Using concept mapping to learn about A level physics students’ understandings of particle physics

Helen Gourlay,Y Aharonov,L Bravina,S Kabana

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201818202050

Abstract

This article describes a small-scale piece of research using concept mapping to elicit A level students’ understandings of particle physics, which was presented in the Special Session on Physics Education and Outreach at ICNFP 2017. Fifty-nine Year 12 (16- and 17-year-old) students from two London schools participated in the research. The exercise took place during school physics lessons. Students were shown how to make a concept map and were provided with topic-specific key words. Their concept maps were analysed by identifying the knowledge propositions the students had represented, and comparing these with propositions developed from the examination specification they were studying. The only correct statement made by most of the students in both schools was that annihilation takes place when matter and antimatter collide, although some students may have been unable to distinguish between annihilation and pair production. A high proportion of students knew of up, down and strange quarks, and that the electron is a lepton. However, some students appeared to have a misconception that everything is made of quarks. Students found it harder to classify tau particles than they did electrons and muons. Where students made incorrect links about muons and tau particles their concept maps suggested that they thought they were mesons or quarks.

Highlights

Before working in university partnership initial teacher education I worked in schools as a teacher of science and physics
In common with many colleagues, I had not studied particle physics at A level, nor in my undergraduate degree: Particle physics became a compulsory part of A level courses in England only in 2008
Concern had been expressed about whether or not particle physics could be taught in a meaningful way prior to the study of quantum mechanics at undergraduate level [2]

Summary

Introduction

Before working in university partnership initial teacher education I worked in schools as a teacher of science and physics. Research into children’s ideas about particle theory has focused on material at the atomic level - broadly situated within the subject discipline of chemistry This perspective is exemplified by the following definition: The key understanding of the matter concept is the appreciation that all things in the universe consist of matter and, they can change in form and composition, the total mass remains the same. A paradigm shift has taken place in scientific understanding: Conservation of mass does not necessarily apply - there is only conservation of energy in accordance with Einstein’s equation E = mc (where the total energy includes rest-mass energy) In this topic, the atom is not the basic unit, but rather it is a special case - composed of only three of the particles of physics (being up and down quarks, and electrons). I was interested to know what A level students had learned or not learned when moving on to look in even finer detail at the subatomic level, and my research question was: What does concept mapping tell us about A level students’ understandings of the particle physics topic?

Methods

Correct propositions

Misunderstandings

Recommendations