findings of the study in general terms, it is seen that the free fall motion was not fully understood in the minds of the students and had some uncertainties. It was found that the main reasons for this particular result were that the students could not fully internalize the concepts such as gravity, weight, mass and the effect of air resistance, and there were also the prospective teachers who could not scientifically explain the factors affecting the free fall motion, and the concept still had an intuitive structure.