Abstract:

Constructivist science education research has pointed out that students who begin their academic career in a scientific programme may generally reveal some misconceptions on a broad spectrum of Physics topics [1]. Indeed, the term “misconceptions” was introduced for the first time in 1972 [2]. This theme is worthy of investigation in order to both improve the undergraduates’ outcomes in basic Physics courses and increase their persistence [3] as well as to tackle the issue of the growing number of dropouts [4].

Our research aims at verifying if the background knowledge in classical Physics of some Politecnico di Milano learners highlights the presence of some misconceptions which have already been described in scientific literature and tries to identify novel ones. Both first-year and second-year university students enrolled for engineering were involved in our study; on balance, they were 989. Not only does our study intend to call attention to some possible erroneous viewpoints, it tries to possibly modify and improve the design of some basic Physics courses at Politecnico di Milano or at least some of their lessons.

Data about these possible misconceptions were gathered through the use of an ad hoc test, an original Physics Concept Inventory, which was administered to all the students through the online portal Socrative and their own electronic devices, aligning with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy [5]. The trial consisted of 12 multiple choice quizzes; every question was characterised by four possible answers, but only one alternative out of four was correct. Therefore, the possible misconceptions investigated by means of that quiz were generally explored through the other three incorrect answers. Actually, in accordance with the incorrect alternative selected by a student it was possible to detect their misconception related to that topic.

In accord with the significant bulk of data collected one can argue that misconceptions are alarmingly disseminated among freshmen as well as second-year university students. On balance, freshmen often start their academic career with numerous erroneous viewpoints on Physics phenomena; university courses at times appear to be unable to improve the students’ understanding of them.

References:
[1] M. Bozzi, P. Ghislandi, M. Zani et al., “Highlight misconceptions in Physics: a T.I.M.E. project”, INTED2019 (XIII International Technology, Educational and Development Conference) - Valencia (Spain) 11-13/3/2019 - Proceedings of INTED2019 pp. 2520-2525, 2019.
[2] R. L. Doran, “Misconceptions of Selected Science Concepts”; Journal of Research in Science Teaching, vol. 9, pp. 127-137, 1972.
[3] D. Marburger, “Absenteeism and Undergraduate Exam Performance”, Journal of Economic Education, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 99–109, 2006.
[4] M. Brown, A. Calkins, G. Siemens, “The Current and Future State of Higher Education”; Retrieved November 22, 2013, from https://library.educause.edu/resources/2012/11/the-current-and-future-state-of-higher-education
[5] R. Afreen, “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges”, IJETTCS, vol. 3, pp. 233-236, 2014.

Keywords:

Misconceptions, Physics, Higher Education, Physics Concept Inventory, BYOD.