The Pre-service Teacher's Conceptions of 'the Color of Gases': Focusing on the Survey from Freshmen at a National University of Education

'기체의 색깔'에 대한 초등 예비교사들의 인식 조사: 교육대학교 1학년 학생들을 대상으로

The purpose of this study is to investigate the elementary pre-service teachers' conceptions of 'color of gases' focusing on the survey from freshmen at a National University of Education. For the study, the views about 'color of gases' were surveyed from the pre-service teachers. And the responses were analyzed based on the patterns. The results from the study are as follows: First, the conceptions about 'color of gases' were divided into 2 top-level, 5 mid-level and 7 sub-level categories. Second, the number of students who answered 'certain gas has color' was significantly greater than those who answered 'every gas has no color'. However, only a small number of students who answered former understand the scientific meaning of color and the color of gases correctly. Third, out of 5 misconception categories, greater number of students answered with 'inaccurate scientific knowledge (Ma1)', so the category was classified again into five detailed sub-categories. Fourth, most of the students, who answered 'every gas has no color', stated "they have not seen any color gases through their lives" based on their own experience. Fifth, the distribution percentage for scientific conceptions vs misconceptions was not related with the students' gender but highly related with students' academic area and their science courses taken at high school. Sixth, the pre-service teachers have various types of misconceptions regarding the 'color of gases' and when they have to explain visibility of gases to other people they tend to pass on their misconceptions. Based on the results from the study, some educational guidelines were suggested.