Student teachers’ levels of understanding and model of understanding about Newton's laws of motion

Effective learning of concepts and laws, constituting the basis of physics, is essential for understanding and explaining natural phenomena. This learning process has attracted many researchers’ attention. Studies have shown that students have learning difficulties on basic physics concepts like; “force, acceleration, movement, gravitational acceleration and so on” (Atasoy, 2008; Aycan and Yumuşak, 2002; Bayraktar, 2006; Boeha, 1990; Clement, 1982; Eryılmaz and Tatlı, 1999; Kuru and Güneş, 2005; Legendre, 1997; Nuhoğlu, 2008; Osborne and Wittrock, 1983) and that these concepts have been referred to as abstract concepts which are difficult to learn by students ranging from primary school to university (Atasoy and Akdeniz, 2007; Bodner, 1990; Gilbert et al., 1982; Gilbert and Watts, 1983; Helm, 1980; Kuru and Güneş, 2005; Martinez et al., 2001;Osborne and Freeman, 1989; Watts and Zylbersztajn, 1981). It is asserted that students have not learnt the most basic Newtonian concepts and they have failed to comprehend most of the material taught in science courses.

Force is the central concept of Newtonian mechanics. Studies show that physics students have an alternative concept of force. Clement (1982) stated that when the concept of force is misunderstood at the qualitative level it is called a “conceptual primitive”. Clement (1982) states that the source of this qualitative misunderstanding can be traced to a deep-seated preconception that makes a full understanding of Newton’s first and second laws very difficult. Robertson, Gallagher and Miller (2004) argued that one of the most basic concepts related to force and motion is Newton’s first law. They investigated student understandings of Newton’s first law across a range of ages. They used a set of inquiry-based activities designed to help students understand the reasoning behind Newton’s first law.

Studies have also been conducted to determine the difficulties students have with Newton’s laws (Bayraktar, 2009; Galili and Tzeitlin, 2003; Smith and Wittman, 2007). Newton’s laws are important because they have easily visible applications in the daily lives of students. McCarthy (2005) demonstrated how Newton’s first law of motion applied to the everyday lives of students. He developed a learning cycle consisting of a series of activities to teach the concept of inertia. O’Shea (2004) demonstrated the action of Newton’s second law by describing the forces involved during snowboard jumping, while Smith and Wittman (2007) developed three tutorials designed to improve student understandings of Newton’s third law.

Hestenes, Wells and Swackhamer (1992) designed an instrument to probe student beliefs about force and how their beliefs compare with the many dimensions of the Newtonian concept. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is an instrument used to assess students’ beliefs about force. It is based on the fundamental issues and concepts inherent in Newtonian mechanics. The Force Inventory Concept is composed of 29 multiple choices items to probe student understandings of basic concepts in mechanics. Newton’s laws of motion are especially important when viewed in conjunction with other fundamental concepts in physics. The majority of research about force is designed to detect student misconceptions or alternative conceptions. These studies show that there are a considerable number of alternative conceptions related to Newton’s laws among primary, secondary and university students (Bayraktar, 2006; Brown, 1989; Jimoyiannis and Komis, 2003; Kurt and Akdeniz, 2004; Maloney, 1984; Montanero et al., 1995). Some research has also demonstrated that such misconceptions also existed among pre-service teachers (Atasoy and Akdeniz, 2005; Kurt and Akdeniz, 2004; Trumper and Gorsky, 1996) as well as teachers (Kikas, 2004; Trumper, 2003). Interestingly, there has been limited number of studies about how to replace these misconceptions. Consequently, studies that attempt to replace such misconceptions have become increasingly important (Atasoy, 2008).

Conducting studies to detect and replace misconceptions is necessary, but they are not sufficient by themselves. In other words, effective learning is facilitated not only by investigating misconceptions, but also by investigating how to correct them, identify learning difficulties and remedy learners’ mistakes. Determining learners’ perceptions and developing learning environments that promote effective learning about forces, Newton’s Laws and related topics can achieve this goal.

The aim of the present study is to determine student teacher levels of understandings about Newton’s Laws of Motion and to identify student teacher models that underlie and inform those understandings.