https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] University of Glasgow Centre for Science Education UNIVERSITY »/ GLASGOW Understanding and Accessibility in Physics By Mojgan Matloob Haghanikar B.Sc. Shahid Beheshti University of Iran A Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Science Education), Educational Studies, Faculty of Science, University of Glasgow. October 2003 ProQuest Number: 10391033 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10391033 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 IRA»yL isan 2 - Abstract This study is about making physics accessible to learners. The strategy adopted was to promote active participation of students and to investigate students’ understanding of the basic concepts. The previous findings from educational research and learning models have been discussed and a wealth of pieces of researeh have been studied in attempt to determine why learners find physies difficult. Part of the research was focused at university level and involved courses in Positional Astronomy and Special Relativity. Having explored the areas of difficulty in these two courses by the means of a difficulty survey and questionnaires, two pilot units were devised. These consisted of a series of self-diagnostic tasks intended to probe students' fundamental understanding of the most basic concepts. The aim was to help students step-by-step to modify their own understanding. The method employed here is in accord with constmctivist view of learning and close to Ausubel’s ideas of meaningful learning. The contributions of this study was to reveal the laek of eonceptual understanding in these fields and to examine an application of an alternative style of teaching. This study was a small prototype for a mueh more extensive project. The long-term target is to develop on-line, self-diagnostic learning material to help students to conect their basic conceptual understanding. The results suggest that this target is attainable. A second study was carried out in schools. Here a different approach toward active participation of the learner was adopted which was collaborative working. For this purpose, a unit was developed for a collaborative working on the base of Britain’s primary energy resources. The style of the unit was based on role play technique. In this technique, students had to interact with problematic issues which may face the society and where they had to apply their science knowledge in order to reach balanced acceptable solutions. The school study revealed that there are severe difficulties in grasping the concept of energy. Most of the students reported there is too much information to absorb. In this experiment group working was helpful for students to learn more in-depth. Moreover, the role play technique was helpful to shed light on social aspects of the science and link the science classes to their applications in daily life. Acknowledgements The investigation described in this thesis has been part of an ongoing programme carried out in the Centre for Science Education, Faculty of Education, University of Glasgow. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my supervisors Dr. Norman Reid and Professor Rex Whitehead for their intellectual contributions and their ongoing support in all the stages of preparing this piece of work. I am exti'emely grateful to the Department of Physics and Astronomy for their invaluable assistance, in particular Professor John Brown due to his help in initial stages of the project. Specially I am indebted to Dr. Declan Diver, Dr. Martin Hendry and Dr. Lyndsay Fletcher who freely gave their time and talents to help me and the opportunity they provided for me to visit the classes and for the comments and insights they brought in to the results. Thanks are also due to the students of Department of Physics and Astronomy for their volunteer attendance in the survey and also to the students and teachers of the Longbenton Community School for their participation in the school experiments. These achievements would not have been possible without the financial support of the British Couneil through the Chevening scholarship award, also thanks to my International advisor Mrs. Avril MacGregor for her support in the final stages of the research. Special thanks to my best Scottish friends Finlay and Christine Maekenzie for their warm and welcoming mood in attempt to promote international friendship. Their help and friendship was always encouraging during this period. Most of all, my work would not have been completed without the help and patience of my mother and my sister. 11 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Making Physics Accessible Chapter 2 Learning Models 2.1 Introduction 5 2.2 Jean Piaget’s Learning Model 5 2.3 Piaget’s Stages of Intellectual Development 7 2.3.1 Comments on Piaget’s Intellectual Development 9 2.4 Gagné ’ s Learning Model 10 2.4.1 Gagne’s Taxonomy 11 2.4.2 Gagne’s Instructional Levels 11 2.4.3 Prerequisite in the Learning of Intellectual Skills 12 2.4.4 Comments on Gagne’s Model 12 2.5 Ausubel ’ s Learning Model 13 2.5.1 Types of Learning 14 2.5.2 Conditions of Meaningful Learning 15 2.6 Neo-Piagetian Models 18 2.7 Information Processing Models 19 2.7.1 Memory 20 2.7.2 Sensory Register 20 2.7.3 Short-term Memory or Working Memory 22 2.7.4 Long-term Memory 24 2.7.5 Working Memory Overload 25 2.8 Conclusions 28 Chapter 3 Concepts in Physics and Difficulties 3.1 Introduction 30 3.2 Common Difficulties in Learning Physics 30 3.2.1 The Sources of Difficulties at Early Ages 31 3.2.2 Teaching for Changing Concepts 33 3.2.3 Success in Algorithms 3 3 but Poor Conceptual understanding 3.2.4 Mathematical Language of Physics is Abstract 34 HI 3.3 Why is Physics Difficult to Learn? 36 3.3.1 Multi Level Thoughts 3 6 3.3.2 ‘Black box’ an Explanation for Difficulties in Physics 37 3.3.3 Chunking 39 3.3.4 Explaining the Soui ce of Difficulties with Regard to the N ature of Subj ect 39 3.3.5 Emotional and Cognitive State of Maturity 41 3.3.6 Learning Pathways and Experience 42 3.4 Conclusion 43 Chapter 4 University Experiments 4.1 Overview 44 4.2 Survey Methodology 45 4.2.1 Identification of Courses 45 4.2.2 Identification of Topics 45 4.3 Survey Results 46 4.3.1 Positional Asti’onomy 47 4.3.2 Examination Results 48 4.3.3 Special Relativity - Inteipretation of Results 51 4.4 Exploring the Difficulties 58 4.4.1 Difficulties in Positional Astronomy 58 4.4.2 Difficulties in Special Relativity 61 4.5 Self-diagnostic Modules 62 4.5.1 Positional Astronomy 62 4.5.2 Task Analysis and the Results 6 9 4.6 Special Relativity Unit 71 4.6.1 Task Analysis and the Results 77 4.7 Measuring Students’ Attitudes 79 4.7.1 Questionnaire Employed for Positional Astronomy 80 4.8 Conelusion 86 IV Chapter 5 School Experiment 5.1 Overview 88 5.2 Role Play Techniques and Educational Outcomes 89 5.3 Group Working and Communications Skills 91 5.4 Difficulties in Tcaching and Understanding the Concept of Energy 91 5.5 Methodology 93 5.5.1 Describing the Unit 93 5.6 Discussion of Results 96 5.7 Some Conclusions 97 Chapter 6 Conclusions and further Work 6.1 Summary of the study 98 6.2 University Experiments 98 6.2.1 Conclusion from Survey 98 6.2.2 Conclusion fr om the Units 99 6.3 School Experiments 99 6.4 Limitations 100 6.5 Further work 100 References Appendices Figures Chapter 2 Figure 2.1 Two dimensions of learning according to Asubel’s theory of learning 14 Figui'e 2.2 An information processing model of Johnstone 22 Figui’e 2.3 A plot of facility in objective chemistiy questions versus the number of thought steps 27 Figure 2.4 Expected performance of pupils 28 with given values of X in questions of different Z demands Chapter 3 Figure 3.1 Johnstone’s triangle of multi level thoughts 36 Chapter 4 Figure 4.1 Visualising the equator 69 Figure 4.2 Light rays emerges from 77 point A in space-time diagram Figure 4.3 Representing a stationary rod in Space-time diagram 78 Figure 4.4 Representing a relativistic rod in Space-time diagram 78 VI Tables Chapter 2 Table 2.1 Piaget’s Cognitive Stages Chapter 4 Table 4.1 Students’ performance in special relativity exam 54 unsorted data Table 4.2 Students’ performance in special relativity exam 55 Sorted by total exam Table 4.3 Students’ performance in special relativity exam 56 sorted by Q7 Table 4,4 Students’ perfoimance in special relativity exam 57 sorted by Q8 Vll Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Making Physics Accessible The subject of this thesis is ‘making physics accessible’.