THE ANALYSIS OF PUPILS’ PRE-SCIENTIFIC NOTIONS AND SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS ABOUT MOTION AND FORCES

The issue of the study. Our precondition was that non-scientific notions formed by pupils affect concept teaching. If non-scientific notions are in conformity with the content of scientific concepts the teacher should rely on them forming new concepts, explaining natural phenomena, etc. It contributes to the concept comprehension efficacy. In case non-scientific notions are in collision with the content of scientific concepts they should be corrected as in that case they interfere with the formation of scientific concepts. The goals of research. The goals of the research were: 1) to clarify the interaction of pre-scientific notions and scientific concepts about motion and forces; 2) to evaluate the comprehension of concepts by those pupils who had studied physics and to clarify changes in concept understanding and typical errors that had remained after systematic study. Methodology of research. The research was carried out in year 2004. 700 pupils of 7th and 9th forms from the schools of Siauliai, Kaunas, Telsiai district, Kelme district and young physicists' school “Fotonas” have been involved in the research. Group I included 7th formers (265 pupils), who had not studied physics as a separate subject but had elementary knowledge of physics from the course “World Science” (1st – 4th forms) and the integrated course of natural sciences “Nature and Man” (5th – 6th forms). Group II consisted of 9th form pupils (540), who have been studying physics for three years. The same questions and tasks adapted to the pupils' age and previous knowledge were given to each group. The concepts from the topics “Force” were included. The tasks included elementary knowledge of the researched concepts familiar to pupils from both groups, but exact and correct answers were given by the 9th formers who had already analysed the topics. Besides, aiming for better evaluation of knowledge in physics, pupils of Group II answering the questions had to formulate proper definitions of the concepts or laws. A discussion method was used to clarify pupils' thinking procedures. The received data was processed using statistical research methods. Results of research. It was stated during the research that before starting a systematic study of physics pupils had had pre-scientific notions. A number of incorrect notions on motion and force were revealed. In many cases pre-scientific notions were typical and in a way understandable for pupils. Pre-scientific notions often are retained even after purposeful teaching, and in some time or situations they turn out to be even more distinct and convincing than the scientific ones. It has been stated that pupils reproduce concept definitions without any efforts, but in a definite situation they base solutions of a definite task on misleading notions. Very often pupils understand the content of some concepts in a wrong way, do not make distinction between concepts and confuse functional relations of concepts. They are already able to indicate the features of a concept, but are not able to separate essential and inessential concepts.