Evaporation in different liquids: secondary students’ conceptions

Abstract

This study explores secondary school students’ understanding of evaporation and investigates whether students associate the concept of evaporation with only water as a liquid. An open‐ended written test was developed using three different words (water, liquid or alcohol) to state the question phrases. The test was implemented on a sample of 313 students at different levels of schooling. Clinical interviews, in which ethyl alcohol was used as an example of liquids, were also undertaken with 12 students, either individually or as a group. From the collected data, it was found that most of the students at different levels lack understanding of the concept and have several misconceptions. Various misconceptions of the evaporation concept that differ from those cited in the related literature were determined. The most important result was that students’ written responses showed some specific misconceptions when they were presented with the questions using three different words; liquid, water and alcohol.