出版社:Australian Institutes for Educational Research
摘要:This paper reports on a study of pedagogical strategies for promoting conceptualunderstanding by reducing misconceptions. The case chosen to investigate thisphenomenon involved 40 Thai vocational education students studying physics (electriccircuits) in secondary school. The study investigated the effect of an explaining strategyon students’ understanding. It also investigated the effect of an enacting strategy onstudents’ overall misconceptions with one group (n=20) using an electric circuits board(CB) whilst another group (n=20) used a virtual simulation (VS) of electric circuits. Preandpost-test results showed significant improvements in understanding. Pre- and posttestresults for the ‘enacting’ strategy comparing the virtual simulation versus the electriccircuits board showed significant increases within groups, as well as a significantreduction in misunderstanding for the VS group. However, the overall levels ofmisunderstanding remained high in spite of the significance of the intervention. Thisresult confirms the characterisation of misconceptions as persistent difficulties.Implications point to the value of combining multiple strategies for conceptualunderstanding, matching strategies to the context and to the limitations of evaluatingconceptual understanding.