Inventarisatie van misconcepties in de optica

Tijdschrift voor Didactiek van de Beta-wetenschappen, uitgegeven door het Freudenthal Instituut, Universiteit Utrecht in de periode 1983-2014

Bouwens, R. E. A. Verkerk, G. Tijdschrift voor Didactiek van de Beta-wetenschappen 1988 – 6(2), 83-98 Download pdf

In the Department of Physics of the Eindhoven University of Technology research is carried out about misconceptions in the field of geometrical optics. The research reported here regards pupils in pre-university and general high schools. The pupils are between 15 and 18 years of age. After a pilot-study, which was intended to gather as many pupils’ conceptions as possible, a list of misconceptions was made. This list consists of categories which were the startingpoint for developing a questionnaire of 42 statements. The questionnaire was administered to 639 pupils of five schools, representing some spread in age and ability level. One of the conclusions of the research project is that a discrepancy exists between the theoretical knowledge of a pupil and his or her ability to use this knowledge in practical situations. In practical situations pupils tended to answer predominantly on the basis of misconceptions, whereas in questions related to theoretical problems the misconceptions tended to be less influential.