A study of high school students' conceptions for density

초록

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate high school students' conceptual understanding of density for solids and liquids in pure and mixed substances who had preceded formal school science instruction on density and related topics. A concept assessment on density was developed and administered by demonstrative experiments accompanied by a written assessment test method to 120 general high school students in a metropolitan city. The scientific conceptions and alternative conceptions from students' responses were identified and the percentages of them were calculated. Then, their alternative conceptions and implicit theories on density were analyzed. About half of the students couldn't differentiate weight-volume-density and regarded density as an innate property of matter. Furthermore, the greater the number of variables involved in an experimental condition of the question, the more complicated and undifferentiated students' density concepts were. Students employed more improper variables such as particle size, intermolecular distance, surface tension, polarity of the solvent, etc. in explaining counter-intuitive observations. The implications for school science instruction were discussed.

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