IMPROVING SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ REPRESENTATIONAL COMPETENCE IN FORCE AND MOTION CONCEPTS

Authors

  • Shanaka Piyatissa Department of Science, National Institute of Education, Maharagama, Sri Lanka
  • Lalitha Waduge Vidura College, Hokandara South, Sri Lanka

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v10i10.5003

Keywords:

representational competence, physics education, external representations, representation modes, force and motion

Abstract

verbally expressed laws, mathematical equations, diagrams, graphs, charts and animations involved in physics which are related to abstract concepts. One aspect of this competence with relevance to physics education is the students’ ability to understand the physics-specific representations in relation to their physical and real-world applications which encompass to static as well as dynamic entities. In this study, attention has been paid to developing, validating and utilizing a lesson-specific assessment tool to identify students’ difficulties in understanding such representations encountered in selected Grade 10 physics-related science lessons presently taught in Sri Lankan government schools, namely, Resultant force, Newton’s laws of motion, Friction and Equilibrium of forces. The tool has been administered as an online test for a sample of 72 selected Grade 11 students who have already completed the lessons in their schools at Grade 10. It consists of 28 multiple-choice questions. It showed a mean score of 52.65% with a standard deviation of 24.94%. The tool gave high reliability (Cronbach's alpha value of 0.795). By analyzing the students’ performance at individual questions of the tool it revealed that the students have certain difficulties in understanding the representations such as the inability to determine the line of action of a force related to a given real-world situation, inability to predict the nature of the motion of an object if the object is acted upon by a constant force continuously, inability to identify difference between the action force and the reaction force mentioned in Newton’s third law of motion which act in two distinct objects, and marking such forces in a free body force diagram. The extent to which the prescribed curriculum materials help the students to overcome these difficulties has been evaluated and some suggested teaching-learning activities have been proposed to improve the students’ representational competence.

 

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Author Biographies

  • Shanaka Piyatissa, Department of Science, National Institute of Education, Maharagama, Sri Lanka

    Shanaka Piyatissa is a Lecturer at the Department of Science, National Institute of Education, Sri Lanka. He was awarded a B. Sc in Physical Science in 2002 and an M. Sc in Industrial Mathematics in 2006, from University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education in 2013 from University of Colombo, and a PhD in Education in 2019 from Management and Science University, Malaysia. His research interests are visualization in physics education, representational competence in physics and history of science and mathematics education.

    Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8474-0107

  • Lalitha Waduge, Vidura College, Hokandara South, Sri Lanka

    Lalitha Waduge presently works as a Science Teacher attached to Vidura College, Hokandara, Sri Lanka after the retirement of his service as a Senior Lecturer at National Institute of Education, Sri Lanka. He was awarded a B. Sc in Physical Science in 1985 from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education in 1993 from National Institute of Education, Sri Lanka, an M. Sc in Analytical Chemistry in 1999 from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and an M. Sc in Science Education in 2001 from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

References

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Published

2023-08-22

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 10 (2023)

Section

Articles

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