Students' Ideas on Common Experiments About the Particulate Nature of Matter

Autor(en)
Florian Budimaier, Martin Hopf
Abstrakt

Research on students' thinking about the particulate nature of matter has shown that students find it difficult to connect the macroscopic with the sub microscopic world. Although they have heard about atoms, students stay within a continuous model of matter or attribute macroscopic properties to particles. The research presented focuses on the arguments students make when they have to explain experiments on a sub microscopic level. The question is if experiments convince students of the applicability of the particulate nature of matter. Therefore, the researchers conducted twenty interviews according to the method of probing acceptance with students from lower and upper-secondary school. Every interview featured one of five experiments, commonly used in teaching. The goal was to see if the experiments helped students to successfully apply the particulate model of matter. Students’ answers were coded using qualitative content analysis. The results of this research show, that explaining experiments on a sub microscopic level proves a great challenge for students. None of the five experiments seems to be a good starting point when engaging students with the particulate nature of matter for the first time. Therefore, further research should focus on other ways of introducing this difficult topic to students.

Organisation(en)
Plattform für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften (AECCs), Experimentelle Grundausbildung und Hochschuldidaktik
Journal
Journal of Baltic Science Education
Band
21
Seiten
381-397
Anzahl der Seiten
17
ISSN
1648-3898
DOI
https://doi.org/10.33225/jbse/jbse/22.21.381
Publikationsdatum
06-2022
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
503013 Fachdidaktik Naturwissenschaften
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Education
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/students-ideas-on-common-experiments-about-the-particulate-nature-of-matter(0e4afedd-2fe1-4402-8e11-387b6816f6b1).html