The results of national examination in matric and universities showed that African students were performing very poorly in their studies and examinations in science and in physics in particular. The objective in this study was to investigate some of the difficulties both African teachers and students, that meant African learners, had in understanding physics, specifically mechanics. The study consisted of investigation of two themes, namely, conceptual and language difficulties. Conceptual Difficulties were investigated by means of three questionnaire tasks. Task One investigated learners' understanding of the concepts of force, energy, power, momentum, speed and other related mechanics concepts in the context of boulders rolling down and up a mountain slope. Task Two investigated subjects' understanding of the force on a ball that was thrown up by the hand, went up to the highest position, and then turned and fell freely back to the ground. Task Three investigated learners' understanding of the positions where speeds, velocities, accelerations and forces were equal on a ball as it was going up and on its way down. The Pilot group, among whom the wide pilot work of this study was done through some haphazard questionnaire, consisted of pre-service and in-service teachers selected from the North East Free State Highlands which was regarded as an appropriate location with a number of institutions with the necessary research subjects, ,since it was neither much urban nor much rural. Intensive study and analysis was done on this pilot work and it led to some real research study to be conducted within a more "focussed" group, namely, the Student group. This Student group which consisted of the first year physics students on the Pietermaritzburg Campus of the University of Natal, was selected for purposes of comparison. Two kinds of Reference groups were devised: for the Conceptual Difficulties investigation the Reference group consisted of physics lecturers and professors from several universities. Their unanimous responses together were regarded as a memorandum through which to correct the responses of the study subjects. For the Language Difficulties investigation the Reference group consisted of African physicists from several universities. There was no unanimous consensus on their mechanics concepts translations into their vernaculars. Analysis of written results and interviews showed that African students experienced Conceptual Difficulties in mechanics. The Conceptual Difficulties were similar to those conducted in many other countries around the world by physics education researchers. The Language Difficulties were of two types. Firstly, a translation from a single mother tongue term into multiple English (the language of instruction) terms revealed a lack of clear concepts differentiation among the subjects. Secondly, there was no consensus, even amongst African physicists, as to which vernacular terms and English terms correspond. In addition, the interaction of the use of African vernaculars with an alternative conceptualisation seemed to have resulted to many of the research subjects believing in a quantity that is intrinsic to a person or object. This quantity had attributes of several different mechanics quantities, such as force, momentum, energy and power. Two tasks were used in the second theme where Language Difficulties were investigated. Translations of conceptual terms that were supplied in Task One and Task Three of the first theme were given and examined. The phenomenon of reverse translation from mother tongue to English was identified as a source of Language Difficulties due to the availability of limited words for these conceptual terms in the vernaculars spoken in South Africa. However, the effect language on the subjects' understanding of mechanics was not simply the result of the lack of vocabulary, the study also showed that the research subjects conceptualised physics concepts differently from physicists, this was revealed by analysing their use of both English and their vernaculars. The results of the investigations were then discussed and compared with those obtained by other research workers in similar studies around the world. Some approaches in teaching physics to African students in an endeavour to alleviate these unearthed difficulties were proposed and recommended in the conclusion. It was further encouraged that more investigations would show to appropriately and successfully instruct the African learners the physics concepts, since some institutions lately managed to produce African physicists and physics professors. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1938 G51

A Research Report submitted to Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science. Johannesburg July 2016. / The study reported in this research report was motivated by the continuous poor performance by South African learners in physical sciences. This poor performance is evidenced by the below expectations year in, year out grade 12 physical science final examinations results. Several factors may be contributing to this poor performance such as lack of resources (both financial and human resources), overcrowding, ineffective teaching methods, and the language of teaching and learning. The assertion for this study was that teacher’s oral classroom instructional language impacts on learning of classroom science. The study, hence investigated how South African physical science teachers use their oral instructional language to enhance the understanding of science concepts. The raw data was gathered through naturalistic observation and video recording of physical science lessons by two participant South African physical science teachers drawn from two different high schools located in the Gauteng Province. The two school were chosen on the basis of their matric results that are also below average. Follow up educator interviews were also conducted and video recorded. The videos of the lesson observations and educator interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed. The study revealed that the participant educators were not explaining the meanings of all technical and non-technical words that were used in the observed lessons. Teachers did not distinguish between the everyday meanings and scientific meanings of non-technical words used. Participant educators did not seek and make use of the participant learners’ pre-instructional meanings of non-technical words to help learners understand better the new scientific meanings of these words. One of the participant educators did not engage learners in the ongoing lesson talk. The findings of this study will sensitise physical science teachers to important role of their oral instructional language to successful learning of science concepts in the classroom. This might help in ensuring science teachers use their oral instructional language effectively to enhance understanding of science concepts, by adopting teaching approaches that facilitate shared meanings of vocabulary used in science classrooms. Key words: technical and non-technical words, instructional language, science language. / LG2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master’s Degree in Science Education May 2016 / Studies have revealed that the teacher’s science classroom language plays a critical role in learners’ understanding of science concepts. The quality of the teacher’s science language impacts on the quality of learning. Learners encounter difficulties with the science classroom language irrespective of whether they are first or second language speakers of the language of instruction. The difficulty of the science language is mainly due to words having different meanings in science as compared to their everyday meanings, and also the foreignness of some science words (Oyoo, 2012). The language in science is therefore distinct from everyday language. In the South African context, the strategies to improve the quality of science education in secondary schools have not included the language. This study focus on the quality of the teachers’ science language in physical science classrooms. In this study data was collected by means of lesson observations of participant teachers followed by interview of one of the participant teacher. Two teachers participated in the study, and both teachers were from the same school. One teacher was teaching grade 10 physical science and the other teacher was teaching grade 11 physical science. Content analysis was used to analyse both lesson observation and interview transcripts. The findings from the lesson observation revealed that participant teachers overlooked explanation of some technical words as well as some non-technical words used in science context. The interview with one of the teachers showed an unawareness of the difficulty of the science language as he pointed that there was little difference between the science language and everyday language. The study recommends that there should be teacher development programmes dealing specifically with the language problem in science. / M T 2016

Orientador: Roberto Nardi / Banca: Dirceu da Silva / Banca: Aparecida Valquíria Pereira da Silva / Resumo: O objetivo desta pesquisa foi estudar como a evolução histórica dos modelos de atração entre corpos, tendo como pano de fundo a evolução dos modelos de mundo, pode auxiliar na formação continuada do docente de física. Para tanto, sugerimos um planejamento de curso sobre o tema atração gravitacional, destinado principalmente a docentes de física que atuam no ensino médio. O planejamento do curso foi baseado: em dados sobre a evolução dos modelos de mundo, buscando evidenciar como o conceito de atração gravitacional desenvolveu-se historicamente, nas concepções alternativas mais comuns encontradas na literatura, incluindo um breve esboço de noções diagnosticadas em uma amostra de docentes de física de ensino médio; e em sugestões de leituras de resultados de pesquisas recentes sobre os processos de ensino e aprendizagem de ciências. Pretende-se fornecer aos docentes elementos de reflexão que lhes proporcionem mudanças de postura, através do questionamento da visão de ciência enquanto processo de construção e sobre sua própria prática de ensino. Partindo privilegia o trabalho coletivo, com a realização de debates e sínteses. As atividades mencionadas são acompanhadas de justificativas sobre a escolha do tema e objetivos / Abstract: The main purpose of this research was to study how the attraction among bodies models' historical evolution, having as background the world models' evolution, can help in-service reachers' education. To reach this goal, we suggest a course plan on gravitational attraction, addressed mainly to high school physics teachers. This course was based: on data about the world models' evolution, searching to make clear how the concept of gravitational attraction was historically developed; on the most common alternative conceptions found in the literature, including a bried outline of notions found among in-service high school physics teachers, and on suggestions about science teaching and learning process' recent research outcomes. The sequence of activities aims to provide teachers with some reflections in order to change their attitudes, through the inquiry of their view of science as a construction process, and their own teaching practice. The methodology proposed considers the collective work through the realization of debates and synthesis. The subjects and objectives chosen are justified / Not available / Mestre

In this dissertation, I investigate the effects of a grounded learning experience on college students' mental models of physics systems. The grounded learning experience consisted of a priming stage and an instruction stage, and within each stage, one of two different types of visuo-haptic representation was applied: visuo-gestural simulation (visual modality and gestures) and visuo-haptic simulation (visual modality, gestures, and somatosensory information). A pilot study involving N = 23 college students examined how using different types of visuo-haptic representation in instruction affected people's mental model construction for physics systems. Participants' abilities to construct mental models were operationalized through their pretest-to-posttest gain scores for a basic physics system and their performance on a transfer task involving an advanced physics system. Findings from this pilot study revealed that, while both simulations significantly improved participants' mental modal construction for physics systems, visuo-haptic simulation was significantly better than visuo-gestural simulation. In addition, clinical interviews suggested that participants' mental model construction for physics systems benefited from receiving visuo-haptic simulation in a tutorial prior to the instruction stage. A dissertation study involving N = 96 college students examined how types of visuo-haptic representation in different applications support participants' mental model construction for physics systems. Participant's abilities to construct mental models were again operationalized through their pretest-to-posttest gain scores for a basic physics system and their performance on a transfer task involving an advanced physics system. Participants' physics misconceptions were also measured before and after the grounded learning experience. Findings from this dissertation study not only revealed that visuo-haptic simulation was significantly more effective in promoting mental model construction and remedying participants' physics misconceptions than visuo-gestural simulation, they also revealed that visuo-haptic simulation was more effective during the priming stage than during the instruction stage. Interestingly, the effects of visuo-haptic simulation in priming and visuo-haptic simulation in instruction on participants' pretest-to-posttest gain scores for a basic physics system appeared additive. These results suggested that visuo-haptic simulation is effective in physics learning, especially when it is used during the priming stage.

Orientador: Leandro Londero da Silva / Banca: Fernanda Cátia Bozelli / Banca: Solange Aranha / Resumo: Vivemos em um mundo onde somos cercados por informações constantemente, sejam elas difundidas pelos meios de comunicação e até mesmo por meio do contato com outras pessoas com as quais convivemos. Algumas informações podem nos ser úteis e contribuir para nosso conhecimento, outras não. Para desenvolver a capacidade de processar as informações que são transmitidas e transformá-las em conhecimento, entendemos que, é necessário promover um ensino que forme cidadãos aptos a organizarem seus pensamentos de maneira lógica e a construírem seus raciocínios criticamente em relação ao ambiente em que se inserem. Nessa perspectiva, a promoção da Alfabetização Científica (AC) é fundamental para a formação de cidadãos críticos. As notícias científicas (NCs) veiculadas pela mídia constituem uma interessante forma de articular a AC, oferecendo diversos meios para tanto. A ciência presente nas notícias introduz informações em esfera pública, podendo contribuir com o debate e a tomada de decisões relacionadas com problemas sociocientíficos. Nesse contexto é que se insere esse estudo, tendo como objetivo investigar as contribuições e as limitações do uso de notícias científicas no processo de AC no ensino da Física de Partículas Elementares no Ensino Médio. Este trabalho justifica-se uma vez que é comum encontrarmos muitas informações sobre Partículas Elementares em notícias divulgadas em jornais, televisões e revistas semanais. Esses materiais surgem, então, como uma possibilidade para o... / Abstract: We live in a world where we are surrounded by information constantly, whether they are disseminated by the media and even through contact with other people with whom we live. Some information may be useful and contribute to our knowledge, others may not. In order to develop the capacity to process the information that is transmitted and transform it into knowledge, we understand that it is necessary to promote a teaching that will form citizens capable of organizing their thoughts in a logical way and constructing their reasonings critically by relation to the environment in which they inserted. In this perspective, the promotion of Scientific Literacy (AC) is fundamental for the critical citizens' formation. Scientific news (NCs) conveyed by the media is an interesting way to articulate the CA, offering several means to do so. The science present in the news introduces information in the public sphere, and can contribute to the debate and decision making related to socio-scientific problems. In this context, this study is inserted, aiming to investigate the contributions and limitations of the use of scientific news on CA process in the teaching of Elementary Particle Physics in High School. This work is justified since it is common to find much information on Elementary Particles in news published on newspapers, televisions and weekly magazines. These materials then appear as a possibility for the teaching of this curricular topic and to understand the functioning of this ... / Mestre

Abstract not available

The research presented in this thesis was motivated by the need to improve introductory physics courses. Introductory physics courses are generally the first courses in which students learn to create models to solve complex problems. However, many students taking introductory physics courses fail to acquire a command of the concepts, methods and tools presented in these courses. The reforms proposed by this thesis focus on altering the content of introductory courses rather than content delivery methods as most reforms do. This thesis explores how the performance on a widely used test of conceptual understanding in mechanics compares between students taking a course with updated and modified content and students taking a traditional course. Better performance by traditional students was found to stem from their additional practice on the types of items which appeared on the test. The results of this work brought into question the role of the introductory physics course for non-majors. One aspect of this new role is the teaching of new methods such as computation (the use of a computer to solve numerically, simulate and visualize physical problems). This thesis explores the potential benefits for students who learn computation as part of physics course. After students worked through a suite of computational homework problems, many were able to model a new physical situation with which they had no experience. The failure of some students to model this new situation might have stemmed from their unfavorable attitudes towards learning computation. In this thesis, we present the development of a new tool for characterizing students' attitudes. Preliminary measurements indicated significant differences between successful and unsuccessful students.

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