A PRACTICAL DILEMMA: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' PHYSICS-RELATED PERSONAL EPISTEMOLOGY

Abstract

This case study explores students’ physics-related personal epistemologies in school science practices. The school science practices of nine eleventh grade students in a physics class were taped over six weeks. The students were also interviewed to find out their ideas on the nature of scientific knowledge after each school science practices. Analysis of transcripts yielded several themes which characterize students’ ideas about the scientific knowledge in their school science practice. The findings show that students believe that scientific data should be accurate; yet, while they collect data, they can make mistakes that do not change the conclusion of experiments. Traditional, formulation-based, physics instruction might have led students to view physics knowledge as unchanging and isolated pieces of facts, and physics problems as having one single answer. Future implications and directions are discussed.