Investigating the impacts on non-Newtonian conceptions of Physics undergraduates and graduates in relation to the concepts of Force and Motion

Abstract:

Practices that are considered traditional and poorly contribute to students’ learning persist in the teaching of Physics. Thus, this article aimed at understanding the non-Newtonian conceptions of undergraduates and graduates in a Physics Degree course in relation to the concepts of Force and Motion, in addition to analyzing possible influences on these conceptions when students were exposed to a Computational Simulation and a textbook, applied under the same conditions (freely and for a short period of time). This is a quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design, with a control group and an experimental one. In both groups, a reduced version of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was applied in the construction of the data, both in the pre-test and in the post-test. In addition to the analysis of conceptions, the normalized learning gain and the effect size were used. The results indicate that, on average, the proposed treatments did not significantly influence the students' conceptions.

Keywords: Physics teaching; Non-Newtonian conceptions; Force and motion; FCI.