Progression in understanding the equilibrium of forces

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes the results of empirical research in which children between ages 7 and 13 were interviewed about simple experiments involving forces in equilibrium. The aim of the work was to explore the ways in which children's perceptions, explanations and concepts, as evoked by the experiments, differed between the age groups, in order to establish empirically based hypotheses about progression in learning of the topic. The analysis was based on transcripts of 91 interviews, with about 12 children in each of four age groups being interviewed both before and after their schools’ normal teaching about forces. The transcripts were analysed using systemic‐network and open‐coding techniques. The structure of the questioning and the data analysis led to a proposal that children's thinking can be described in terms of four ‘dimensions’. For three of these, concerned with prediction and observation, with the nature of explanations, and with identification of different forces and their relative si...