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://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/0e4afedd-2fe1-4402-8e11-387b6816f6b1