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A Report On A Preliminary Diagnostic For Identifying Thermal Physics Conceptions Of Tertiary Students, Helen Georgiou, Manjula Sharma

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

A solid understanding of students' conceptions in thermal physics is absolutely necessary for successful development of instruction and for promoting understanding of and enthusiasm for the subject. This study reports on student understanding for a range of thermal topics. The sample included first and second year university students studying physics and the tool was a short, 15 question, concept inventory-like 'Diagnostic Survey' administered at the beginning of first semester 2009 at the University of *****. The results indicate that some thermal physics misconceptions exist for a large proportion of tertiary level students. More specifically, basic concepts, such as heat transfer, …