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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion, along with related concepts such as energy and force. In this context, motion is the change in the position of an object as a result of an applied force (Anyakoha, 2007). Thus, force is an agent that brings about motion. It was Aristotle who first developed a systematic set of ideas about the physical world, which is often referred to as Aristotelian physics.

Related to his concept of force is his classification of motion as natural, voluntary, and forced (Jammer, 1957). In the natural motion category, Aristotle believed that objects intrinsically either have a natural tendency to fall down to the earth, which he called gravity, or a natural tendency to rise into the sky, which he called levity. He thought that heavy bodies fall faster because the falling speed is in proportion to the weight of the objects. The earth and the sky are natural places objects would move to according to their internal natural tendencies. Voluntary motion refers to motion of living organisms such as animals and humans, who are agents able to exert force to make other inanimate things move. Nonliving objects are obstacles that stop or guide motion, but they do not exert forces.

In the forced motion category, an object moves because of the moving force applied to it by an agent. The object continues to move after the agent is no longer in contact with it because force is still transmitted to the object through a medium such as air.  Motion in a vacuum is thus not possible. A force does not move an object unless it overcomes the object’s inertia, an intrinsic resistance of the object. A constant force applied to an object produces a constant speed which is also inversely proportional to the inertia of the object. In the absence of force, an object would stop immediately. So, forced motion is made consistent to the other two types of motion by Aristotle through his notion of antiperistasis and his theory of entelechy or agency (Leclerc, 1972). In summary, for Aristotle, no motion is possible without force acting on the moving object, or in other words, motion and force are inseparable and a moving object is always an effect of some kind of entelechy, either visible or invisible.

According to Eryılmaz (2004), physics is the most basic of all sciences. It is at the root of every field of sciences and underlines all natural phenomena. In other words physics is the mother of all sciences. It is not a set of facts and rules to be memorized. Instead, memorization is a fruitless way to try to learn physics (Bueche, 1988). This observation by Bueche is in line with the assertion by Eryilmaz, (2004; 2) that;

Physics is a difficult course to construct meaningful learning and so the achievement of students in physics is very low. There are some factors affecting students’ achievement in physics. Some of them are related with students; like students’ preconceptions, mathematics achievement, cognitive development level, attitudes towards physics, prior experience with the related fields, socio-economic level, age, and gender. 

Among all of these factors, students’ preconceptions play important role. Students’ preconceptions in this context are all the ideas or knowledge they have about a given concept before the actual learning takes place.  Researchers have been trying to diagnose students’ preconceptions about physical concepts and rules. For instance, Clement (1982) and Eryılmaz (2004) in their separate studies on the influence of students’ preconceptions on their achievement indicated that preconceptions held by students about physics concepts are significant. The above finding goes to support the fact that students’ preconceptions contribute to their poor achievement in physics.   It is a popular idea in education that students come into a classroom with preconceptions about the material they are taught that can alter or interfere with their understanding of a concept (Tara, 2009). For example, when learning to read graphs of motion for the first time, students often interpret the graph literally, as they would interpret a picture or a map. As students learn, they move from naïve or intuitive state of understanding or conception to more acceptable conceptions.

Conceptual understanding according to Johnson (2005) refers to a person’s representation of the major concepts in a system. Conceptual understanding is rich in relationships and understanding. It is a connected web of knowledge, a network in which the linking relationships are as prominent as the discrete bits of information. Conceptual understanding according to Johnson (2005) cannot be learned by rote. It must be learned by thoughtful, reflective learning. On the contrary, procedural understanding is the understanding of formal language or symbolic representations. It is the understanding of rules, algorithms, and procedures. Conceptual understanding is also known as the kind of knowledge that may be transferred between situations. The students’ ability to develop conceptual understanding involves seeing the connections between concepts and procedures, and being able to apply physics principles in a variety of contexts. This is different from routine knowledge, which is knowledge that is applicable only to certain situations. For example, a student who decided to cram an aspect of a course for examination will quickly forget the crammed concepts after the examination. Conceptual understanding in physics develops when students “see the connections among concepts and procedures and can give arguments to explain why some facts are consequences of others” (National Research Council, 2001; 119). This implies that facts are no longer isolated but become organized in coherent structures based on relationships, generalizations and patterns.

Rittle-Johnson, Siegler, & Alibali, (2001) found that developing students’ procedural knowledge had positive effects on their conceptual understanding, and conceptual understanding was a prerequisite for the students’ ability to generate and select appropriate procedures. Thus, conceptual understanding is intertwined with procedural knowledge. This makes the isolated study of either difficult, requiring more than the determination of the correctness/incorrectness of a student’s answer. It requires further investigation into the response, which can provide valuable insight into the thinking (Gould, 2005).The relationship between conceptual understanding and procedural understanding from their respective definitions above is that procedural understanding increases conceptual understanding. The difference between the two forms of understanding also is that while conceptual understanding leads to full adoption and transfer of the instructed procedure, procedural understanding leads to adoption but only limited transfer of the instructed procedure.  This highlights the causal relations between conceptual and procedural understanding and suggests that conceptual understanding may have a greater influence on procedural understanding than the reverse.

According to Black and William (1998), it is increasingly appreciated that learning is tied to effective assessment by monitoring students’ progress and feeding that information back to students. Assessment is an ongoing process of setting high expectations for student learning, measuring progress toward established learning outcomes, and providing feedback to improve academic progress (Black and William, 1998). There are many aspects of learning that can be assessed. However, if we seek to empower students to transfer the knowledge gained to new situations, then a deep understanding must be developed (National Research Council, 1999). In many physical science courses of which physics is part, deep understanding is usually associated with understanding of concepts. Lack of understanding of concepts by students may lead to their poor achievement. Thus, some efforts need to be devoted to identifying core concepts and then to devising means of gauging students understanding of those concepts. Thornton and Sokoloff (1998) designed Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) to probe student’s conceptual understanding of Newtonian Mechanics. Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation was administered to more than 1000 students in the non-calculus and calculusbased general physics lecture courses and in the introductory physics laboratory at the University of Oregon and Tufts University. Results demonstrated that students high achievement in FCME indicate a high conceptual understanding of force and motion.

McDermott (1984), on reviewing research on conceptual understanding in mechanics (e.g., gravitational force, velocity and acceleration, and force and motion), pointed out some interesting and unexpected results from several studies. Studies about “passive” forces (e.g., the tension in a string) indicated that students, regardless of ages, have the same conceptual difficulty understanding those forces, yet most physics instructors proceed as if the concept of a passive force is easily understood (Minstrell, 1982). A study in velocity and acceleration revealed that students with greater facility with mathematics do not necessarily have a deeper conceptual understanding than those who have less training in mathematics (Whitaker, 1983). This shows that one’s knowledge of mathematics does not guarantee his/her conceptual understanding of physics concepts.  It demands that one should posses an in-depth knowledge of the concepts not necessarily the mathematical knowledge only. Studies such as force and motion relation showed that many students have a well-integrated system of beliefs about the behavior of objects in motion. The students believe that an object will not stop moving unless the initial force acting on the subject is “used up”, the “Aristotelian” or “medieval” belief. This believe contradicts the Newtonian view that a body will continue in its state of uniform motion except intercepted by an external force (McCloskey, Caramazza, & Green, 1980).