If you are looking for actual research on alternative conceptions which
contains examples of questions and issues actually raised in interviews and
other settings with students, then there is a bibliography containing over
5000 entries which are categorized according to topic. You can download
this document in two files on is an introduction and explanation and the
other is the bibliography itself. Use the following URL:
Your browser and the server will enter into an ftp session and all you have
to do is click on the files "plr11" and "plr12" and the files will be
downloaded. They are in two formats, one is EndNote and the other is Word.
A selection of articles on student conceptions in any topic has the
potential to yield up a series of questions that could be used and about
which the research tells you what has been found so far.
Also, it would be productive to consider just what might be meant by the
term "conception" in the context of learning science or physics. For a
place to start you do well to read the monograph: "Conceptual Change in
Childhood" by Susan Carey (not really restricted to considerations of young
children) and Science Education 76(6): 615 - 652 (1992) (which is written
about physics teaching specifically).
Then, there are the fairly well known: Force Concept Inventory from the
Modelling Project at Arizona State University; a series of assessments on
force (Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation), linear motion, electric
circuits and thermal phenomena from the Tools for Scientific Thinking and
Real-Time Physics Projects out of the Center for Science and Math Teaching
at Tufts Univ.; an assessment on electric circuits from the group at NC
State (check out Bob Beichner's group). There is also a large collection
of good assessment items from Dave Maloney (Indiana Univ-Purdue Univ at
Fort Wayne).
I've probably left some out, but a perusal of the bibliography and keeping
track of the workshops and talks given at AAPT meetings will lead to more
material of this sort.
Dewey
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.
"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes
and Baby Universes, 1993.
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