Identifying Students’ Misconceptions of Sound Propagation

Abstract

The Objective of this study is to identify misconceptions of sound propagation which students often encounter when asked. Generally, sound is a form of energy: the branch of physics that is concerned with this form of energy is acoustics. In particular, the study focused on the area of sound and misconceptions held by group of science students. In addition, through the use of interview method, the researchers identify students' understanding about sound and sound propagation. There are 4 participants of science students Faculty of Education University Teknologi Mara (UiTM). Two of the participants are bachelor of education science in (Chemistry) and another two participants are bachelor of education science in (Physics) as the sample in this research. All of the participants have the basic knowledge on concept of sound. The approach for this study is phenomenography. In general terms, phenomenography is the study of qualitatively different ways in which people conceptualization various aspect of reality and phenomena. The findings showed that the participants have poor understanding and have many misconceptions on the concept of sound propagation. For the conclusion, it is evidences that the participants possessed misconceptions in sound propagation. So that, misconception issue must be called as serious learning obstructions in learning physics and have to be address if the objective of physics education is to be achieved successfully. Research recommended for teaching and learning for sound propagation, teacher need to aware although, student do not necessarily construct the same conceptual relationship for specific phenomena in different contexts.