The use of conceptual change texts as class material in the teaching of “sound” in physics

Concepts are very important in physics. Misconceptions obstruct the assimilation of acquired knowledge. To avoid this, and for meaningful learning to take place, incorrect information needs to be identified, revised, and replaced. This is called the “Conceptual Change Process” (Smith, Blakeslee and Anderson, 1993).

The “Conceptual Change Approach” was set forth by Posner, Strike, Hewson and Gertzog (1982). This approach represents a perspective that is grounded on Piaget and Zeitgeist’s views yet it has been improved by Posner and his colleagues. The purpose of this approach, which is an alternative strategy derived from Piaget’s principles of assimilation, regulation and counterbalancing, is to encourage students to remove misconceptions from their minds, and instead learn scientific knowledge (Wang and Andre, 1991; Chambers and Andre, 1997). When assimilating, students compare concepts with their old knowledge, adding more information to restructure it. Sometimes, however, their old knowledge may be incomplete or incorrect. This is why existing concepts must be revised and redefined. When old knowledge does not match scientific concepts, in other words, when misconceptions develop, students cannot learn effectively. The conceptual change process must thus be considered in order to counterbalance previous misconceptions.

The Conceptual Change Approach developed by Posner et al. (1982) is based on four conditions:

Dissatisfaction: The student must be dissatisfied with the concept he knows; that is, he must realize that it is inadequate.
Intelligibility: The new concept must be understandable enough for the student.
Plausibility: The student must find the new view/concept logical and be able to picture it in his/her mind.
Fruitfulness: The new notion/concept must be efficient; in other words, the student must be able to solve similar problems with this new concept.

Conceptual change texts, concept cartoons, concept mapping, mind maps and analogies are some of the many conceptual change strategies used in physics education. This study analyzes the strategy of using “conceptual change texts,” which are believed to be very efficient (for example, Başer and Geban, 2007; Dilber et al., 2009; Hırça, 2008; She, 2003; Okur, 2009) in identifying and overcoming misconceptions.

Conceptual change texts specify students’ misconceptions, clarifiy their reasons, and explain why they are incorrect by using concrete examples (Guzzetti et al, 1997). These texts always start with a question to activate the misconcepton in the student’s mind. In the next step, the most commonly accepted misconceptions concerning that topic are presented, and evidence is displayed to convince students why they are wrong. Here, the purpose is to enable students to question the concepts and see the inadequacy of what they think they know. When they are able to do this, they are provided with new information, with examples that will replace the misconception in their minds with the correct concept (Pınarbaşı and Canpolat, 2002).

Using conceptual change texts is such an effective teaching strategy that it can be used throughout the teaching-learning process mainly because of its practical aspects. In the review of the literature, it has been observed that most of the studies concerning the effects of conceptual change texts on learning and some affective variables such as attitude, motives, and learning approaches are mostly about optics, electricity, heat and temperature, and motion. These studies are at university level (Altun, Turgut and Buyukkasap, 2007; Baser, 2006; Dilber, 2006), high school level (Dilber et al, 2009; Hırca, 2008; She, 2003) and elementary school level (Başer and Geban, 2007). All the findings in these studies have proved that conceptual text changes are highly effective in teaching concepts.

A scan of the literature was carried out prior to the preparation of the conceptual change texts in this study. A look into the research on sound reveals that students are unaware of different characteristics of sound such as pitch and intensity (Hrepic, 2004; Merino, 1998), that they do not know that a medium is needed for sound to travel, or that the speed sound travels changes according to the type of medium (solid, liquid or gas) (Hrepic, 1998; Wittmann, Steinberg and Redish 2003; Viennot, 2001).

Linder (1992) has stated that students’ views concerning the nature of sound and scientific truths show differences and that misconceptualization hinders students from learning about sound meaningfully. The literature lacks conceptual change texts about sound. Hence, this study was designed to fill that gap, and is geared toward researching the efficiency of conceptual change texts in teaching sound. The purpose of the study is to present an example of material (conceptual change texts) that has been specifically prepared to overcome the misconceptions that eighth- and ninth-grade students have about “sound.”