Impact of the place of lightwave in secondary school curricula on conceptual understanding of their basic concepts: a moroccan case study

Abstract

We aim to highlight the importance of using Huygens’ geometric model when instructing high school students about light. To achieve this, we conducted a research study on teaching lightwaves in Morocco’s secondary schools. We investigated how the place of the lightwave in this teaching affects understanding its basic concepts. We carried out a two-dimensional analysis to examine the place of the lightwave in the high school physics curriculum. We administered a test to assess the conceptual understanding of secondary school and university students. The analysis of the curricula revealed several shortcomings in the teaching of geometrical and wave optics. Furthermore, the assessment of conceptual understanding revealed that a significant proportion of students have misconceptions about the wave concepts of lightwaves and that these misconceptions persist throughout their higher education.