Energy is one important concept in physics, but science education research has repeatedly shown that students struggle to develop a full understanding of energy. Especially challenging for students is the notion of potential energy. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential energy forms, students struggle to make connections between them.…

The mechanical transmission of motion, which is observable in gears' turning direction (TD) and turning speed (TS) can be understood as part of the core concept "force and motion". Previous studies have suggested that most children before the age of nine have naïve concepts of gears' TD and TS. However, these studies relied on children's…

Embodied cognition theories view sensorimotor activity as fundamental to learning, knowing, and reasoning. To investigate the role of physical movement in conceptual learning, we developed and explored an Embodied Learning Interactive Chemistry environment (ELI-Chem). The ELI-Chem learning environment includes a computer simulation, a device for…

This article concerns a lacuna in chemistry students' reasoning about chemical bonding. Although chemistry students are familiar with the charges that make up the atom--both positive and negative--they refer only to the attraction between unlike charges. Specifically, they ignore the repulsion between the positive nuclei. We named this disregard…

This article discusses a case study of a pair of students mentored by a physics teacher as they engaged in a long-term (15 months) engineering maker-based inquiry (EMBI), a mandatory part of these students' formal learning of physics at the advanced high school level. We conceptualize the students' engagement as participating in a particular…

Attention to core concepts in science and engineering in early education has grown recently, and understanding levers as force amplifiers can be recognized as one of these. Previous studies focused on two-sided levers and do not provide sufficient information about children's knowledge of levers as force amplifiers, nor about their learning and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate Ethiopian physics undergraduate students' conceptual change in the concepts of electric potential and energy (EPE) and electromagnetic induction (EMI). A quasi-experimental design was used to study the effect of cognitive perturbation using physics interactive simulations (CPS) in relation to cognitive…

A model of conceptual change in physics was tested on introductory-level, college physics students. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variables linked to conceptual change in physics including an approach goal orientation, need for cognition, motivation, and course grade. Conceptual change in physics…

This study investigates Turkish students' knowledge structure coherence in physics. In particular, this study investigates the conflicting findings reported in Ioannides and Vosniadou's [Ioannides and Vosniadou [2002] "Cognitive Science Quarterly," 2, 5-61] and diSessa, Gillespie, and Esterly's [diSessa et al. [2004] "Cognitive…

Many students in physics courses fail to achieve a desired conceptual change because they assign an incorrect ontology to the to-be-learned concept. This situation has been detected in previous research for the case of field lines: many college students assign material properties to the lines and describe them, for example, as tubes that contain…

This study aimed to investigate the comparative value of experimenting with physical manipulatives (PM) in a sequential combination with virtual manipulatives (VM), with the use of PM preceding the use of VM, and of experimenting with PM alone, with respect to changes in students' conceptual understanding in the domain of heat and temperature. A…

Focuses on the conceptual understanding held by (n=78) preservice elementary teachers about moon phases before and after instruction. Compares instructive effect between two groups--inquiry-based physics instruction and no instruction. Reports that without the instruction, most preservice teachers were likely to hold alternative conceptions of the…

This research consists of a longitudinal study of 12 female elementary preservice teachers' conceptual understanding over the course of several months. The context in which the participants received instruction was in an inquiry-based physics course, and the targeted science content was the cause of moon phases. Qualitative research methods,…

Investigates the effects of conceptual assignments and conceptual change discussions on high school students' achievement and misconceptions about force and motion. Analyzes pretest and posttest data from the Force Misconception and Force Achievement Tests (FMFAT). Discusses the effects on the conceptual change discussion on reducing…

Examines structural characteristics of university engineering students' conceptions of energy elicited through paragraph writing and their relations with categories of their conceptions specific to energy in solution processes identified through interviews. Reports that structures of students' conceptions are characterized primarily by…