Student misconceptions about force and acceleration in physics and engineering mechanics education

• Autores: Gang Liu, Ning Fang
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 32, no. 1 (Parte A), 2016, págs. 19-29
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Conceptual misunderstanding, also known as misconception, is common among many learners, especially novice learners,and often results in learners’ poor academic performance in many disciplines. The present study focuses on twofundamental and critical concepts in physics and engineering mechanics education: force and acceleration. The presentstudy pieces together scattered literature information on student misconceptions about force and acceleration, anddevelops a comprehensive list of all possible categories (or types, or ‘‘symptoms’’) of student misconceptions: 38misconceptions (in two categories with nine sub-categories) about force and 15 misconceptions (in three categories)about acceleration. The most commonly reported misconception about force is ‘‘motion implies force’’ for both K-12(kindergarten to grade 12) and college students. The most commonly reported misconception about acceleration is‘‘acceleration is always in the direction of motion.’’ The present study further examines the reasons reported in the existingliterature for why students have various misconceptions about force and acceleration. These reasons are grouped into fourcategories: (1) preconceived misunderstanding; (2) incomplete or partial understanding; (3) wrong interpretations andcomprehensions; and (4) vernacular misunderstanding. Methods of how to correct student misconceptions are alsosuggested and discussed in this paper.