The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of gender on
different categories of tenth grade students' / misconceptions about force and motion.
The Force Concept Inventory Test (FCI), Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT), Physics
Attitude Scale (PAS) and Experience Questionnaire About Force and Motion
(EQFM) were developed by the researcher to assess students' / misconceptions,
achievement, attitudes, and experiences, respectively. There were nine dependent
(students' / total scores on the FCI and their scores on eight misconception categories
(Kinematics, Impetus, Active Force, Action/Reaction Pairs, Concatenation of
Influences, Other Influences on Motion, Resistance and Gravity)) and six
independent (students' / gender, MBT scores, attitude, experience, school type and
age) variables involved in this study. This study was conducted with 10 schools / 20 classes / total of 651 10th grade
high school students in the academic year of 2002-2003. For each school, two
classes were used in the study. MBT, PAS, FCI and EQFM were administered.
Findings of the FCI and MBT indicated that general performances of the subjects
were relatively low and many students have misconceptions in interpreting force and
motion. The statistical results indicated that gender difference is effective on
students' / misconceptions in force and motion. When the data were analyzed using
MANOVA, gender difference was observed on the collective dependent variables of
scores on total FCI, and on misconception categories of Impetus, Active Force,
Resistance and Gravity in favor of males although there were no significant
difference on scores of both groups on the other categories of misconceptions.
Moreover, when the same data were analysed using MANCOVA, while controlling
students' / age, attitude, experience, achievement scores, and school types, observed
difference on the misconception categories of Active Force and Resistance were
disappeared.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/1207588/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2003 |
| Creators | Temizkan, Derya |
| Contributors | Eryilmaz, Ali |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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