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http://dx.doi.org/10.5467/JKESS.2012.33.7.645

Pre-service Elementary Teachers' Conceptions on the Relative Sizes of Celestial Bodies  

Jang, Myoung-Duk (Department of Elementary Science Education, Gongju National University of Education)
Nam, Younkyeong (Department of Education and Human Development, The College at Blackport-State University of New York)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean earth science society / v.33, no.7, 2012 , pp. 645-657 More about this Journal
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service elementary teachers' conceptions about the relative sizes of celestial bodies including the universe, galaxy, star, planet, satellite, asteroid, and comet, which were presented in elementary school science textbook. This study also examined the causes of their misconceptions as shown in the study. Sixty three pre-service elementary teachers participated in this study. The survey was developed for this study that asked to make an order of relative sizes of the given celestial bodies and to write scientific facts about each of the celestial bodies. The survey items were analyzed by simple descriptive statistics, and the written responses were analyzed using qualitative and inductive methods. The results showed that only five (7.9%) of the participants correctly answered about the relative size of the given celestial bodies. There were three common misconceptions identified in relation to the relative sizes of the celestial bodies; more than 20% of the participants had: (1) a planet is bigger than a star (46.0% of the participants), (2) an asteroid is bigger than satellite (58.7%), 3) a comet is bigger than a star (22.2%).
Keywords
pre-service elementary teacher; celestial body; relative size; misconception;
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