A Study of High School Students' Conceptual Understanding of Force and Motion in Relation To The Teachers' Understanding of These Concepts

A Study of High School Students’ Conceptual
Understanding of Force and Motion in Relation to the

Teachers’ understanding of these Concepts
A Dissertation Submitted
To
Indira Gandhi National Open University
For the Degree of
Master of Arts (Education)
Name of the Researcher: Name of the Supervisor:

Partha Pratim Roy Dr. Sarmila Nag
Enrolment Number: 146728384
August, 2016
School of Education
Indira Gandhi National Open University
Maidan Garhi
New Delhi 110068
Declaration
I hereby declare that the Dissertation titled “A Study of High School Students’ Conceptual
Understanding of Force and Motion in Relation to the Teachers’ understanding of these
Concepts” submitted by me for the partial fulfillment of the M.A. (Education) to Indira Gandhi
National Open University, (IGNOU), New Delhi is my original work and has not been
submitted earlier to IGNOU or to any other institution for the fulfillment of the requirement
for any course of study. I also declare that no chapter of this manuscript in whole or in part is
lifted and incorporated in this report from any earlier work done by others or me.
Place: Signature
Date: Enrolment No. 146728384
Name:
Partha Pratim Roy
Address:
Ruchira Residency, Tower 4, Flat 10/1,
369, Purbachal Kalitala Road, E.M. Bypass, Kolkata 700078
Certificate
This is to certify that Mr. Partha Pratim Roy, student of M.A. (Education) from Indira Gandhi
National Open University, New Delhi was working under my supervision and guidance for the
Course MESP – 001. His Dissertation is entitled “A Study of High School Students’
Conceptual Understanding of Force and Motion in Relation to the Teachers’ understanding of
these Concepts” which he is submitting, is his genuine and original work.
Place: Signature
Date:
Name:
Dr. Sarmila Nag
Address:
112, Kamal Park, Birati,
Kolkata 700051
Contents
Acknowledgements i
List of Figures ii
List of tables iii
Abstract iv
Chapter 1
 Introduction 1
 Objectives 5
 Research Questions 6
 Hypotheses of the study 8
 Delimitation of the study 9
Chapter 2
Review of Literature 10
Chapter 3
Methodology 14
 Research Design and Plan 14
 Tools and Techniques 17
 Sample 21
 Population 21
Chapter 4
Data Analysis and Interpretation 24
 Data for Overall Performance 24
 Item-wise Response Comparison 29
 Data for Questions on Rectilinear Motion 31
 Data for Different Concept Areas 33
Kinematics 33
Newton’s First Law 34
Newton’s Second Law 35
Newton’s Third Law 36
Force Identification 37
Qualitative study 38
Chapter 5
 Conclusion 43
 Future Research 46
Bibliography 47
Appendices 54
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Sarmila Nag, whose continuous support
and guidance has been the main inspiration and the driving force behind my research. With
profound respect I remember the classes of Dr. M. M. Chel, who has opened my eyes toward
the intricacies of educational research through his erudite lectures and vision. This research
could not have been possible if Dr. Alokananda Ghosh, the Headmistress of Kamradad Girls’
high School, Sonarpur, Smt. Subhra Chakraborty, Headmistress of Howrah Girl’ High School,
and Ashok Maharaj of Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission, had not allowed me to administer
FCI in their schools. I am also grateful to all those students and teachers who had participated
enthusiastically in this project and expressed their honest viewpoints during discussions.
Partha Pratim Roy.
i
List of Figures
Fig 1. The Gain (bold circles) and Loss (faint circles) plotted against pre-test scores of
students. The more prior knowledge students have, the more concepts they gain during
a course (N.Lasry, et al Nature Physics, vol 10, 2014) 12
Fig 2. The research design 16
Fig 3: A question from the English version (above) of FCI and its Bangla translation (below)
24
Fig 4: List of common misconceptions entered as distractors in FCI; in The Physics Teacher
(vol 30, March 1992, page 141 – 148) by Hestenes, Wells, Swackhamer. 19
Fig 5: Frequency distribution of IX-X scores 25
Fig 6: Frequency distribution of XI-XII scores 26
Fig 7: Frequency distribution of Teachers’ scores 26
Fig 8: Normal distribution of IX-X scores 27
Fig 9: Normal distribution of XI-XII scores 27
Fig 10: Normal distribution of scores of Teachers 28
Fig 11: Comparison of number of correct responses per question 30
Fig 12: Comparison of number of correct responses on questions on rectilinear motion 32
Fig 13: Response to questions on kinematics 33
Fig 14: Response to questions on Newton’s 1st law 34
Fig 15: Response to questions on Newton’s 2nd law 35
Fig 16: Response to questions on Newton’s 3rd law 36
Fig 17: Response to force identification questions 37
ii
List of tables
Table 1: FCI related PCK scores (in determining alternate conceptions) of Instructors,
Graduate Students and Random guessers out of a maximum score of 9.21. 13
Table 2: Summary of the sample and population 22
Table 3: Comparative summary of overall performance 25
Table 4: Comparison of the percentage of correct responses to each question by the students
of IX X, XI-XII, and the teachers. 27
Table 5: Percentage of test-takers answering rectilinear (1D) motion questions correctly. 31
Table 6: Comparison of correct response on Kinematics. 33
Table 7: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s first law of motion. 34
Table 8: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s second law of motion. 35
Table 9: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s Third law of motion. 36
Table 10: Comparison of correct responses on force identification items. 37
Table 11: Item-wise similarity in performance 38
Table 12: Response to oral question 39
iii
Abstract
Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been the most effective investigative tool for discovering
alternative conceptions (misconceptions) about Force and Motion among learners. Introduced
in 1995 by David Hestenes, Malcom Wells, and Gregg Swackhamer, FCI had been
administered among more than one hundred thousand students worldwide and major learning
difficulties of students were identified. Remedial measures in the form of newer teaching
methods were discovered and tested. But FCI was never used for understanding Indian
students’ conceptual difficulties about Force and Motion. In a country where majority of
students don’t take up Physics as their subject of post-secondary education as they find the
subject difficult, I have planned to do an exploratory research to understand the state of
conceptual understanding of Force and Motion among the students of the secondary and higher
secondary level, and also among the teachers who teach them the subject. My objective is to
understand the existing situation on one hand, and to find out the reason behind the situation
on the other. My data clearly shows that the secondary level students have serious conceptual
difficulty about Force and Motion, and the situation is no better for the higher secondary level
students and the teachers.
iv
0
Chapter 1
1.1. Introduction
For many years Physics has become an integral part of all interdisciplinary activities in
scientific research. The role of physics as the most fundamental way of causal reasoning, in
building inquiry competency, can never be over-emphasized. Success in business and industry
in the 21st century world is driven mainly by knowledge, and by the ability to solve newly
emerging problems of everyday. Issues related to society and environment, e.g. global
warming and climate change, biotechnology and drug design, material science and energy
crisis, are becoming so complex that without a high level of scientific and technological
understanding, and problem solving skills, we cannot ensure our survival. Without a proper
training in Physics our education system is not capable of producing the kind of wise and
skilled personnel we need to serve our society today. But only less than 10 percent of high
school students of India are enrolled in physics courses at the senior secondary level and
beyond. Failure to understand elementary physics is identified to be the reason behind this
dismal picture. To address this situation the National Curriculum Framework 2005 has
emphasized the role of relating everyday experiences with the laws and principles of science.
Although science is introduced as a composite discipline in all curricula of the Indian Boards
of secondary education, physics is taught in Indian schools either as a separate subject or as a
1
part of the sciences, right from the sixth standard. All the Boards of Secondary and Senior
Secondary Education of India including the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE),
and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE), have revised their curriculum
to introduce activity based learning of science in general, and of physics in particular. Any
systematic understanding of different topics of physics requires the understanding of the
Newtonian concepts of force and motion in contrast to the Aristotelian concepts of these two.
Therefore the new science curriculum of the state of West Bengal has introduced Newton’s
laws of motion in the seventh standard. In the middle school curriculum the foundation is laid
for the basic concepts of force and motion, while at the high school (standards IX, X, XI, and
XII) curriculum the concepts get strengthened through quantitative as well as abstract
meanings of the concepts. However strong the curriculum may be, experience shows that the
students find it very difficult to develop truly Newtonian concepts of force and motion, and
fail to relate them to common everyday experiences. Over nearly past two decades, physics
education research has delved deeper into the causes behind this scenario throughout the
Europe and the U.S.A. and has taken a conscious effort to improve the situation. Physics
education research has gradually taken the lead in forming an understanding of teaching and
learning of any specific discipline of science, and has raised deep cognitive and
epistemological questions related not just to physics education, but to chemistry and biology
education as well. After the high school the students opting for the basic sciences or
engineering or medical sciences, need the fundamental concepts of force and motion at
different stages of higher learning. Any gap in the understanding of these concepts makes it
difficult for them to develop a strong grasp over their chosen fields of study. Therefore,
investigation of the learning difficulties of students and consequent interventions are to be
made as early as in the high school. Physics Education Researchers have devised a number of
2
concept inventories on different topics of physics to investigate the conceptual understanding
and learning difficulties of the students of physics. Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is the most
reliable and internationally accepted instrument for studying difficulties in learning the
concepts of ‘Force’ and ‘Motion’. In 1985 David Hestenes and Ibrahim Halloun of Arizona
State University developed a test called the Mechanics Diagnostic Test (MDT) containing
open-ended questions on force and motion. Observing and analyzing the results of the MDT
they identified many common alternative conceptions prevailing among students. Then in 1992
a multiple choice version of the MDT got evolved as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). The
common alternative conceptions were inserted as the distractors in that multiple choice test. It
consisted of 30 multiple choice questions framed in a very simple language without any
mathematical statements. The final version of the FCI was published in 1995 (I. Halloun, R.R.
Hake, E.P. Mosca, and D. Hestenes) after modifications suggested by the results of several
reliability and validity tests. Since 1995 nearly one hundred thousand students of different
levels have taken this test throughout the world. Physics teaching methods at different levels
got improved after FCI based studies of the students. In Harvard University, Prof. Eric Mazur
developed a technique of teaching called “Peer Instruction” after he discovered from the FCI-
result of his students that his teaching remained mostly ineffective even after his honest efforts.
But no extensive study of the Indian school-students’ understanding of the concepts has so far
been done (or reported to the research journals) through FCI, the most reliable international
assessment instrument. My experience of 25 years in teaching physics to high school students
showed that Indian students also face a great difficulty in learning and understanding the
concepts of Force and Motion. As the questions of FCI are jargon-free and linked to everyday
experiences, it can identify the problems in our physics instruction in particular, and in science
instruction in general, and help improve the situation by changing the methods of teaching.
3
My study aims at recording the state of conceptual understanding of Force and Motion among
the high school students (standards IX, X, XI, and XII) of West Bengal through the FCI. FCI
will also be administered to teachers to discover if there is any link between the difficulty in
the understanding of the students and that of the teachers in relation to the concepts of force
and motion. The result of this study can then be used to make further studies in relation to
different teaching methods used to teach these concepts. The survey of FCI research literature
shows that no study has ever been made of the high school teachers’ understanding of the
concepts. So this survey of the students’ concepts of force and motion vis-a-vis those of the
teachers, on the basis of FCI, will be the first scientific attempt to understand the situation
prevailing in school level physics education in India. At a time when the Indian economy is
growing and the Indian industry and business are looking for home-grown innovation and
knowhow, a serious investigation is necessary to know how strong our children are in
understanding and implementing scientific knowledge. As Newton’s laws of motion form the
foundations for all scientific thinking the FCI based survey can provide us with a real picture
of the state of science education in our schools. The result of this survey can help us devise
strategies in remedying the situation and take appropriate steps. As the role of teachers is
pivotal in achieving the learning goals, the investigation of the conceptual difficulties of the
teachers is very important, if at all there is any. This survey is therefore important in respect of
designing teacher training programs for the next generation of teachers, and the in-service
teachers as well.
4
1.2. Objectives
As the concepts of Force and Motion form the foundation for many other concepts of not only
physics but also of other sciences and engineering, any education system must ensure that the
students are learning these concepts properly in schools. Any difficulty that may exist among
students in learning these concepts should be scientifically investigated and addressed. The
main objective of this study is to understand how far our students are able to apply the concepts
of Newton’s laws of motion to common everyday situations. This will throw some light on the
quality of teaching of these concepts in schools. This study also aims at discovering the relation
between the FCI survey results of students with that of the teachers, and discover the
connection between learning difficulties and teaching difficulties. The findings of these
research may be useful in devising newer curricular and instructional strategies for Newtonian
mechanics at the high school level. The objectives can therefore be classified as follows:
1. To study and analyze the extent of understanding of the concepts of Newton’s laws of
motion, by the high school students.
2. To study if there exists any difference between the pre-secondary (9th and 10th grade) and
post-secondary (11th and 12th grade) level students of high schools in regard to the
conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws.
3. To examine whether the students can apply the knowledge of force and motion in the
practical situations of life.
5
4. To study the effect of the teachers’ understanding of the Newton’s laws of motion on the
students’ understanding of the same.
1.3. Research Questions
This research aims at discovering the learning difficulties and teaching difficulties, if there are
any, in regard to the teaching and learning of Newton’s laws of motion and the related concepts.
Let us first see what the foundational concepts of Newton’s laws of motion are? Newton’s laws
do not hold any ‘cause’ responsible for ‘motion’ of any object. It say that so long there is no
change in ‘motion’ there is no ‘cause’ behind just the existence of motion. If there is a change
in ‘motion’, measured by either ‘acceleration’ or ‘rate of change of momentum’, one should
look for a ‘cause’, and that ‘cause’ is called ‘force’. But Aristotle said that any motion had a
‘cause’ behind it, and the only natural state was that of rest. Experiments performed by Galileo
and the laws proposed by Newton thereafter, changed the paradigm of thinking about nature.
But many people still find the Aristotelian idea more acceptable as those ideas appear more
intuitive to them. Remnants of such Aristotelian ideas form serious impediments for advanced
scientific thinking. Therefore any instructional practice of Newtonian Mechanics should
ensure complete removal of the Aristotelian concepts from the minds of learners. How far that
is successfully done in the schools is an important research question. Whether the students are
capable of identifying the forces behind a moving object is also an important research question.
In my research I have made separate studies on the understanding of (i) Kinematics (i.e. the
different kinds of motion), (ii) the 1st law of motion, (iii) the 2nd law of motion, (iv) the 3rd law
of motion and (v) the ability to identify ‘forces’ acting on a body in different situations. These
6
studies are made separately for (i) the students of classes IX and X, (ii) the students of classes
XI and XII, and (iii) the teachers. The research questions can therefore be categorized as
follows:
1. Do the students understand the concepts of Force and Motion through the teaching in
schools?
2. Do the students of the higher secondary level have a better understanding of Newtonian
concepts than the secondary level students?
3. Do the teachers have a strong conceptual understanding of the Newtonian concepts of
Force and Motion?
4. Is the conceptual understanding of the students in regard to Newton’s laws of motion
related to the understanding of the teachers in regard to the same?
7
1.4. Hypotheses of the study
 H1a: There exists a significant lack of conceptual understanding of Force and Motion
among the high school students of West Bengal.
 H1b: There is no significant lack of conceptual understanding of Force and Motion
among most of the high school students of West Bengal.
 H2a: In regard to the conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws there is no
significant difference between the high school students of pre-secondary (IX and X)
and post-secondary (XI and XII) level.
 H2b: In regard to the conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws there is significant
difference between the high school students of pre-secondary (IX and X) and post-
secondary (XI and XII) level.
 H3a: Most of the high school students of West Bengal can apply the knowledge of
Force and Motion to common everyday situations.
 H3b: Most of the high school students of West Bengal can’t apply the knowledge of
 H4a: The teachers’ conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws has a significant
effect on the students’ understanding of the same.
 H4b: The teachers’ conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws has no significant
8
1.5. Delimitations of the study
The present study has the following limitations:
(i) This study is conducted on the students and teachers of different schools of the West
Bengal Board of Secondary Education. So the results of the study is limited to the students
and teachers of the West Bengal Board only.
(ii) This study is limited to the investigation of the understanding of the concepts of
Kinematics, Newton’s three laws of motion, and Role of forces behind motion, only, by
the students and teachers of secondary and higher secondary levels. Other areas of physics
are not within the purview of this study.
(iii) This study is limited only to the students of the secondary and Higher Secondary levels.
Conceptual understanding of the students of post-school level i.e. university and college
levels is not within the purview of this research.
9
Chapter 2
Review of Literature
The research on understanding difficulties of students in learning basic concepts of physics has
now become a field of interest both of the physics and education departments of the major
universities of the world. The field known as Physics Education Research (PER) has produced
results which has contributed to improving the quality of physics-teaching at different levels.
The research journals of this field are mainly published by the Institute of Physics of Europe,
and the American Institute of Physics. The main journals are (i) The Journal of Science
Education, (ii) The American Journal of Physics, (iii) The Physics Teacher, and (iv) The
Physical Review Special Topics – Physics Education Research. The FCI based research is a
major contributor in this field. Hestenes, Wells and Swackhammer (1992) had shown that
student performance in this test is mostly determined by the extent to which the commonsense
beliefs of the students about these concepts got changed to scientific knowledge by instructions
in classrooms. There is consensus among the researchers that FCI score is a good indicator of
basic understanding of Newtonian concepts of motion (G.A. Morris et al. 2006 & 2012; J.
Wang and L. Bao, 2010; M. Planinic, L. Ivanjek and A. Susac, 2010), although there was some
debate on whether FCI can measure Newtonian thinking consistently (D. Huffman and P.
Heller, 1995). The FCI data has been successful in convincing physics educators that the
traditional lecture method of instruction is mostly ineffective in promoting conceptual
understanding as the learners do not remain actively engaged in such methods (R. Hake, 1998;
10
N. Lasry, E. Mazur and J. Watkins, 2008; A. P. Fagen, C. H. Crouch and E. Mazur, 2002).
These studies helped educators to devise instructional strategies for effective conceptual and
functional understanding. R. Hake (1998) used the FCI to review the effectiveness of different
research based instructional approaches like collaborative peer level learning (D. W. Johnson,
R. T. Johnson, and K. A. Smith, 1991; P. Heller, R. Keith, and S. Anderson, 1992; P. Heller
and M. Hollabaugh, 1992), modelling instruction (I. A. Halloun and D. Hestenes, 1987; D.
Hestenes, 1987; M. Wells, D. Hestenes, and G. Swackhamer, 1995), concept tests (E. Mazur,
1997), microcomputer based labs (R. F. Tinker,1989; R. K. Thornton and D. R. Sokoloff, 1990;
D. R. Sokoloff, P. W. Laws, and R. K. Thornton, 1995), active-learning problem sheets (ALPS)
(A. Van Heuvelen, 1991) and others ( R. Hake, 1987 & 1991) and showed that students taught
by such methods show higher normalized gains than those taught in traditional lecture classes.
FCI was also used in the University of Pittsburgh to explore the pedagogical content
knowledge of the graduate teaching assistants to understand the role of teachers’ conceptions
in effective teaching (Alexandru Maries and Chandralekha Singh (2013 & 2016). FCI has also
been tested for its internal test-retest reliability. It was found that FCI as a whole has a high
reliability coefficient value although the individual responses of the questions are not equally
reliable (N. Lasry and others, 2011). All these findings suggest that FCI can be used as a valid
and reliable tool for investigating students’ conceptions vis-à-vis teachers’ for addressing
learning difficulties in mechanics. As the proposed research is the very first attempt to
administer FCI to the students and teachers of high schools in India, there is no data available
for FCI based research on Indian school-students. An FCI based study has been done on 122
students of a polytechnic in Sikkim, India in 2014 to assess the conceptual understanding of
the students (P. Puri and A. Sarmah, 2014), and it was found that there was no significant
difference among male and female students, among rural and urban students, and among school
11
toppers and the rest, in regard to their understanding of force and motion. But how strong or
weak was the understanding was not studied. How the performance of students in FCI changes
as they keep on attending courses in physics was studied by N. Lasry, J. Guillemette and Eric
Mazur and was reported in Nature Physics in 2014.
Fig 1. The Gain (bold circles) and Loss (faint circles) plotted against pre-test scores of students. The
more prior knowledge students have, the more concepts they gain during a course (N.Lasry,et
al Nature Physics, vol 10, 2014)
They studied the pre-test and post-test scores question-by question and defined Gain as the
proportion of incorrect answers on pre-test that got changed to correct answers in the post-test,
and Loss as the proportion of correct answers on pre-test that got changed to incorrect answers
on the post-test. They found that the conceptual understanding of those who were weaker in
the beginning of the course do not improve even after attending the course while the
12
understanding of those who were stronger in the beginning improve as they attend the course
(Fig 1). Alexandru Maries and Chandralekha Singh reported (arXiv.org) a comparative study
done on the graduate students and the instructors in the department of physics of the University
of Pittsburgh to assess the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) embedded in the FCI.
Table 1: FCI related PCK scores (in determining alternate conceptions) of Instructors, Graduate
Students and Random guessers out of a maximum score of 9.21.
The studies done by N. Lasry et al and A. Maries and C. Singh are very important in respect
of my research. I have studied the FCI performance of the students of secondary level (IX-X),
senior secondary level (XI-XII) and the teachers to understand the pattern of their concepts or
alternate concepts in the context of the Indian system of education. While Lasry et al finds that
the “rich get richer” in concepts as they get more instruction, Maries and Singh found that there
is not much difference among the different levels of students and instructors (teachers) in terms
of their PCK or alternate conceptions.
13
Chapter 3
Methodology
The methodology adopted for this research is mostly quantitative. A qualitative method is also
used for a better understanding of the quantitative results. The quantitative method I adopted
is to get a quantitative measure of the situation existing in the field of science education in our
schools, while the qualitative method is to understand the root cause behind the situation. The
qualitative method adopted is based mostly on ethnography and auto-ethnography.
3.1. Research Design and Plan
The design of this research is of mixed type. One part of it is a descriptive quantitative survey.
In this research I plan to perform an exploratory experiment in a natural environment without
causing any influence on the subject of study. As my research questions are aimed at
discovering the level of conceptual understanding of a certain subject area among the students,
my experimental observations will provide me with an inductive reasoning for building a
hypothesis, or to reject a hypothesis. This experimental design is different from the formal
experimental research in which the researcher maintains control over the factors that can
influence the experimental research. Instead, the design of the experiment is such that the
participants are not aware of the experiment although they are participating in an exercise that
is not within the usual school routine. As all the students of a range of classes get involved in
14
the exercise they accept it as a school initiative to enhance their learning. This part of research
is aimed at telling us what the existing situation is, but will not address the question of ‘why is
it so’. Another part of the research is designed as meta-analysis. In this part, the survey of the
state of conceptual understanding of the teachers, may provide some indicator towards the
‘why’ question and suggest directions for further research. As an observational, exploratory,
and meta-analysis design, this research plans to include ethnographic and auto-ethnographic
methods of investigation for a qualitative analysis.
For the quantitative and exploratory survey an internationally acclaimed concept inventory is
used. As the first step I identified a few schools which represented a cross section of the society
in terms of financial and social standing, as well as gender diversity. Arrangements were then
made with the school administration to administer the test with proper seating arrangements
and invigilation. After the result of the test was obtained and a certain trend was observed I
framed a few questions to be asked verbally to the students who had taken the test. The verbal
questions varied from school to school depending on the outcome of the test. As the research
is aimed at obtaining an objective picture of the state of science education in general, and
physics education in particular, in our state, I used an authenticated and internationally
validated instrument which had already been used for such research since 1995. My research
is therefore guided and influenced by the already obtained results of this research done
elsewhere in the world. I administered the test separately on the students of Secondary and
Higher Secondary levels. The responses to the different items in the testing instrument were
also separately examined to understand the difference in the conceptual difficulties, if any, of
the students of different levels. In my design I incorporated a new study – the study of the
teachers’ concepts on the same subject on which the students were studied. I first talked to the
15
teachers about the plan of my research and shared with them some of the observations made
in my study of the students’ concepts. Then the teachers were shown the testing instrument
and were requested to take the test. The teachers were provided the same duration of time as
the students were provided and no discussion among the participating teachers were allowed
during the test. The performances of different category of test takers, namely, the students of
class IX and X, the students of class XI and XII, and the teachers of physics, were then recorded
on an item by item basis. The responses of these three categories of test takers on a particular
item were used to design questionnaires for verbal discussion for obtaining qualitative data.
The design of my research provides a 360o study of the conceptual difficulties existing among
the teachers and students so that a cognitive and epistemological foundation of this difficulty
can be investigated later on the basis of the data obtained. In India, there are several survey
reports on the state of students’ learning of the language and arithmetic at the primary level
(e.g. the ASER survey, NCERT survey), but no such extensive survey is available for knowing
the status of secondary level science learning.
Fig 2. The research design
My research is designed in such a way that it can provide us with an objective survey of the
quality of physics education in our schools.

16
3.2. Tools and techniques
The main tool used in my research is the ‘Force Concept Inventory’ (FCI). FCI is a very well-
known tool among the physics education researchers. This tool is a set of 30 multiple choice
questions on the Newtonian concepts of Force and Motion. The common alternative
conceptions (misconceptions) of students as identified from the results of the Mechanics
Diagnostic Test (MDT), an open-ended test designed by David Hestenes and Ibrahim Halloun
of Arizona State University, were inserted as the distractors in a newly framed multiple choice
test and was named “Force Concept Inventory”. The questions in FCI are in English and do
not involve any jargon of physics except the use of the terms ‘force’, ‘velocity’, ‘gravity’ and
the like, which are now terms in lay persons’ language. This test has gone through several
validity and reliability tests since 1995, the year it was finally modified. I have translated this
test in to Bangla to administer it in the Bangla medium schools. The Bangla version of FCI has
been presented to the members of the Physics Education Research Group (UMD-PERG) of the
University of Maryland, College Park, USA, for discussion. Prof. Dr. Ayush Gupta of UMD-
PERG has circulated the Bangla version to the PER community of the world for any
modification, if required. The experts in the field of education including my own supervisor
has also checked the Bangla version several times. The language of all the questions are very
simple so that they do not appear to be technical questions of physics. I have taken all efforts
to maintain this simplicity of the language in the Bangla version. As the translation was being
made I had showed a few of them to some of the students and teachers of Bangla for their
opinion about the simplicity, lucidity, and non-technicality of the language I used. None had
raised questions about any term that they were unable to understand.
17
Fig 3: A question from the English version (above) of FCI and its Bangla translation (below)
18
The whole FCI with both the English and the Bangla versions are available in the appendix.
The distractors in every question of the FCI are representative of the most common
misconceptions existing among the students of different levels. Questions in the inventory are
from different conceptual areas of ‘Force’ and ‘Motion’. Hestenes, Wells, and Swackhamer
categorized the questions topic by topic and noted the most common misconception in the
distractors as detailed below.
Fig 4: List of common misconceptions entered as distractors in FCI; in The Physics Teacher (vol 30,
March 1992, page 141 – 148) by Hestenes, Wells, Swackhamer.
19
The answer-sheet on which the test takers marked their answers is a separate sheet that looks
like an OMR (Optical Mark Reader) sheet, and the test takers are to fill the circles with ball
point pen. Copies of the English and Bangla versions of the answer-sheet are provided in the
appendix. The OMR like sheets are read for counting the correct and incorrect answers of a
particular item and also for the overall performance of a test taker.
After the OMR sheets are read and a performance report is obtained for a certain group of
students, a plan is made to talk to a selected number of students of the group to understand the
underlying conceptual basis of the alternative conceptions reflected in their wrong answers. A
sample of the questions asked during such an interview is given below.
1. Is this an exam like your other exams? Were you scared or happy in taking the test?
2. How did you answer the questions – on the basis of what you think or on the basis of
what you studied in your course?
3. You have given this answer to this question. Can you tell me why have you rejected
the other available options in the answer?
4. Have you read anything related to this question in your textbooks or in your syllabus?
5. Have you seen something around you that is similar to the situation mentioned in the
question?
The verbal responses of the students are recorded as written transcripts and later analyzed in
relation to the item response in FCI.
20
3.3. Sample
The sample is selected by the random sampling method. I approached nearly 10 schools in and
around the city of Kolkata and of the southern part of West Bengal, and were able to conduct
my studies in just three of them. These schools admit students from all sections of the society
and provides a random representative sample for study. The sample consists of 548 students
of classes IX and X, and 202 students of classes XI and XII. The sample of teachers is also a
randomly selected one. Apart from the teachers of the selected schools I selected teachers from
different districts of West Bengal who came to Kolkata to participate in a teacher training
workshop. A total number of 40 teachers participated in my study.
3.4. Population
The population of the study comprises of the students of classes IX and X, and also of the
students of the science stream of classes XI and XII, of one urban and two semi-urban schools
of the southern part of West Bengal. The students of these schools are from a varied income
group belonging mostly to the middle class. The parents of the students are in varied
professions – ranging from daily labourers to govt. officers. The population consists of 60
percent of female students and 40 percent of male students. The population also includes
physics teachers of several urban and semi-urban schools of the same region of West Bengal.
21
The teacher population has 50 percent male teachers and rest 50 percent female teachers. 25
teachers have Masters level degree in physics and 15 teachers have Bachelors level degree in
physics.
Nature of the Number (N) Description on the Gender based

Population basis of socio- description
economic condition
Lower middle class = Male = 40%
70%
Students of IX
and X 548 Middle class = 26% Female = 60%
Upper middle class =
4%
Lower middle class = Male = 40%
60%
Students of XI
and XII 202 Middle class = 35% Female = 60%
(Science
stream) Upper middle class =
5%
Male = 50%
Teachers
40 N.A. Female = 50%
Table 2: Summary of the sample and population
22
3.5. Procedure for Data Collection
The quantitative data are collected through the FCI test administered over a sample of students
and teachers. The answers are recorded on the specific answer-sheets of the OMR type and
segregated according to the level the students are studying in. The answer-sheets of the students
of classes IX and X are separated from the answer-sheets of the students of classes XI and XII.
On the same day all the students of a school took the test irrespective of what class they are
studying in. The teachers of those schools took the test on the day the results of their students
were being delivered to them. As a single school had a very small number of physics teachers
(a maximum of nearly 3 teachers), the test was administered during a teacher training program
of the Jagadis Bose National Science Talent Search (JBNSTS) to include a sizable and
randomized population in to the study. All the participants, both students and teachers took the
test under perfect testing conditions, i.e. under stipulated time duration and with proper seating
arrangements.
The qualitative data are collected through interviews with a small number of students
depending on the peculiarity of their answer choices. These data are collected by noting down
the conversations with the students on paper and then analyzed in relation to the written answer
choices.
23
Chapter 4
Data Analysis and Interpretation
4.1. Data of overall performance
The scores of two different categories of students – the students of IX and X, and the students
of XI and XII are recorded separately and compared. According to the authors of FCI (David
Hestenes and Ibrahim Halloun, in The Physics Teacher, 33, 1995) a score of 60% means that
the student has reached the entry level threshold in Newtonian concepts, and a score of 85%
means that the student has reached the mastery threshold in Newtonian thinking. Although
there are 30 items in FCI, all the items are not considered for determining the different
threshold scores for class IX – X students. Only those questions which involve motion in one
dimension (14 questions out of 30) are analyzed for classes IX and X. The analysis of the data
shows that out of 548 students of classes IX and X, 30 (i.e. 5.5%) students reached the entry
threshold and 5 (i.e. 0.9%) students reached the mastery threshold. Majority of these students
(350) scored between 4 and 7 (i.e. 30% to 40%). The students of XI and XII are evaluated on
all the items as the XI students had completed their study of Higher Secondary level mechanics
by the time the test was taken. The XI – XII data shows that out of 202 students 19 (i.e. 9.4%)
have crossed the entry threshold of Newtonian concepts, and 2 students (i.e. 1%) achieved the
mastery level concepts. Most of class XI-XII students (109, i.e. 53%) scored between 4 and 8
24
(i.e. 14% to 27%). Among the teachers (N = 40), 8 teachers (i.e. 20%) crossed the entry
threshold, and only 1 teacher (i.e. 2.5%) achieved the mastery threshold. Most of the teachers
(25 out of 40, i.e. 62.5%) scored between 6 and 12 (i.e. 20% to 40%).
Category Total no. Mean of Median Standard Most Crossing Crossing

of test of test scores of Deviation probable entry mastery
takers takers (N) scores score threshold threshold
Class IX- 548 4.93 5.0 2.16 5 5.5% 0.9%
X
Class XI- 202 8.35 6.0 5.50 5 9.4% 1.0%
XII
Teachers 40 11.42 10.5 6.07 11 20% 2.5%
Table 3: Comparative summary of overall performance
Fig 5: Frequency Distribution of IX-X Scores

200
180
160
140
No. of Students
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Score Values
25
Fig 6: Frequency Distribution of XI-XII Scores
60
50
40
No. of Students
30
20
10
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Score Values
Fig 7: Frequency Distribution of Teachers' Scores

12
10
No. of Teachers
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Score Values
26
Fig 8: Normal Distribution of IX-X Scores
0.2
0.18
0.16
Probability density
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Score values
Fig 9: Normal Distribution of XI-XII Scores

0.08
0.07
0.06
Probability density
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Score values
27
Fig 10: Normal Distribution of Scores of Teachers
0.07
0.06
Probability density 0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Score values
The study of the overall performance in FCI by the students of class IX-X, Class XI-XII and
the Teachers show that there is not much difference between the conceptual understandings of
these three groups in regard to Newton’s mechanics. Even after studying the subject for one
more year the level of understanding of the class XI-XII students has not increased. It shows
that the alternative conceptions of students do not get changed to proper understanding just by
attending more courses. The teachers’ conceptions also do not show any strength. Teachers are
also carrying alternative conceptions with them to a great extent. Although the mean score and
the most probable score of the teachers is higher than the students, the corresponding score
values are much below the concept thresholds. Also the probability of obtaining the mastery
level score is not high for the teachers. We should note that the entry level threshold score for
class IX-X students is 9, and for others it is 18. The probability distribution curve shows that
and for all groups of test takers the probability density is between 0.2 and 0.3. The teachers
have not shown any conceptual strength compared to the students.
28
4.2. Item-wise Response Comparison
The responses to each question of the FCI by the students of IX-X, XI-XII, and the teachers
are compared for understanding the difference in conceptual strength of these three category
of test-takers. The percentage of test-takers in each category (IX-X, XI-XII, and teachers),
giving correct response to an item, is calculated and compared with other categories.
Item no IX-X XI-XII Teachers Item no IX-X XI-XII Teachers

1 16% 34% 30% 16 13% 42% 78%
2 15% 18% 48% 17 8% 19% 28%
3 13% 13% 23% 18 9% 30% 50%
4 11% 28% 33% 19 13% 33% 58%
5 14% 23% 20% 20 12% 8% 25%
6 7% 10% 25% 21 38% 48% 68%
7 46% 29% 30% 22 26% 61% 73%
8 15% 12% 8% 23 23% 37% 43%
9 19% 36% 28% 24 14% 34% 45%
10 14% 20% 20% 25 11% 36% 43%
11 12% 18% 25% 26 19% 16% 20%
12 18% 31% 33% 27 25% 39% 83%
13 12% 32% 28% 28 7% 14% 45%
14 23% 29% 30% 29 5% 29% 65%
15 15% 13% 13% 30 16% 37% 48%
Table 4: Comparison of the percentage of correct responses to each question by the students of IX-
X, XI-XII, and the teachers.
29
FIG 11: COMPARISN OF NUMBER OF
CORRECT RESPONSES PER QUESTION
Class IX-X Class XI-XII Teachers
PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT RESPONSES
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
QUESTION NUMBER IN FCI.
The comparative study of correct responses given to the items of FCI reveals that there is no
better conceptual understanding of Force and Motion among the teachers than the students,
and among the Higher Secondary students than their Secondary counterparts. Item no. 1, 3, 4,
6, 12, 13, 14 and 15 shows notable difference among these three groups, but in all other items
no group is especially stronger in conceptual understanding. Item no. 11, 16, 20, 22, 23, 25,
27, 29 and 30 shows that the teachers have almost the similar conceptual difficulty as that of
the students of either XI-XII or IX-X, or of both.
30
4.3. Data for Questions on Rectilinear Motion
The FCI questions on rectilinear motion or motion in a straight line are especially appropriate
for testing the students of class IX-X. I have compared the performance of all categories of
test-takers in regard to these questions to get a comparative picture of very basic understanding
of motion among test takers of different levels.
Questions on IX-X XI-XII Teachers

1D motion Students Students
1 13% 42% 78%
3 9% 30% 50%
4 13% 33% 58%
13 7% 14% 45%
15 16% 37% 48%
16 16% 34% 30%
19 11% 28% 33%
20 14% 23% 20%
25 14% 20% 20%
26 12% 18% 25%
27 18% 31% 33%
28 12% 32% 28%
29 23% 29% 30%
30 15% 13% 13%
Table 5: Percentage of test-takers answering rectilinear (1D) motion questions correctly.
31
FI G 1 2 : CO MPA RI SN O F NUMBE R O F CO RRECT
RESPO NSES PE R Q UEST I O N O N RECT I LI NEA R MOT I O N
90%
PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT RESPONSES
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1 3 4 13 15 16 19 20 25 26 27 28 29 30
QUESTION NUMBER IN FCI
Comparative study of the percentage of correct responses to items on one dimensional motion
(rectilinear motion) shows that in respect of questions 1,3,4,13 and 15 there is some notable
difference among the different category of test-takers, but for questions 16 to 30 there is no
significant difference between the performance of teachers and the students. Although these
questions involve very basic concepts of motion, the teachers’ performance is not at all
encouraging. So we now need to compare the performance of students with that of the teachers,
also in respect of other concept areas – (i) Kinematics, (ii) Newton’s 1st law, (iii) Newton’s 2nd
law, (iv) Newton’s 3rd law, (v) Identification of forces.
32
4.4. Data for Different Concept Areas
4.4.1. Kinematics
The makers of the FCI had identified five different concept areas within the study of Force and
Motion. They are mentioned in the previous article 4.2. In my research I have compared the
responses given by the students (IX-X and XI-XII as two separate groups) and the teachers to
these different concept category questions, and the data are given below.
Concept area: Kinematics

Q. Correct Correct Percentage Correct Percentage Correct Percentage
No. response (IX-X) (XI-XII) (Teachers)
1 C 70 13% 84 42% 31 78%
2 A 46 8% 39 19% 11 28%
14 D 26 5% 58 29% 26 65%
19 E 61 11% 57 28% 13 33%
20 D 75 14% 46 23% 20 50%
Table 6: Comparison of correct response on Kinematics.
Fig 13: Response to the questions on Kinematics

Percentage of Correct Responses
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1 2 14 19 20
Question number on FCI
33
In Kinematics based items the teachers have a stronger conceptual understanding than the
students. However, in item no. 2 and 19 and 20 the percentage of correct response shows
similar difficulty level among the students of XI-XII and the teachers.
4.4.2. Newton’s First Law of Motion

Concept area: Newton’s 1st Law of motion
6 B 206 38% 96 48% 27 68%
7 B 145 26% 123 61% 29 73%
8 B 127 23% 74 37% 17 43%
10 A 60 11% 73 36% 17 43%
12 B 137 25% 79 39% 33 83%
21 E 39 7% 21 10% 10 25%
23 B 82 15% 25 12% 3 8%
Table 7: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s first law of motion.
Fig 14: Response to questions on Newton's First Law

90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
6 7 8 10 12 21 23
34
In respect of Newton’s first law of motion also we observe a very interesting result. The
responses to item no 6, 7, and 12 shows a major strength in the teachers concepts, but about
item no 7, 8, 10 and 23 the teachers have nearly similar difficulty as that of the XI-XII students.
4.4.3. Newton’s Second Law of Motion

Concept area: Newton’s 2nd Law of motion
3 C 50 9% 60 30% 20 50%
9 E 75 14% 69 34% 18 45%
22 B 253 46% 59 29% 12 30%
24 A 102 19% 72 36% 11 28%
25 C 77 14% 40 20% 8 20%
26 E 64 12% 37 18% 10 25%
27 C 96 18% 62 31% 13 33%
Table 8: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s second law of motion.
Fig 15: Response to questions on Newton's Second Law

60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
3 9 22 24 25 26 27
35
About Newton’s Second law of motion there is not much difference among the teachers and
students if we consider item no. 22, 24 and 25. Also in item no 9, 22, 24 and 27 the conceptual
difficulty of the teachers is same as that of students of class XI-XII.
4.4.4 Newton’s Third Law of Motion

4 E 72 13% 66 33% 23 58%
15 A 85 16% 74 37% 19 48%
16 A 90 16% 68 34% 12 30%
28 E 65 12% 65 32% 11 28%
Table 9: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s Third law of motion.
Fig 16: Response to questions on Newton's Third

Law
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
4 15 16 28
36
About the responses to Newton’s third law the students of XI-XII are better in respect of items
16 and 28, which shows that the teachers’ difficulty in understanding this concept is at the
same level as that of the students.
4.4.5. Force Identification

Concept area: Force Identification
Q. No. Correct Correct Percentage Correct Percentage Correct Percentage
response (IX-X) (XI-XII) (Teachers)
5 B 65 12% 16 8% 10 25%
11 D 106 19% 33 16% 8 20%
13 D 41 7% 28 14% 18 45%
17 B 84 15% 37 18% 19 48%
18 B 72 13% 26 13% 9 23%
29 B 126 23% 58 29% 12 30%
30 C 80 15% 27 13% 5 13%
Table 10: Comparison of correct responses on force identification items.
Fig 17: Response to Force Identification questions

50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
5 11 13 17 18 29 30
Question number in FCI
37
In force identification questions the teachers have better scores in items 5, 13 and 17 but in
respect of items 11, 18, 29 and 30 there is somewhat similar difficulty in teachers’
understanding as in the students’ understanding. Also the students of XI-XII have shown
similar conceptual difficulty in items 5, 11, 17, 18, 29, and 30 as the students of IX and X.
We have discovered that there exists no major difference in conceptual understanding of Force
and Motion, between the students of IX-X and XI-XII, and also between the students of XI-
XII and the teachers of the same subject.
The test-taker categories being compared FCI question items on which no significant
difference in conceptual understanding is
observed
Students of IX-X and Students of XI-XII 5, 11, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30
Students of XI-XII and the Teachers 2, 7, 8, 10,11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28, 29, 30
Table 11: Item-wise similarity in performance
4.5. Qualitative Study
Based on the quantitative data when a picture of the conceptual understanding of Force and
Motion among the students and teachers become apparent, I planned to make a qualitative
study of the situation. To do this study I identified five questions from the FCI, one each from
the five concept areas mentioned above. From Kinematics - question no.1, from Newton’s 1st
law - question no. 10, from Newton’s 2nd law – question no. 26, from Newton’s 3rd law –
38
question no. 4, and from force identification - question no.30. I selected 20 students of class X
who were unable to give correct answers to questions 1, 4 and 30, and 10 students of class XII
who could not give correct answers to questions 10 and 26. I then talked to them personally
and asked a few questions as mentioned in art. 3.2. On the basis of their answers I tried to
understand the reason behind the situation and formulate some new hypotheses. The summary
of the qualitative data are shown in the following tables.
Question:
Is this an exam like your other exams? Were you scared or happy in taking the test?
Students Number The exam is tough It is fun taking the test No special feeling
IX - X 20 8 5 7
XI - XII 10 5 3 2
Table 12: Response to oral question

Question:
How did you answer the questions – on the basis of what you think or on the basis of what
you studied in your course?
Students Number of Most common answers
students
Applied My school I was looking I don’t know, I
interviewed
commonsense based study for analogy actually
logic and the from couldn’t get
questions experience how to think
don’t match
IX - X 20 11 15 7 3
XI - XII 10 5 5 4 2
39
Question:
You have given this answer to this question 1 about two falling balls. Can you tell me
why have you rejected the other available options in the answer?
students
interviewed I have seen Heavy balls Air prevents It doesn’t take
light balls are attracted the light ball exactly half the
(plastic ball) stronger by fall slowly time as air
are hard to earth resistance acts
throw far
IX - X 20 5 12 8 2
Question:
You have given this answer to this question 4 about colliding truck and car. Can you tell
me why have you rejected the other available options in the answer?
students
interviewed The car gets The car fails to The car is small in
severely damaged, apply any force, size, so it has less
not the truck. So so it gets strength to apply a
truck applies greater smashed strong force
force
IX - X 20 18 15 19
Question:
You have given this answer to this question 30 about a tennis ball hit by a racquet. Can
you tell me why have you rejected the other available options in the answer?
students
interviewed As the ball is Anything hit The flying Air can’t
hit by stronger gets a ball goes up, apply force as
something greater so gravity the ball is hit
that force is velocity, so the fail to play very hard
driving it hitting force is any role
always there
IX - X 20 15 15 8 2
40
Question:
You have given this answer to this question 10 about a moving ball being hit by a stick.
Can you tell me why have you rejected the other available options in the answer?
students
interviewed The force of the The force of the As the hit is
hit by the stick hit is there to momentary it fails to
takes some time to increase its maintain its velocity
die out velocity
XI - XII 10 8 5 2
Question:
You have given this answer to this question 26 about a box being pushed by a woman.
Can you tell me why have you rejected the other available options in the answer?
students
interviewed The applied force Increased force Initial double force
gave the box its takes some time to increases the velocity
velocity vo, so it overcome friction, but later it becomes
doubles as force and then increases constant due to
doubles velocity friction
XI - XII 10 5 5 4
Question:
Have you read anything related to these questions in your textbooks or in your syllabus?
students
interviewed No, this Some This questions We don’t study
questions are questions are from the JEE like this in our
not like syllabus are from books, not from classes
questions syllabus normal
textbooks
IX - X 20 15 10 20
XI - XII 10 5 6 7 7
41
Question:
Have you seen something around you that is similar to the situation mentioned in the
questions? How do you think about such situations?
students
interviewed Many Questions are I think about I apply
questions related to our common logic from
are related everyday feelings, everyday events analogous
to our but I don’t have in a way that I situations,
experiences any direct feel logical. not from
experience of them syllabus.
IX - X 20 20 13 20 15
XI - XII 10 10 6 10 7
All these answers (Table 12 to Table 18) point toward a very obvious conclusion that students
learn one thing in school, but applies something else in actual life. Whatever the students study
in their curriculum are for examinations only, and the teachers also think that way. Newton’s
laws of motion have underlying concepts which make sense only if a student is capable of
thinking beyond just experience. The Newtonian concept that velocity does not need
application of force, appears unacceptable if one is taking decision only on the basis of what
one observes every day. We see that any object needs some impetus to move and to keep it
moving some impetus is also needed, otherwise it stops on its own. This observation supports
the Aristotelian concept that velocity needs force. But if we think of opposing forces like
friction we can understand that in the absence of such forces moving objects will never stop
and velocity will be there, without requiring any force to provide it. So Newtonian concept
needs to be taught properly. If teachers themselves are not aware of this learning difficulty, the
true concept of force and motion will never be achieved.

42
Chapter 5
5.1. Conclusion
How students learn physics has been the main subject of investigation of the Physics Education
Researchers (PER) throughout the world. Since 1995 the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has
been serving this PER community worldwide with a huge amount of data to investigate this
question, and to design newer teaching methodology. From my 25 years of teaching experience
I have noted serious learning difficulties among our students in respect of Newton’s laws of
motion. To understand the situation when I looked for FCI data about Indian students I was
surprised to discover that no such data exists for Indian students although FCI was known to
researchers for long. In this context I planned my research with a view to knowing the state of
conceptual understanding of Force and Motion among Secondary and Higher Secondary level
students, and their teachers. This will help us not just in identifying the learning difficulties,
but will also help in finding out the reason behind these difficulties. FCI based research of N.
Lasry, J. Guillemette, and Eric Mazur (2014) had shown that taking more courses did not
ascertain removal of conceptual difficulty. The FCI based research of Alexandru Maries and
Chandralekha Singh (2016) had shown that the pedagogical content knowledge of the
instructors and the graduate students were equally problematic in respect of alternative
conceptions.
43
I therefore designed my research to probe the following:
1. Do our Secondary level students have any conceptual difficulty in respect of Newton’s laws
of motion?
2. Do the Higher Secondary students have any better understanding of Newton’s laws of
motion than their Secondary counterparts?
3. Do the teachers of school level physics have any improved understanding of Newton’s laws
of motion so that they are able to take care of the conceptual difficulties of students?
The analysis of my research data (Table 3 to Table 11, and Fig. 5 to Fig. 17) has shown the
following convincingly:
1. The students of Secondary level (IX-X) have a major conceptual deficiency about Newton’s
laws of motion.
2. The students of the Higher Secondary level (XI-XII) are in way better than their Secondary
counterparts in respect of Newtonian concepts, and they themselves have serious conceptual
difficulties about Force and Motion.
3. The teachers of physics are also not free from conceptual deficiency about Newton’s laws,
and this deficiency may be identified as the reason behind the deficiency among students.
44
So, my research data rejects the following hypotheses very strongly:
 H1b: There is no significant lack of conceptual understanding of Force and Motion
among most of the high school students of West Bengal.
 H2b: In regard to the conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws there is significant
difference between the high school students of pre-secondary (IX and X) and post-
secondary (XI and XII) level.
 H3a: Most of the high school students of West Bengal can apply the knowledge of
 H4b: The teachers’ conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws has no significant
On the basis of my research data, both quantitative and qualitative (Table 3 to Table 11, and
Fig. 5 to Fig. 17; Table 12 to Table 18) the following hypotheses can be made for future
investigation:
 The conceptual deficiency of the students in relation to Newton’s laws of motion is the
result of conceptual deficiency of the teachers on the same subject.
 The school level science curriculum fails to link scientific knowledge with experiences
of everyday life.
45
5.2. Future Research
The results of my present research opens up the following research questions in Science
Education in general and Physics Education in particular.
1. What is the majority of wrong answers in a particular FCI item and does this have any
similarity with the teachers’ wrong answer in the same item?
2. What are the cognitive and epistemological basis of the alternative conceptions that the
students and the teachers are carrying with them?
3. How does conceptual change happen in some people through the same process that fail to
cause this change in others?
46
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47
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53
Appendices
54
55
Force Concept Inventory
1. Two metal balls are the same size but one weighs twice as much as the other. The balls are
dropped from the roof of a single story building at the same instant of time. The time it takes
the balls to reach the ground below will be:
(A) about half as long for the heavier ball as for the lighter one.
(B) about half as long for the lighter ball as for the heavier one.
(C) about the same for both balls.
(D) considerably less for the heavier ball, but not necessarily half as long.
(E) considerably less for the lighter ball, but not necessarily half as long.
2. The two metal balls of the previous problem roll off a horizontal table with the same speed.
In this situation:
(A) both balls hit the floor at approximately the same horizontal distance from the base of the
table.
(B) the heavier ball hits the floor at about half the horizontal distance from the base of the
table than does the lighter ball.
(C) the lighter ball hits the floor at about half the horizontal distance from the base of the
table than does the heavier ball.
(D) the heavier ball hits the floor considerably closer to the base of the table than the lighter
ball, but not necessarily at half the horizontal distance.
(E) the lighter ball hits the floor considerably closer to the base of the table than the heavier
ball, but not necessarily at half the horizontal distance.
3. A stone dropped from the roof of a single story building to the surface of the earth:
(A) reaches a maximum speed quite soon after release and then falls at a constant speed
thereafter.
(B) speeds up as it falls because the gravitational attraction gets considerably stronger as the
stone gets closer to the earth.
(C) speeds up because of an almost constant force of gravity acting upon it.
(D) falls because of the natural tendency of all objects to rest on the surface of the earth.
(E) falls because of the combined effects of the force of gravity pushing it downward and the
force of the air pushing it downward.
56
4. A large truck collides head-on with a small compact car. During the collision:
(A) the truck exerts a greater amount of force on the car than the car exerts on the truck.
(B) the car exerts a greater amount of force on the truck than the truck exerts on the car.
(C) neither exerts a force on the other, the car gets smashed simply because it gets in the way
of the truck.
(D) the truck exerts a force on the car but the car does not exert a force on the truck.
(E) the truck exerts the same amount of force on the car as the car exerts on the truck.
USE THE STATEMENT AND FIGURE BELOW TO ANSWER THE NEXT TWO
QUESTIONS (5 and 6).
The accompanying figure shows a frictionless channel in the shape of a segment of a circle
with center at "O". The channel has been anchored to a frictionless horizontal table top. You
are looking down at the table. Forces exerted by the air are negligible. A ball is shot at high
speed into the channel at "p" and exits at "r."
5. Consider the following distinct forces:
1. A downward force of gravity.

2. A force exerted by the channel pointing from q to O.
3. A force in the direction of motion.
4. A force pointing from O to q.
Which of the above forces is (are) acting on the ball when it is within the frictionless
channel at position "q"?
(A) 1 only.
(B) 1 and 2.
(C) 1 and 3.
(D) 1, 2, and 3.
(E) 1, 3, and 4.
57
6. Which path in the figure at right would the ball most closely follow after it exits the channel
at "r" and moves across the frictionless table top?
7. A steel ball is attached to a string and is swung in a circular path in a horizontal plane as
illustrated in the accompanying figure. At the point P indicated in the figure, the string
suddenly breaks near the ball. If these events are observed from directly above as in the
figure, which path would the ball most closely follow after the string breaks?
58
USE THE STATEMENT AND FIGURE BELOW TO ANSWER THE NEXT FOUR
QUESTIONS (8 through 11).
The figure depicts a hockey puck sliding with constant speed v0 in a straight line from point
"a" to point "b" on a frictionless horizontal surface. Forces exerted by the air are negligible.
You
are looking down on the puck. When the puck reaches point "b," it receives a swift horizontal
kick in the direction of the heavy print arrow. Had the puck been at rest at point "b," then the
kick would have set the puck in horizontal motion with a speed vk in the direction of the kick.
8. Which of the paths below would the puck most closely follow after receiving the kick ?
9. The speed of the puck just after it receives the kick is:
(A) equal to the speed "v0" it had before it received the kick.
(B) equal to the speed "vk" resulting from the kick and independent of the speed "vo".
(C) equal to the arithmetic sum of the speeds "v0" and "vk".
(D) smaller than either of the speeds "v0" or "vk".
(E) greater than either of the speeds "v0" or "vk", but less than the arithmetic sum of these
two speeds.
59
10. Along the frictionless path you have chosen in question 8, the speed of the puck after
receiving the kick:
(A) is constant.
(B) continuously increases.
(C) continuously decreases.
(D) increases for a while and decreases thereafter.
(E) is constant for a while and decreases thereafter.
11. Along the frictionless path you have chosen in question 8, the main force(s) acting on the
puck after receiving the kick is (are):
(A) a downward force of gravity.

(B) a downward force of gravity, and a horizontal force in the direction of motion.
(C) a downward force of gravity, an upward force exerted by the surface, and a horizontal
force in the direction of motion.
(D) a downward force of gravity and an upward force exerted by the surface.
(E) none. (No forces act on the puck.)
12. A ball is fired by a cannon from the top of a cliff as shown in the figure below. Which of
the paths would the cannon ball most closely follow?
60
13. A boy throws a steel ball straight up. Consider the motion of the ball only after it has left
the boy's hand but before it touches the ground, and assume that forces exerted by the air
are negligible. For these conditions, the force(s) acting on the ball is (are):
(A) a downward force of gravity along with a steadily decreasing upward force.
(B) a steadily decreasing upward force from the moment it leaves the boy’s hand until it
reaches its highest point; on the way down there is a steadily increasing downward
force of gravity as the object gets closer to the earth.
(C) an almost constant downward force of gravity along with an upward force that steadily
decreases until the ball reaches its highest point; on the way down there is only a
constant downward force of gravity.
(D) an almost constant downward force of gravity only.
(E) none of the above. The ball falls back to ground because of its natural tendency to rest
on the surface of the earth.
14. A bowling ball accidentally falls out of the cargo bay of an airliner as it flies along in a
horizontal direction. As observed by a person standing on the ground and viewing the plane
as in the figure at right, which path would the bowling ball most closely follow after leaving
the airplane?
61
USE THE STATEMENT AND FIGURE BELOW TO ANSWER THE NEXT TWO
QUESTIONS (15 and 16).
A large truck breaks down out on the road and receives a push back into town by a small
compact car as shown in the figure below.
15. While the car, still pushing the truck, is speeding up to get up to cruising speed:
(A) the amount of force with which the car pushes on the truck is equal to that with which
the truck pushes back on the car.
(B) the amount of force with which the car pushes on the truck is smaller than that with
which the truck pushes back on the car.
(C) the amount of force with which the car pushes on the truck is greater than that with
(D) the car's engine is running so the car pushes against the truck, but the truck's engine is
not running so the truck cannot push back against the car. The truck is pushed forward
simply because it is in the way of the car.
(E) neither the car nor the truck exert any force on the other. The truck is pushed forward
16. After the car reaches the constant cruising speed at which its driver wishes to push the
truck:
(A) the amount of force with which the car pushes on the truck is equal to that with which
the truck pushes back on the car.
(B) the amount of force with which the car pushes on the truck is smaller than that with
(C) the amount of force with which the car pushes on the truck is greater than that with
(D) the car's engine is running so the car pushes against the truck, but the truck's engine is
not running so the truck cannot push back against the car. The truck is pushed forward
(E) neither the car nor the truck exert any force on the other. The truck is pushed forward
62
17. An elevator is being lifted up an elevator shaft at a constant speed by a steel cable as shown
in the figure below. All frictional effects are negligible. In this situation, forces on the
elevator are such that:
(A) the upward force by the cable is greater than the downward force of gravity.
(B) the upward force by the cable is equal to the downward force of gravity.
(C) the upward force by the cable is smaller than the downward force of gravity.
(D) the upward force by the cable is greater than the sum of the downward force of gravity
and a downward force due to the air.
(E) none of the above. (The elevator goes up because the cable is being shortened, not
because an upward force is exerted on the elevator by the cable).
63
18. The figure below shows a boy swinging on a rope, starting at a point higher than A.
Consider the following distinct forces:

2. A force exerted by the rope pointing from A to O.
3. A force in the direction of the boy’s motion.
4. A force pointing from O to A.
Which of the above forces is (are) acting on the boy when he is at position A?
(A) 1 only.
(B) 1 and 2.
(C) 1 and 3.
(D) 1, 2, and 3.
(E) 1, 3, and 4.
19. The positions of two blocks at successive 0.20-second time intervals are represented by the
numbered squares in the figure below. The blocks are moving toward the right.
Do the blocks ever have the same speed?
(A) No.
(B) Yes, at instant 2.
(C) Yes, at instant 5.
(D) Yes, at instants 2 and 5.
(E) Yes, at some time during the interval 3 to 4.
64
20. The positions of two blocks at successive 0.20-second time intervals are represented by the
numbered squares in the figure below. The blocks are moving toward the right.
The accelerations of the blocks are related as follows:
(A) The acceleration of "a" is greater than the acceleration of " b".
(B) The acceleration of "a" equals the acceleration of "b". Both accelerations are greater
than zero.
(C) The acceleration of "b" is greater than the acceleration of "a".
(D) The acceleration of "a" equals the acceleration of "b". Both accelerations are zero.
(E) Not enough information is given to answer the question.
USE THE STATEMENT AND FIGURE BELOW TO ANSWER THE NEXT FOUR
QUESTIONS (21 through 24).
A rocket drifts sideways in outer space from point "a" to point "b" as shown below. The
rocket is subject to no outside forces. Starting at position "b", the rocket's engine is turned on
and produces a constant thrust (force on the rocket) at right angles to the line "ab". The constant
thrust is maintained until the rocket reaches a point "c" in space.
21. Which of the paths below best represents the path of the rocket between points "b" and "c"?
65
22. As the rocket moves from position"b" to position "c" its speed is:
(A) constant.
(B) continuously increasing.
(C) continuously decreasing.
(D) increasing for a while and constant thereafter.
(E) constant for a while and decreasing thereafter.
23. At point "c" the rocket's engine is turned off and the thrust immediately drops to zero.
Which of the paths below will the rocket follow beyond point "c"?
24. Beyond position "c" the speed of the rocket is:
(A) constant.
(B) continuously increasing.
(C) continuously decreasing.
(D) increasing for a while and constant thereafter.
(E) constant for a while and decreasing thereafter.
25. A woman exerts a constant horizontal force on a large box. As a result, the box moves
across a horizontal floor at a constant speed “v0”.
The constant horizontal force applied by the woman:

(A) has the same magnitude as the weight of the box.
(B) is greater than the weight of the box.
(C) has the same magnitude as the total force which resists the motion of the box.
(D) is greater than the total force which resists the motion of the box.
(E) is greater than either the weight of the box or the total force which resists its motion.
26. If the woman in the previous question doubles the constant horizontal force that she exerts
on the box to push it on the same horizontal floor, the box then moves:
(A) with a constant speed that is double the speed “v0” in the previous question.
(B) with a constant speed that is greater than the speed “v0” in the previous question, but
not necessarily twice as great.
(C) for a while with a speed that is constant and greater than the speed “v0” in the previous
question, then with a speed that increases thereafter.
(D) for a while with an increasing speed, then with a constant speed thereafter.
(E) with a continuously increasing speed.
66
27. If the woman in question 25 suddenly stops applying a horizontal force to the box, then
the box will:
(A) immediately come to a stop.

(B) continue moving at a constant speed for a while and then slow to a stop.
(C) immediately start slowing to a stop.
(D) continue at a constant speed.
(E) increase its speed for a while and then start slowing to a stop.
28. In the figure, student "a" has a mass of 95 kg and student "b" has a mass of 77 kg. They sit
in identical office chairs facing each other. Student "a" places his bare feet on the knees of
student "b", as shown. Student "a" then suddenly pushes outward with his feet, causing
both chairs to move.
During the push and while the students are still touching one another:
(A) neither student exerts a force on the other.

(B) student "a" exerts a force on student "b", but "b" does not exert any force on "a".
(C) each student exerts a force on the other, but "b" exerts the larger force.
(D) each student exerts a force on the other, but "a" exerts the larger force.
(E) each student exerts the same amount of force on the other.
29. An empty office chair is at rest on a floor. Consider the following forces:

2. An upward force exerted by the floor.
3. A net downward force exerted by the air.
Which of the forces is (are) acting on the office chair?

(A) 1 only.
(B) 1 and 2.
(C) 2 and 3.
(D) 1, 2, and 3.
(E) none of the forces. (Since the chair is at rest there are no forces acting upon it.)
67
30. Despite a very strong wind, a tennis player manages to hit a tennis ball with her racquet so
that the ball passes over the net and lands in her opponent's court.
Consider the following forces:

2. A force by the "hit".
3. A force exerted by the air.
Which of the above forces is (are) acting on the tennis ball after it has left contact with the
racquet and before it touches the ground?
(A) 1 only.
(B) 1 and 2.
(C) 1 and 3.
(D) 2 and 3.
(E) 1, 2, and 3.
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Sample Answer-sheet (Bangla)
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A Study of High School Students' Conceptual Understanding of Force and Motion in Relation To The Teachers' Understanding of These Concepts

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A Study of High School Students’ Conceptual

Understanding of Force and Motion in Relation to the

Name of the Researcher: Name of the Supervisor:

Date: Enrolment No. 146728384

Partha Pratim Roy.

Fig 2. The research design 16

Fig 5: Frequency distribution of IX-X scores 25

Fig 6: Frequency distribution of XI-XII scores 26

Fig 7: Frequency distribution of Teachers’ scores 26

Fig 8: Normal distribution of IX-X scores 27

Fig 9: Normal distribution of XI-XII scores 27

Fig 10: Normal distribution of scores of Teachers 28

Fig 11: Comparison of number of correct responses per question 30

Fig 12: Comparison of number of correct responses on questions on rectilinear motion 32

Fig 13: Response to questions on kinematics 33

Fig 14: Response to questions on Newton’s 1st law 34

Fig 15: Response to questions on Newton’s 2nd law 35

Fig 16: Response to questions on Newton’s 3rd law 36

Fig 17: Response to force identification questions 37

Table 3: Comparative summary of overall performance 25

Table 7: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s first law of motion. 34

Table 8: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s second law of motion. 35

Table 9: Comparison of correct responses on Newton’s Third law of motion. 36

Table 10: Comparison of correct responses on force identification items. 37

Table 11: Item-wise similarity in performance 38

Table 12: Response to oral question 39

Table 13: Response to oral question 39

Table 14: Response to oral question 40

Table 15: Response to oral question 40

Table 16: Response to oral question 41

Table 17: Response to oral question 41

Table 18: Response to oral question 42

subject difficult, I have planned to do an exploratory research to understand the state of

students and the teachers.

of secondary education, physics is taught in Indian schools either as a separate subject or as a

systematic understanding of different topics of physics requires the understanding of the

investigation of the learning difficulties of students and consequent interventions are to be

assessment instrument. My experience of 25 years in teaching physics to high school students

motion, by the high school students.

conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws.

practical situations of life.

students’ understanding of the same.

1.3. Research Questions

in ‘motion’, measured by either ‘acceleration’ or ‘rate of change of momentum’, one should

scientific thinking. Therefore any instructional practice of Newtonian Mechanics should

concepts than the secondary level students?

3. Do the teachers have a strong conceptual understanding of the Newtonian concepts of

Force and Motion?

4. Is the conceptual understanding of the students in regard to Newton’s laws of motion

related to the understanding of the teachers in regard to the same?

among the high school students of West Bengal.

 H1b: There is no significant lack of conceptual understanding of Force and Motion

among most of the high school students of West Bengal.

 H2a: In regard to the conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws there is no

and post-secondary (XI and XII) level.

 H2b: In regard to the conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws there is significant

secondary (XI and XII) level.

Force and Motion to common everyday situations.

Force and Motion to common everyday situations.

 H4a: The teachers’ conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws has a significant

effect on the students’ understanding of the same.

 H4b: The teachers’ conceptual understanding of Newton’s laws has no significant