Secondary School Students Levels Of Conceptual Understanding Of Force And Motion In Gusau, Zamfara State

Physics Education Project Material

Secondary School Students Levels Of Conceptual Understanding Of Force And Motion In Gusau, Zamfara State (Smith)

Abstract

This project work was based on the assessment of senior secondary school students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. Four researcher questions and two null hypotheses guided the study in Gusau, Zamfara State. Two research designs were adopted for the study namely: descriptive survey and Ex-post facto designs. Two hundred and twenty-two senior secondary two (SS2) physics students in seven intact classes from six senior secondary schools that were purposively sampled from the area of study constituted the sample for the study. Those seven intact classes were drawn through simple random sampling within the SS2 physics classes in each of the six schools. The instrument for data collection was Force Motion Concept Evaluation (FMCE) developed by Thornton and Sokoloff, (1998). This instrument was adapted by the present researcher. Data collected was analyzed using WinBUGS computer program, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test of independent samples. While WinBUGS computer program, frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, t-test of independent samples was used to test the null hypotheses. The results of the study showed that: (1) most of the Students responded to force and motion concepts using the impetus model (model 2) which is not exactly the correct model. (2) The nature of items determines the students’ choice of models. (3) Gender has a significant influence on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion in the direction of the female students. (4) School location has no significant influence on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. The implications of the above findings as well as recommendations were highlighted.

Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matterand its motion, along with related concepts such as energy and force. In this context, motion is the change in the position of an object as a result of an applied force (Anyakoha, 2007). Thus, force is an agent that brings about motion. It was Aristotle who first developed a systematic set of ideas about the physical world, which is often referred to as Aristotelian physics.

Related to his concept of force is his classification of motion as natural, voluntary, and forced (Jammer, 1957). In the natural motion category, Aristotle believed that objects intrinsically either have a natural tendency to fall down to the earth, which he called gravity, or a natural tendency to rise into the sky, which he called levity. He thought that heavy bodies fall faster because the falling speed is in proportion to the weight of the objects. The earth and the sky are natural places objects would move to according to their internal natural tendencies. Voluntary motion refers to motion of living organisms such as animals and humans, who are agents able to exert force to make other inanimate things move. Nonliving objects are obstacles that stop or guide motion, but they do not exert forces.

In the forced motion category, an object moves because of the moving force applied to it by an agent. The object continues to move after the agent is no longer in contact with it because force is still transmitted to the object through a medium such as air. Motion in a vacuum is thus not possible. A force does not move an object unless it overcomes the object’s inertia, an intrinsic resistance of the object. A constant force applied to an object produces a constant speed which is also inversely proportional to the inertia of the object. In the absence of force, an object would stop immediately. So, forced motion is made consistent to the other two types of motion by Aristotle through his notion of antiperistasis and his theory of entelechy or agency (Leclerc, 1972). In summary, for Aristotle, no motion is possible without force acting on the moving object, or in other words, motion and force are inseparable and a moving object is always an effect of some kind of entelechy, either visible or invisible.

According to Eryılmaz (2004), physics is the most basic of all sciences. It is at the root of every field of sciences and underlines all natural phenomena. In other words physics is the mother of all sciences. It is not a set of facts and rules to be memorized. Instead, memorization is a fruitless way to try to learn physics (Bueche, 1988). This observation by Bueche is in line with the assertion by Eryilmaz, (2004; 2) that; Physics is a difficult course to construct meaningful learning and so the achievement of students in physics is very low. There are some factors affecting students’ achievement in physics. Some of them are related with students; like students’ preconceptions, mathematics achievement, cognitive development level, attitudes towards physics, prior experience with the related fields, socio-economic level, age, and gender.

Among all of these factors, students’ preconceptions play important role. Students’ preconceptions in this context are all the ideas or knowledge they have about a given concept before the actual learning takes place. Researchers have been trying to diagnose students’ preconceptions about physical concepts and rules. For instance, Clement (1982) and Eryılmaz (2004) in their separate studies on the influence of students’ preconceptions on their achievement indicated that preconceptions held by students about physics concepts are significant. The above finding goes to support the fact that students’ preconceptions contribute to their poor achievement in physics. It is a popular idea in education that students come into a classroom with preconceptions about the material they are taught that can alter or interfere with their understanding of a concept (Tara, 2009). For example, when learning to read graphs of motion for the first time, students often interpret the graph literally, as they would interpret a picture or a map. As students learn, they move from naïve or intuitive state of understanding or conception to more acceptable conceptions.

Conceptual understanding according to Johnson (2005) refers to a person’s representation of the major concepts in a system. Conceptual understanding is rich in relationships and understanding. It is a connected web of knowledge, a network in which the linking relationships are as prominent as the discrete bits of information. Conceptual understanding according to Johnson (2005) cannot be learned by rote. It must be learned by thoughtful, reflective learning. On the contrary, procedural understanding is the understanding of formal language or symbolic representations. It is the understanding of rules, algorithms, and procedures. Conceptual understanding is also known as the kind of knowledge that may be transferred between situations. The students’ ability to develop conceptual understanding involves seeing the connections between concepts and procedures, and being able to apply physics principles in a variety of contexts.This is different from routine knowledge, which is knowledge that is applicable only to certain situations. For example, a student who decided to cram an aspect of a course for examination will quickly forget the crammed concepts after the examination. Conceptual understanding in physics develops when students “see the connections among concepts and procedures and can give arguments to explain why some facts are consequences of others” (National Research Council, 2001; 119). This implies that facts are no longer isolated but become organized in coherent structures based on relationships, generalizations and patterns.
Rittle-Johnson, Siegler, & Alibali, (2001) found that developing students’ procedural knowledge had positive effects on their conceptual understanding, and conceptual understanding was a prerequisite for the students’ ability to generate and select appropriate procedures. Thus, conceptual understanding is intertwined with procedural knowledge. This makes the isolated study of either difficult, requiring more than the determination of the correctness/incorrectness of a student’s answer. It requires further investigation into the response, which can provide valuable insight into the thinking (Gould, 2005).The relationship between conceptual understanding and procedural understanding from their respective definitions above is that procedural understanding increases conceptual understanding. The difference between the two forms of understanding also is that while conceptual understanding leads to full adoption and transfer of the instructed procedure, procedural understanding leads to adoption but only limited transfer of the instructed procedure. This highlights the causal relations between conceptual and procedural understanding and suggests that conceptual understanding may have a greater influence on procedural understanding than the reverse.

According to Black and William (1998), it is increasingly appreciated that learning is tied to effective assessment by monitoring students’ progress and feeding that information back to students. Assessment is an ongoing process of setting high expectations for student learning, measuring progress toward established learning outcomes, and providing feedback to improve academic progress (Black and William, 1998). There are many aspects of learning that can be assessed. However, if we seek to empower students to transfer the knowledge gained to new situations, then a deep understanding must be developed (National Research Council, 1999). In many physical science courses of which physics is part, deep understanding is usually associated with understanding of concepts. Lack of understanding of concepts by students may lead to their poor achievement. Thus, some efforts need to be devoted to identifying core concepts and then to devising means of gauging students understanding of those concepts. Thornton and Sokoloff (1998) designed Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) to probe student’s conceptual understanding of Newtonian Mechanics. Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation was administered to more than 1000 students in the non-calculus and calculus based general physics lecture courses and in the introductory physics laboratory at the University of Oregon and Tufts University. Results demonstrated that students high achievement in FCME indicate a high conceptual understanding of force and motion.

McDermott (1984), on reviewing research on conceptual understanding in mechanics (e.g., gravitational force, velocity and acceleration, and force and motion), pointed out some interesting and unexpected results from several studies. Studies about “passive” forces (e.g., the tension in a string) indicated that students, regardless of ages, have the same conceptual difficulty understanding those forces, yet most physics instructors proceed as if the concept of a passive force is easily understood (Minstrell, 1982). A study in velocity and acceleration revealed that students with greater facility with mathematics do not necessarily have a deeper conceptual understanding than those who have less training in mathematics (Whitaker, 1983). This shows that one’s knowledge of mathematics does not guarantee his/her conceptual understanding of physics concepts. It demands that one should posses an in-depth knowledge of the concepts not necessarily the mathematical knowledge only. Studies such as force and motion relation showed that many students have a well-integrated system of beliefs about the behavior of objects in motion. The students believe that an object will not stop moving unless the initial force acting on the subject is “used up”, the “Aristotelian” or “medieval” belief. This believe contradicts the Newtonian view that a body will continue in its state of uniform motion except intercepted by an external force (McCloskey, Caramazza, & Green, 1980).

Hake (2002) pointed out that most of the analyses of physics assessment tests have been done within the framework of “classical test theory” in which only the number of correct answers is considered in the scoring. Although CTT has served the measurement community for most of this century, IRT has witnessed an exponential growth in recent decades. The major advantages of CTT are its relatively weak theoretical assumptions, which make CTT easy to apply in many testing situations. At the item level, the CTT model is relatively simple. Classical test theory does not invoke a complex theoretical model to relate an examinee’s ability to success on a particular item. Instead, CTT collectively considers a pool of examinees and empirically examines their success rate on an item (assuming it is dichotomously scored). The item response theory (IRT) was introduced to take care of the limitations of CTT. Item response theory (IRT), on the other hand, is more theory grounded and models the probabilistic distribution of examinees’ success at the item level. As its name indicates, IRT primarily focuses on the item-level information in contrast to the CTT’s primary focus on test-level information. For test items that are dichotomously scored, there are three IRT models, known as three-, two-, and one-parameter IRT models. In item response theory, assessments are made in an attempt to determine a student’s place on the underlying ability scales. Andersen/Rasch (AR) multivariate IRT model is different from the ordinary IRT model in that it can deal with mixtures of strategies within individuals (Bao & Redish, 2004). In this model, students are not judged interms of getting correct options to questions posed to them but using any of the following models; Newtonian, Impetus or Aristotelian models. In this case, Newtonian model is the correct option; Impetus is an option very close to the correct option while Aristotelian model is a null option or totally incorrect option. This study adopted these models in order to characterize the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion interms of the three models discussed above.

Eryilmaz (2004) observed that gender contributes to poor achievement of students in physics. Gender according to Yang (2010) refers to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men; girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialization processes. Current studies show that female enrolment in physics and science subjects in general is very poor. This is in line with the study by Gonzuk and Chargok (2001) which revealed that the number of females who study physics in secondary and tertiary institutions is small compared to the number of boys. This difference in the number of females and males in the study of physics has created gender disparity in the academic achievement of students in physics and science subjects as a whole.

Gender difference was first investigated by sociologist of education. The focus was largely on female under achievement at every level of the educational system. Therefore there is need to promote the teaching and learning of physics in schools especially among female student. Ajejalami (1990) identified the following factors as contributing to under representation of females in science and technology Education in Africa;

  1. Lack of functional guidance and counseling services
  2. Relationship of sex to occupational prestige
  3. Influence of schooling
  4. Family background
  5. Interest among other factors
  6. Lack of adequate orientation programme
  7. Societal discrimination against females in education
  8. Occupational choice and adaptation of science and technology.

Factored (1999), in his own contribution posited that poor enrolment of girls in science subjects is due to:

  1. Inadequate opportunity for girls to study science,
  2. Inadequate achievement of girls in science,
  3. Inadequate interest of girls in science,
  4. Unfavourable attitude of girls to science learning and
  5. Inadequate knowledge of girls on the true nature of science.

The critical belief of biological theorists is that gender differences are natural and therefore unalterable. It would be right and proper to treat boys and girls in schools differently because their natural inclinations are different roles. Thus, theories were advanced that females excelled in language based subject because of their greater and reasoning abilities yet under performed in sciences because of their lower level of innate ability of shape and form factors.

Where a school is situated says a lot about the achievement of students (Ma & Wilkins, 2002). According to Ezeudu (2003), school location means urban-rural setting. The urban-rural influence is also expected in physics just like any other science subject because of the psychosocial influence it may have on the teachers and students resulting mainly from school location. This may even dictate their academic achievement in science of which physics forms a part. Therefore, the area in which a school is located can affect the educational achievement of a student. A school in the heart of the government reserved area (G.R.A) or housing estate cannot be compared with a school located in an unsuitable place like motor garage, main street, noisy environment, and nearness to a big market among others. Noisy environment is capable of hampering teaching and learning conditions. Long journey to school can be drudgery. These deplorable states inform the present journey.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that assessment of students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion has not been extensively studied in order to draw clear picture of the influence of gender and school location on the achievement of students in physics. The above reason necessitated the current study.

1.2 Statement of Problem

The academic achievement of students in secondary schools has been a subject of concern to many people including parents, administrators, educators, psychologists and researchers. The poor achievement of students in science especially physics has continued to be a major concern to all and particularly those in the main stream of science education. This has also resulted into tension, depression, and social maladjustment among some secondary school students who were not able to attain the desired grade required for admission into higher institutions. Acquisition of physics knowledge is not a one-way task but can effectively be achieved through gradual developmental stages.

Thus students learn physics through three stages or modes. These stages are the naïve stage or the no knowledge stage from where they develop to common knowledge or what is called the impetus stage and finally the real conceptual understanding state. Assessments of students’ achievement in physics in Nigeria have been done based on the conventional achievement test which considers only the overall scores of students on the concepts in question. This type of testing does not consider the developmental stages the students pass through in conceptualizing a concept.

Besides, it has not been objectively established whether gender has influence on the students’ conceptual understanding from the review of some foreign works on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. The little that has been known, though not quite well is the influence of gender on the students’ achievement in physics and science related subjects. In this respect, there seems to be controversy over the influence of gender vis-à-vis school location on students’ achievement in science subjects particularly physics.

These two variables need to be critically studied in order to objectively establish their influence on the students’ achievement in physics. Hence, the problem of this study is: what is the assessment level of senior secondary school students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion? What is the influence of gender on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion? What is influence of location on students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to assess senior secondary school students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.

1.4 Objectives of the Study

Specifically, the study will determine;

  1. The students’ propensity to use Newtonian, Aristotelian or Impetus model in responding to force and motion concepts.
  2. The propensity of the items to elicit a particular response model to force and motion concepts.
  3. The influence of gender on students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.
  4. The influence of location on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.

1.5 Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study;

  1. What is the students’ propensity to use Newtonian, Aristotelian or Impetus model in responding to force and motion concepts?
  2. What is the propensity of the items to elicit a particular response model to force and motion concepts?
  3. What is the influence of gender on students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion?
  4. What is the influence of school location on students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion?

1.6 Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significance level.

  • HO1: Gender is not a significant factor in the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.
  • HO2: Location is not a significant factor in the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.

1.7 Significance of the Study

This study as a conceptual assessment work supports the constructivist or cognitive approach to learning, ie they are based on the belief that students construct their own understanding of concepts by expanding or modifying their existing views. The procedure also reinforces the value of cooperative learning and the individual students’ active role in learning. Besides the outcome of this study has added to Arnderson/Rash multivariate theory. In that respect, the findings of the study revealed that the students are always in a mixed state of mind when presented with force and motion concepts. Those implied the theoretical significance of the study as it adds to the cognitive theory of learning.

The findings of this study will be of great benefit to the following; physics teachers, physics students, curriculum planners and physics stakeholders.

The findings will be useful to the physics teachers owing to the fact that physics knowledge is acquired by the students based on the three developmental models which represent the mixed state of students during teaching and learning. By being aware of this, the teacher will prepare his/her lessons in a way that will take care of the three developmental models for proper assessment of the students.

The physics students will benefit from the outcome of the current study. The findings of this study will reveal the fact that students are in mixed state during teaching and learning situation. That is some students responding to instructions in the right direction while others respond in the wrong direction following the three developmental models. Students being aware of this mixed state situation as well as the developmental models before an instruction will make frantic efforts to get the right instruction in order to develop the proper conceptual knowledge. Also they will understand that physics demands proper conceptualization rather than rote learning or cramming.

For the curriculum planners, the findings will bring to a limelight the developmental models which are the impetus or common knowledge model, the Aristotelian or null model and the real conceptual understanding. Those models will enable the planners to plan the curriculum in way that the pedagogical approach to the teaching of physics will incorporate the three developmental models the students pass through at the course of learning physics. This will serve as a guide to the teachers on how proper conceptual knowledge should be developed by the students. Finally, the findings of this study will be of great importance to the physics stakeholders who are much concerned on the influence of gender and school location on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. This study will empirically through the use of conceptual assessment test study the influence of those variables.

1.8 Scope of the Study

This study was on the Assessment of Students’ Conceptual Understanding of force and motion based on Conceptual Assessment Framework. The physics curriculum for senior secondary school class one (SS1) constitutes the learning content document for the current study. The aspects of Newtonian mechanics that are taught at senior secondary one include; kinematics, forces and motion, work, energy and momentum, circular motion and gravitation, and oscillations. In this study, the major focus will be on force and motion. The concept of force and motion will only be studied for the fact that all other topics are products of force and motion.

This implies that understanding of the concepts of force and motion facilitates the understanding of the other topics. The study will make use of SS2 students who have SS1 as their penultimate year. This is to ensure that the students must have learnt the concepts of force and motion in their penultimate year.

1.9 Limitation of Study

Financial Constraint

Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time Constraint

The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.10 Organization of the Study

This study is divided into five chapters.

  1. Chapter one is introduction which consists of the background to the study, statement of problem, research questions, research hypotheses, objectives of the study, the significance of the study, the scope and limitations of the study and finally the organization of the study.
  2. Chapter two deals with the literature review which consists of the conceptual literature, theoretical literature, empirical literature.
  3. Chapter three gives the research methodology including research design, population of study, sample size, sampling technique, method of data collection, instrument of data analysis, method of data analysis, validity/reliability of instrument.
  4. Chapter four is results, discussion of findings.
  5. Chapter five gives the summary, conclusion and recommendations.

Chapter Five

Discussion, Conclusion and Summary

5.1 Discussion of the Findings

The discussion was done based on the analysis of data to answer the research questions and test the null hypotheses.

Students’ Propensity to use Different Models in Response to Force and Motion Concepts

The analysis of data in Table 1 of chapter four reveals that out of the three models which students can adopt when presented with force and motion concepts, the model 2 has the highest value of the student’s parameters when compared to the other two models. This indicates that majority of the students responded to force and motion concepts using the impetus model which is nearer to the correct model. This finding is in agreement with the findings of Chun-Wei (2003), Bao and Redish (2004), in their respective studies which are similar to the present study. Chun-Wei (2003) further observed that the students’ conceptual understanding does change after instruction.

This was evident when pretest and post testing of students were done in a single study by Chun-Wei (2003). In this case the students were using either model 1 or model 2 after instruction. This indicates that students are in a mixed model state (i.e., in a transition toward understanding Newtonian mechanics).

This also implies that they still have difficulties in understanding some concepts related to force-motion (Chun-Wei, 2003). This could not be observed in the current study for the fact that the study was limited to single administration of the instrument.

Nature of Items and the Students’ Choice of Models

The analysis of data in Table 2 indicates that the students’ choice of models depends on the nature of the questions asked. That is, the item’s level of difficulty determines the choice of response model that the student will make. This finding is in concordance with the findings of Chun-Wei (2003) who observed that the particular features of tasks evoke different response categories to equivalent items, indicating that the students are not in a “pure state” of Newtonian view of concepts.

Gender and Students’ Achievement

The analysis in Table 3 reveals that mean achievement of female students is slightly higher than those of the male students. This mean achievement difference was strengthened by the t-test analysis in table 5 which showed that gender is a significant factor for students’ conceptual understanding in favour of female students. This finding is in agreement with the findings of Shaibu and Mari (1997) who observed a gender difference in achievement in science process skills in favour of the female students. On the contrary, Ezanya (2004); Lynch and Paterson (2002) studies showed that gender is significant in chemistry achievement and science process skills respectively in favour of male students. This current study has been able to show that gender is a significant factor with respect to students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.

School Location and Students’ Achievement

The analysis of data in Table 4 indicates that the mean achievement of students in rural schools is higher than their counterparts from the urban schools.

This was proven to be due to a chance factor when t-test analysis of table 6 reveals that school location is not a significant factor in students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. This finding is in agreement with the studies by Jegede (1984) and Erubami (2003). Those studies revealed that school location is not significant in students’ achievement in physics. This finding contradicts the findings of IsiugoAbanihe and Labo-popoola (2004) that students in urban areas performed significantly better than those in rural areas and also this is in support of school location playing a significant role in academic performance of students.

5.2 Conclusion

Based on the discussion of the findings, the following conclusions were drawn;

  1. Majority of the physics students used impetus model (model 2) when responding to force and motion concepts.
  2. The level of conceptual understanding of the students is low.
  3. The nature of items determines the students’ choice of models when presented with questions on force and motion.
  4. Gender has a significant influence in the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion in favour of the female students.
  5. School location has no significant influence in the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion than.

5.2 Educational Implications of the Study

It is evident from the study that students use different models in response to force and motion concepts. In particular most of the students use model 2 which is nearer to the correct model. This by implication shows that the physics teachers need to improve on their teaching of physics in particular force and motion concepts in order to impact the right Newtonian view of the concepts to the students. It was observed that students consistently use model 2 due to the misconceptions they have on the concepts. If this misconception is not checked, the students achievement in those concepts will continue to be low.

It was also observed that the nature of questions does influence the students’ choice of model. This implies that the nature of items determines the students’ choice of models. To this effect, the teachers should be meticulous in setting questions based on force and motion concepts in order to elicit the right model from the students otherwise the students’ chance of giving the correct response will be marred.

The influence of gender was found to be significant. This implies that the female students’ achievement in conceptual understanding is higher than the male students. It is then the duties of the physics teachers to provide a classroom environment where the male students will be better predisposed to improve on their conceptual understanding in order to meet up with their counterpart.

School location was found not to be a significant factor in students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. This shows that irrespective of one’s school location, the achievement of conceptual understanding of force and motion is the same. The implication of this is that the physics teachers should give every student equal opportunity to learn not minding the school location of the students in order to get the best out of the students.

5.3 Recommendations of the Study

Based on the above mentioned implications, the following recommendations were made;

  1. Physics teachers should be properly assessed to understand their level of conceptual understanding of force and motion. Doing this will help to improve on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.
  2. Wording of questions on force and motion concepts by the physics teachers should be done with ultimate caution bearing in mind that the nature of items influences the students’ choice of models.
  3. More efforts should be made by the physics teachers in the schools to enable the male students in those schools to compete favourably with their female counterparts.
  4. Every physics student should be given equal opportunity to prove him/herself in the learning of force and motion concepts irrespective of one’s school location.

5.4 Limitations of the Study

When making inferences from this study, one should be aware that the sample size for each data set is relatively small, and the content scope was drawn from physics. The students used may not be a good representation of other student populations. Therefore, the results of this study need to be interpreted with caution. Due to the relatively small sample size (by the standards of psychometric analyses such as latent class and IRT modeling), not much information is available to estimate parameters for individual items and students. The study was also limited to only single administration of the instrument and so could not come up with the conclusion that students’ conceptual understanding could change after instruction.

5.5 Suggestions for Further Studies

There are four perspectives to study the nature of human mind as recognized by the study as: the differential, behaviorist, cognitive, and situative perspectives.

The last two approaches have not been explored in great detail, especially in the field of educational measurement. The current study explored students’ learning in terms of cognitive perspective. However, the study only focused on a small piece of cognitive process (i.e., the mixture-within-persons strategy for problem-solving). For this aspect of learning, modeling students’ problem-solving in terms of common misconceptions has proven useful.

Other fields of learning may not be the same as physics in this regard, so they may focus on different aspects of cognitive process. This study focused on the assessment of students’ conceptual understanding based on the conceptual assessment framework. There is need to continue to follow this line of research to explore, for example, how students solve a class of math tasks and how it is different from physics learning. More studies are needed to explore how social or cultural factors affect students’ learning. For example, one may be interested in investigating whether the different test formats (multiple-choice test vs. open-ended questions) affect students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion and how it occurs.

5.6 Summary of the Study

The major purpose of this study was to assess the SS2 physics students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion based on the tenets of conceptual assessment framework. To achieve the major purpose of the study, four research questions were posed and as two null hypotheses were formulated. From the review of related literature, two research designs were used for the study. Two hundred and twenty five senior secondary two physics students from six government’s owned secondary schools in Gusau Education Zone were used for the study. The six schools were purposively sampled, three from urban schools and three from rural schools. Seven intact classes were used for the study.

The data obtained for the study were analyzed using winBUGS computer program, percentage, mean and t-test statistics. The findings of the study are:

  1. Most of the Students respond to force and motion concepts using the impetus model (model 2) which is not exactly the correct model.
  2. The difficulty level of items does influence the students’ choice of models.
  3. Gender has a significant influence on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion in the direction of the female students.
  4. School location has no significant influence on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion.

From the findings of the study, conclusions were drawn as well as the implications of the study. Also from the educational implications, recommendations were made. Limitations as well as suggestions for further studies were highlighted.

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