Research on the Elementary Students’ Misconceptions about Heat through their Scientific Writing

• Main Authors: Chia-Lung Hsieh, 謝嘉龍
• Other Authors: 郭金美
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/91905150317315149851

碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 國民教育研究所 === 94 === The purpose of this research is to study the elementary students’ misconceptions about heat through their scientific writing. The researcher conducted the two main conceptions of “Heat” including the “expansion with hotness and shrinking with coldness”, and “heat transmission”. This study is a qualitative study. Subjects participating in this study are 36 sixth graders in one of Tainan County elementary schools. They were taught by the researcher. The teaching unit of the study was “Heat and our life”. After teacher’s instruction every student was required to finish three writings in three weeks. Researcher and the other judge then examined independently students’ concept about heat in accordance with the categories to determine if students’ concepts are misconceptions. The results of this study indicate that sixth graders do have misconceptions about “expansion with hotness and shrinking with coldness” and “heat transmission” and such results confirm what former studies in literature have found. This study found more misconceptions which were: scientific terms misused, heat transferring through vacant space, and object distorted by heat. And other misconceptions about heat transferring were: some materials insulated heat, heat transferring varied with color, existing cool material, and temperature confused with heat. As a result science writing is a helpful skill for exploring misconceptions and should be applied to both instruction and assessment.