STUDENTS’ IDEAS ON COMMON EXPERIMENTS ABOUT THE PARTICULATE NATURE OF MATTER

TitleSTUDENTS’ IDEAS ON COMMON EXPERIMENTS ABOUT THE PARTICULATE NATURE OF MATTER
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2022
AuthorsBudimaier, F, Hopf, M
JournalJournal of Baltic Science Education
Volume21
Issue3
Start Page381-397
PaginationContinuous
Date PublishedJune/2022
Type of ArticleOriginal article
ISSN1648-3898
Other NumbersE-ISSN 2538-7138
Keywordsclassroom experiments, conceptual change, particulate model, probing acceptance
Abstract

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.

URLhttps://oaji.net/articles/2022/987-1656443487.pdf
DOI10.33225/jbse/22.21.381
Refereed DesignationRefereed
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