• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.221-233
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• 2000

Many investigators have reported difficulties in changing the high school students' misconceptions on mechanics. By one possible solution to this problem, some researchers suggested that the students should be taught mechanics at a younger age to make conceptual changes possible. because as they get older they become less willing to change their ideas. The purpose of this study was to compare the patterns of students' conceptual changes on force by age, to find out whether older students were less ready to change their conceptions than younger students. Individual interviews were carried out with 35 students (average ages 13) in middle school class and 50 students (average ages 17) in high school class near by the middle school. Those students who held the misconcetpion that "motion-implies-force (Impetus conception)" were asked to read a student-centered refutational text (anomalous data). In the immediate and delayed posttest, the types of responses of the students were analyzed to find out the patterns of student's conceptual changes on force by age. In result, first, most of students had impetus conception. Some of the students aged 13 understood the force as terminologies related with everyday experiences, while the students aged 17 understood the force as scientific terminologies. Second, there was no evidence to suggest that conceptual change is more difficult for the students aged 17 than aged 13. Third, the students aged 13 showed diverse responses (plain acceptance, critical acceptance, plain rejection, critical rejection) to the refutational text, while the students aged 17 showed restricted responses (critical acceptance, critical rejection). A month later those students who showed the plain acceptance retrogressed unscientific conceptions, while those students who showed critical acceptance maintained scientific conceptions. We did not find out any evidence to suggest that conceptual change is more difficult for older students. These results need deeper investigation on the nature of the loss of plasticity in comparison with other important variables.