SGER: Conceptual Development About Forces & Motion In Elementary/Middle School Students

Coming to a differentiated view of motion seems to be one of the important prerequisites for coming to a Newtonian view of forces. In this project we will attempt to induce change in student conceptions of motion and forces. The microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) approach has been shown to accomplish this for high school and college students. We intend to find out to what extent the same will be true for students in the fourth, sixth, and eighth grades. These students will use MBL equipment in a series of collaborative lessons which are designed to induce cognitive disequilibration and then to facilitate student efforts in making sense of the surprises they uncover in the laboratory activities. We will be looking for evidence of change in their descriptions of motion and for evidence that they can be disequilibrated over the contradiction between their beliefs about causes of motion and how forces are seen to influence to the motion of real objects. To the extent that such evidence is found in students at a particular grade level, a case can be made for an attempt to induce change to a more Newtonian view of forces at that grade level. The project is significant also in that it involves action research. A classroom teacher will be a co-investigator in the research. The findings of the project will: 1. have strong implications for curriculum design and our notions about factors which determine student conceptual learning and 2. provide valuable insights into the practical aspects of inducing conceptual change in the classroom.