Learners' conceptions about astronomical concepts related to the sun and the earth

[摘要] This research report is based on a study that investigated South African Grade-10learners’ conceptions about day and night, and the seasons, after instruction in thesetopics. The study was motivated by examiners’ reports that learners perform poorly inphysical science, and by alternative conceptions that learners have about scientificconcepts, as reported in the literature. A motive for conducting the study in South Africais that relatively little has been published about South African learners’ conceptions aboutday and night, and the seasons.An open-ended diagnostic questionnaire was used to probe learners’ conceptions aboutday and night, and the seasons. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire werechecked by the researchers’ supervisor and colleagues. The questionnaire was piloted ina secondary school in the same township as the school that was later used to collect themain study data. Learners in the pilot study were asked to state problems encounteredwhile answering the questionnaire. This resulted in minor modifications on thequestionnaire.The modified questionnaire was then administered to the main study group, and opencoding was used to analyze the results. The results show that the majority of learnerslacked scientifically acceptable conceptions about day and night, and the seasons, e.g.they did not understand the combined rotation of the Earth about its axis, and therevolution of the Earth about the Sun. The results also show that learners could notproperly interpret diagrams, and to effectively use diagrams to clarify their answers.Learners lack scientifically acceptable conceptions despite detailed explanations given intheir textbooks, which imply that the books were not used effectively in the learningprocess. Some recommendations made, following these results, are that learners’attention should be drawn to rich information presented in their textbooks, and that some3-dimensional objects should be used when teaching the topic.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand