Worldview presuppositions and conceptions of force held by junior secondary school science students
| dc.contributor.author | Adams, Saleh | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-08-26T08:35:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-08-26T08:35:45Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2003 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The central concern of this study was to determine 12-13 year old students' worldview about force and how such worldview presuppositions affect their conceptions of force. The study accepted the constructivists' view, viz. that students bring ideas based on prior experience to the classroom, and these ideas or beliefs affect the ways they respond to and interpret instruction in science. A distinctive methodological feature of this study was the way the quantitative information obtained by structured observation and the class environment questionnaires were combined with qualitative data derived from obtained naturalist/interpretive procedures. The experimental design that was chosen for the pilot and main studies was the quasi-experimental model based on a modified Solomon-3-control group design. A battery of instruments was used to assess the cognitive, affective, psychomotor and observational aspects of the study. The main instrument, the Performance on Force Test (POFT), consisted of questions designed to elicit the students' qualitative understanding of the concept force. The POFT was constructed to capture both conceptual and alternative worldviews of the subjects regarding force. A sample of three comparable schools was used in the study. Two schools constituted the experimental (E) and true control (C1) groups and the third school served as the second control group (C2). The E and C2 groups received the experimental Curriculum on Force (COF) intervention; whereas group C1 received the tradition teaching approach. To minimise the effects of contamination, the treatment groups were chosen from different areas of metropolitan Cape Town. A total of three teachers and 91 students were involved in the study. To ameliorate the students' conceptions of force, the teachers were exposed to an exemplary instructional practice model for three weeks. | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | N/A | |
| dc.identifier.citation | N/A | |
| dc.identifier.issn | N/A | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10566/20808 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of the Western Cape | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | N/A; N/A | |
| dc.subject | Worldview presuppositions | |
| dc.subject | Conceptions of force | |
| dc.subject | Junior Secondary school | |
| dc.subject | Science students | |
| dc.title | Worldview presuppositions and conceptions of force held by junior secondary school science students | |
| dc.type | Thesis |