MASTERING PECULIARITIES OF STUDENTS' KNOWLEDGE IN OPTICS: AN ANALYSIS OF SOLUTIONS OF PHYSICS PROBLEMS IN GRADE 10

Following the renewed general programs of Lithuanian secondary education i.e., by adjusting the content and teaching/learning goals of each subject, not only knowledge, but also their applications, real problems solving and reasoning have emphasized in the teaching process. Therefore, not only the conveyance of subject matter knowledge, but also teaching students to think and understand is particularly important. In order to assess the student's level of uptake of knowledge and its application, it is necessary to identify the process of thinking and understanding of subject matter, to capture errors and incorrect thinking. When the causes of errors are known, it is possible to define what knowledge or skills are missing. This article deals with the typical errors that have made when solving problems from the light phenomena. These are subject errors caused by a lack of knowledge or wrong under-standing of material, errors caused by gaps of application abilities and inattention errors. Mastering peculiarities of students' knowledge of light phenomena was studied by analysis of problems solutions. For this purpose, the 1747 problems solving of students' of young physicists school “Foton” of Siauliai University were analyzed. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of problems solutions showed that the problems of light phenomena for students of young physicists school “Foton” were moderately difficult (0.65). It can be argued that students are well mastered this physics course and are able to apply their knowledge in specific situations. The study revealed a typical subject, skills and inattention errors that were done not only in the "Photon" problems solving, but also during the lesson or the control work, doing homework, participation in the Olympiad and so on. There are some tips on how to avoid those mistakes.