Students' Ideas on Common Experiments About the Particulate Nature of Matter

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Abstract

Research on students' thinking about the particulate nature of matter has shown that students find it difficult to connect the macroscopic with the sub microscopic world. Although they have heard about atoms, students stay within a continuous model of matter or attribute macroscopic properties to particles. The research presented focuses on the arguments students make when they have to explain experiments on a sub microscopic level. The question is if experiments convince students of the applicability of the particulate nature of matter. Therefore, the researchers conducted twenty interviews according to the method of probing acceptance with students from lower and upper-secondary school. Every interview featured one of five experiments, commonly used in teaching. The goal was to see if the experiments helped students to successfully apply the particulate model of matter. Students’ answers were coded using qualitative content analysis. The results of this research show, that explaining experiments on a sub microscopic level proves a great challenge for students. None of the five experiments seems to be a good starting point when engaging students with the particulate nature of matter for the first time. Therefore, further research should focus on other ways of introducing this difficult topic to students.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)381-397
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Baltic Science Education
Volume21
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 503013 Subject didactics of natural sciences

Keywords

  • classroom experiments
  • conceptual change
  • particulate model
  • probing acceptance

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