Abstract

BENEGAS, J.; PEREZ DE LANDAZABAL, M.  and  OTERO, J.. Estudio de casos: conocimientos físicos de los estudiantes cuando terminan la escuela secundaria: una advertencia y algunas alternativas. Rev. mex. fís. E [online]. 2010, vol.56, n.1, pp.12-21. ISSN 1870-3542.

Initial knowledge of mathematics and physics is usually regarded by university physics instructors as a prerequisite for successful student learning. This article describes incoming university student's understanding of some basic laws of physics at the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain. A 13-item single response multiple choice test has been constructed and used to measure the conceptual knowledge of physics topics normally included in high school physics. It also contains 5 items on mathematics subjects thought to be of relevance for physics instruction. The results show that these student's sample still hold, after high school instruction, major misconceptions of the tested topics. A comparison is made between this measured understanding and the conceptual knowledge adquired by high school students enrolled in classes that followed active learning methods. The significant differences in learning gains between traditional and active learning instruction strongly indicate that traditional approaches to teaching physics in high schools should be replaced by field-tested, active learning methodologies. It is argue that this study can be considered, in the field of physics, complementary and reaffirmatory of the recently released results of the PISA 2006 survey.

Keywords : Conceptual knowledge; physics misconceptions; high school physics; evaluation; active learning.

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