Misconceptions of Turkish Pre-Service Teachers about Force and Motion

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to diagnose the misconceptions held by preservice physics teachers about force and motion. The secondary aim of the study was to detect whether misconceptions vary according to gender, educational level, and culture. The study was conducted with 79 student-teachers attending to one of the largest faculties of education in Turkey. Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was used to diagnose studentteachers' misconceptions. FCI is a conceptual test consisting of 29 multiple choice items. Each wrong choice for each question reflects a specific misconception about the force and motion concepts. Data from the study was analyzed by using frequencies, t-test, and ANOVA for making comparisons according to gender and years of education. Results of the study showed that student-teachers of physics hold very strong misconceptions about impetus and active force. No significant differences were found between male and female students' scores on the concept test. The results also showed that misconceptions about force and motion decreased through the years of education. However, they did not disappear completely. Findings of the study are very similar to the other research findings conducted on the subject in other countries. Student-teachers' conceptions about Newton's Third Law, on the other hand, were significantly better than those observed in other research done in other countries such as the US and Finland.

Performance Gap among Male and Female College Students Measured With the Force Concept Inventory

“…The first thing one notices from the table is the weak overall performance of all students even after instructions. Weak performance on the FCI by our students is of no surprise to us as similar results have been reported before in many studies around the world [15][16][17][18]. It's not in the scope of this study to try to explain this weakness or suggest solutions for it but its part of our future planned projects and therefore there will be no farther discussion on this here.…”

“…These low gains also suggest that there is little difference made by our instructions in students' performance which is similar to results reported by Hake (1998) and Viiri (1996) [18,19]. This result by itself deserves more attention and efforts are ongoing to start the next stage in this research project.…”

Do First Year College Female and Male Students Hold Different Misconceptions about Force and Motion?

“…Even though male and female students scored differently on the FCI tests [1], results of this study showed clear evidence that they all hold same misconceptions. Similar results were reported before regarding the universal nature of Newtonian mechanics misconceptions [10][11][12][13]. This report serves as one of the first few steps in our main project; we aim at a whole evaluation and then reconstruction of our physics education process at our school.…”

Fizik Öğretmen Adaylarının Düzgün Çembersel Hareket Konusundaki Kavram Yanılgılarının Zaman İçinde Değişimi

“…The UCMMT was administered to physics education students in their first, second and third year of the students in 2009-2010academic year. Later, in 2011-2012 academic year the same instrument was used again to the same students who were in their third, fourth and fifth years of their program.…”