Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of cognitive-conflict-based physics instruction over the traditionally designed physics instruction on students’ conceptual change in heat and temperature. The subjects were 249 senior secondary II students from 2 schools purposively sampled from 12 secondary schools. The 2 schools sampled had well-equipped laboratory, experienced physics teachers, and two intact classes. One of the intact classes in each school was assigned to control group. In one school, there were 70 subjects for experimental group and 60 for control group, while in the other school, there were 60 for experimental group and 59 for control group. Both groups were taught by the same teacher, and this lasted for 6 weeks of intensive treatment. The experimental group received cognitive-conflict-based instruction, while the control group received traditionally designed physics instruction. The instrument for obtaining the data was thermal concept evaluation (TCE). Students in both groups were pretested using TCE to establish their level of initial understanding of heat and temperature. At the end of the treatment, the same test was administered as posttest. The data generated from the TCE were analyzed using frequency and chi-square statistics, indicating that the level of understanding of heat and temperature was significantly dependent on the treatment. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made.
Highlights
The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education (FME; 2008) regards physics as a crucial subject for effective living in the modern age of science and technology
Once all pretest and posttest responses had been assigned to one of the four categories, the researchers traced what changes that had occurred from the pretest to the posttest using chi square, this being a nonparametric statistic able to handle items at a nominal level. It can be observed from the table that the pretest for both conflict instructional (CCI) and traditional physics instructional (TPI) groups showed the two groups were nearly at the same preconception state at all levels of understandings
The students in the CCI group had alternative conceptions (ACs) and no conception (NC), which accounted for 26.9% and 30.0%, respectively, while the TPI group had 27.7% and 28.6% for alternative and NC, respectively
Summary
The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education (FME; 2008) regards physics as a crucial subject for effective living in the modern age of science and technology. The curriculum indicates that every student needs to be given an opportunity to acquire some physics conceptual knowledge, theory, principles, and skills, which are enshrined in the objectives of physics education in the New Senior Secondary Physics Curriculum (2008). The objectives of teaching physics to Nigerian students are to (a) provide basic literacy in physics for functional living in the society, (b) acquire basic concepts and principles of physics as a preparation for further studies, (c) acquire essential scientific skills and attitudes as a preparation for technological application of physics, and (d) stimulate and enhance creativity. The idea that every learner constructs his or her own concept/knowledge and comes into the classroom with existing conceptions, which may be in consonance or otherwise with the scientific conceptions or paradigm, is an established fact (Baser, 2006; Foster, 2011; Ivowi, 2011; Lee & Byun, 2011)
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