Abstract
The purpose of this study was twofold: first to investigate the effect of conceptual change oriented instruction accompanied by concept cartoon worksheet with simulation on students’ conceptual understanding and second to remedy their misconceptions of direct current electric circuits. Participants were 139 pre-service science teachers from four intact classes. A quasi-experimental design was used in the study. The experimental group studied the concept with the application of concept cartoon worksheet and simulation, and the control group studied it with traditional instruction. Students’ conceptual understanding and misconceptions were measured by a tree-tired misconception test. It was administered as pre-and-posttest. There was no significant difference between the means of pre-test scores of experimental and control groups. The main effect of treatment on post-test scores was examined via ANCOVA with pre-test scores used as covariate. The frequency of each misconception was calculated for both groups, from pre to post-tests regarding all tiers of items. The analysis yielded a significant treatment effect on students’ post-test performances. The findings indicated that the conceptual change oriented instruction accompanied by concept cartoon worksheet and simulation is likely to be effective for conceptual understanding and decreasing most of students’ misconceptions in direct current electric circuits.
Highlights
Students’ understanding of key concepts related to science topics has been an interesting research area and it has been investigated by researchers in physics education (Mulhall, McKittrick & Gunstone, 2001)
Answers for the first two tiers are correct and he/she is sure about the correctness of the previous two selections at the third tier, the item was scored as 1 point
As seen from the table, experimental group students gained a mean increase of 4 points and control group students gained a mean increase of 1.1 points from the PRET to PSTT
Summary
Students’ understanding of key concepts related to science topics has been an interesting research area and it has been investigated by researchers in physics education (Mulhall, McKittrick & Gunstone, 2001). Students’ incorrect pattern of response, informal ideas, nonscientific interpretations and conceptions leading to conflict with scientific view are called with different terms such as “preconceptions” (Celement, 1982), “misconceptions” (Eryılmaz, 2002; Engelhardt & Beichner, 2004), “alternative frameworks” (Driver & Erickson, 1983) or “alternative conceptions” (Gilbert & Watts, 1983). To promote conceptual understanding and eliminate learners’ misconceptions, various conceptual change views of teaching and learning approaches were suggested (Treagust & Duit, 2008; Vosniadou, 2007). These models and strategies were derived from Kuhn’s philosophy of science and Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory (Zhou, 2010)
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