Thai high-school students’ misconceptions about and models of light refraction through a planar surface

Abstract

This article investigates the optics misconceptions of 220 year 11 Thai high-school students. These misconceptions became apparent when the students attempted to explain how an object submerged in a water tank is 'seen' by an observer looking into the tank from above and at an angle. The two diagnostic questions used in the study probe the students' ability to use a ray diagram to explain the relationship between object, image and observer, and then to use the ray diagram to qualitatively determine the position of the image. The study indicates that these high-school students, even after instruction, had significant misconceptions about the direction of propagation of light, how light refracts at an interface, and how to determine the position of an image. The study revealed that students used various concept models to explain how the object can be 'seen' in this situation. Only 22% of all students had a qualitative understanding of how to use a ray diagram to determine image position, and only 1 of 220 students could identify the correct image position using correct reasoning. Our results indicate that students require very careful instruction if they are to understand how objects are 'seen' and how images are formed when light refracts through a planar surface.

The Effect of Teaching Practices with Real Life Content in Light and Sound Learning Areas

“…When the literature is reviewed, it is seen that students from each level have inadequate and incomplete knowledge and misconceptions related to the light and sound topics [28,32,35,36,37,38,40,41]. It is also seen that the teachers and pre-service teachers, who will educate those students, have deficient and inadequate knowledge and even misconceptions about this topic.…”

South African Learners’ Conceptual Understanding about Image Formation by Lenses

“…Some studies reported learners" alternative ideas on light and vision (Rice & Feher 1987;Selley 1996) while others dealt with shadows (Chen 2009). Evidence of research done on learners" ideas about refraction was also found (Kaewkhong et al 2008(Kaewkhong et al , 2010Sengoren 2010).…”

The Impact of an Interactive Ray Diagram Teaching Module in Enhancing Grade 11 Learners’ Conceptual Understanding of Image Formation in a Plane Mirror

“…Many studies have explained children's alternative conceptions about light, vision and optical phenomena. These suggest that the alternative knowledge held by learners with regard to the optics phenomena may be different from formal scientific knowledge (Saxena 1991;Osborne et al 1993; Kaewkhong, Mazzolini, Emarat & Arayathanitkul 2010).…”