Bessas Nikos, Tzanaki Eleni, Vavougios Denis, Plagianakos Vassilis P
Department of Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics, University of Thessaly, Lamia, Greece.
Department of Physics, University of Thessaly, Lamia, Greece.
Heliyon. 2024 Nov 20;10(23):e40425. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40425. eCollection 2024 Dec 15.
The aim of this study is to record and highlight the misconceptions of Greek junior high school students regarding the concept of hydrostatic pressure. Hydrostatic pressure is included in most international curricula for this age group and in Greece, is introduced in the context of the study of fluid equilibrium in the second grade of the junior high school. After thorough international literature review and interviews with teachers who teach the physics course, to discover the students' way of thinking and their common misconceptions in the case of hydrostatic pressure concept, the researchers of this study created targeted questionnaires for students aged 12-13 years old. The method followed to determine the misconceptions in this article is the distribution of a 4 - tier test to a sample of students who, initially, attended the relevant course. During the 2023-24 school year, the questionnaires were handed out to 33 s-grade students at a junior high school in Athens, Greece. The students had previously been taught the corresponding unit. Before being administered to the students, the questionnaires were subjected to a content validity test by four physics experts according to Aiken's V index. The students' responses were inputted into SPSS version 25, which was utilized for the statistical analysis. Statistical analysis of the results revealed a high incidence of misconceptions related to the effects of container shape, area, and pressure direction, as well as a significant lack of knowledge. Although the overall rates of misconceptions may be low, the study recorded significant knowledge gaps in physics education, suggesting the need for improved teaching methods. The findings suggest that more effective teaching strategies and experimental approaches are needed to address these misconceptions our research highlighted. This study contributes a reliable diagnostic tool for future research and teaching, aiming to enhance conceptual understanding of hydrostatic pressure in educational settings.
本研究的目的是记录并突出希腊初中学生对静水压力概念的误解。静水压力包含在大多数针对该年龄段的国际课程中，在希腊，它是在初中二年级流体平衡研究的背景下引入的。在对国际文献进行全面综述并与讲授物理课程的教师进行访谈，以了解学生在静水压力概念方面的思维方式和常见误解之后，本研究的研究人员为12 - 13岁的学生设计了有针对性的问卷。本文确定误解所采用的方法是向最初参加过相关课程的学生样本发放一份四级测试。在2023 - 2024学年，问卷被分发给希腊雅典一所初中的33名二年级学生。这些学生之前已经学习过相应的单元。在向学生发放问卷之前，四位物理专家根据艾肯V指数对问卷进行了内容效度测试。学生的回答被输入到SPSS 25版本中，用于统计分析。结果的统计分析显示，与容器形状、面积和压力方向的影响相关的误解发生率很高，并且存在明显的知识欠缺。尽管误解的总体发生率可能较低，但该研究记录了物理教育中存在的重大知识差距，表明需要改进教学方法。研究结果表明，需要更有效的教学策略和实验方法来解决我们的研究所强调的这些误解。本研究为未来的研究和教学贡献了一种可靠的诊断工具，旨在增强教育环境中对静水压力的概念理解。
