Re: [Phys-l] Errata for FCI?

["Dr. Richard Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Denker" <jsd@av8n.com>
> I get really tired of "Conceptual" books and "Conceptual" exams
> that pay only lip service to actual concepts and instead rely
> heavily on rote regurgitation.  I object to using "conceptual"
> as a euphemism for "superficial" i.e. "not requiring much if
> any deep thinking".  Forsooth, I consider the concepts and the
> principles to be the /most/ thoughtful, deep, and sophisticated
> part of any subject.


It would be great if we (we who regularly deal with intro-level students, 
often gen-ed students) could really work on the level of concepts you 
suggest.  Unfortunately, even after considerable instruction, after hands-on 
exercises (Socratic Dialog style labs), a large (too large) percentage of 
these students will tell you that the force on a vertically thrown ball is 
constantly decreasing as the ball rises..AND NO, they are not thinking that 
the ball is getting farther from the center of the earth so the 
gravitational force is decreasing (no matter how small that decrease might 
be).  They are thinking in pure Aristotilean terms--the force of the hand 
continues with the ball as it rises, but somehow peters out with time and 
distance.  That is the level of (mis)conception we are dealing with and with 
which most of the FCI questions attempt to deal.  The book on the table is 
just a bad question, badly stated, and should have been removed long ago 
(I'm assuming it IS still in the updated FCI).

Rick