A Qualitative Inquiry about Students Conceptualizations of Force Concept in terms of Ontological Categories

2015-03-01
The purpose of this study was to inquire about students’ conceptualizations of the force concept in terms of ontological categories. Although some of the literature have been providing supporting evidences about the fruitfulness of ontological categories for explaining the nature of students’ alternative conceptions, some others provide strong arguments against it. To tap the controversial issues in the literature, an inquiry was conducted in a classroom context with students who were seeking a degree to become physics teachers. The data consist of four students’ written responses to physics problems, reflections about their own conceptualizations from the theoretical perspective of ontological categories, and video recordings of classroom discussions. The analysis of data showed that a theory-driven interpretation (ontological categories) about students’ conceptualizations of the force concept did not match with the students’ own interpretations about their conceptualizations. Furthermore, the students did not consider ontological category shift a fruitful instructional strategy because of the possible problems they projected for the implementation. The major problem emerged as the difficulty of situating every physics concept into the distinct ontological categories.
Journal of Turkish Science Education

Suggestions

An Investigation of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers’ knowledge of students’ thinking through analyzing student work
Didiş, Makbule Gözde; Erbaş, Ayhan Kürşat; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2014)
The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service secondary mathematics teachers’ knowledge of students’ thinking within an undergraduate course context. The participants were twenty five pre-service mathematics teachers enrolled in this undergraduate mathematics education course which aims to develop pre-service mathematics teachers’ knowledge in and about mathematical modeling in teaching and learning mathematics. The design of the study contained 4 two-week cycles. In the first week of each cycle,...
A STUDY ON SOURCES AND CONSEQUENCE OF SCIENCE TEACHERS’ SELF-EFFICACY
Pehlivan, Merve; Sungur, Semra; Sungur, Semra; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2022-2-11)
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between sources and the consequence of science teachers’ self-efficacy. Science teachers’ self-efficacy was measured in terms of self-efficacy for student engagement, classroom management, and instructional strategies. As sources of self-efficacy Bandura’s hypothesized sources (i.e. mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological and emotional states), years of experience, implicit beliefs of science ability, and jo...
A Multilevel Analysis of Students' Science Achievements in Relation to their Self-Regulation, Epistemological Beliefs, Learning Environment Perceptions, and Teachers' Personal Characteristics
Pamuk, Savas; Sungur, Semra; Öztekin, Ceren (2017-12-01)
This study adopted a cross-sectional and correlational research design in an attempt to add our understanding of student- and teacher-level factors that help explain variability in students' science achievement to the existing literature. More specifically, the present article examined students' science achievement in relation to their constructivist learning environment perceptions, epistemological beliefs, and self-regulation as well as their science teachers' characteristics. Data were gathered from both...
Investigation of undergraduate students' mental models about the quantization of physical observables
Didiş, Nilüfer; Eryılmaz, Ali; Erkoç, Şakir; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2012)
The purpose of this research is to investigate undergraduate students’ mental models about the quantization of physical observables. The research was guided by ethnography, case study, and content analysis integrated to each other. It focused on second-year physics and physics education students, who were taking the Modern Physics course at the Department of Physics, at Middle East Technical University. Wide range of data was collected by interview, observation, test, diary, and other documents during 2008-...
The Effect of conceptual change based instruction on tenth grade students’ understanding of probability concepts, probability achievement and attitudes toward probability
Topbaş Tat, Emel; Bulut, Safure; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2014)
The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect of conceptual change based instruction on tenth grade students’ understanding of probability concepts, probability achievement and attitudes toward probability. This study was conducted with 118 students from one Anatolian high school in Ankara during the spring semester of 2010-2011. The treatments were performed by two teachers who had randomly assigned one control and one experimental group. Conceptual change based instruction (CCBI) was used ...
Citation Formats
Ö. F. Özdemir, “A Qualitative Inquiry about Students Conceptualizations of Force Concept in terms of Ontological Categories,” Journal of Turkish Science Education, pp. 29–42, 2015, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/42931.