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Students’ Conceptions About ‘Radiation’: Results from an Explorative Interview Study of 9th Grade Students

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Abstract

One basis of good teaching is to know about your students’ preconceptions. Studies about typical ideas that students bring to the science classroom have been and continue to be a major field in science education research. This study aims to explore associations and ideas that students have regarding ‘radiation’, a term widely used in various fields and necessary to understand fundamental ideas in science. In an explorative study, the perceptions of 50 high school students were examined using semi-structured interviews. The students were 14–16 years old and were chosen from 7 different high schools in an urban area in Austria. Following an interview guideline, students were asked about their general associations with the term ‘radiation’ as well as about their general understanding of different types of radiation. A qualitative analysis of these interviews following the method of Flick (2009) revealed that the students’ associations were, to a great extent, very different from the scientific use of the term. Several conceptions that could inhibit students’ learning processes could be identified. Consequences for the teaching of the topic ‘radiation’ in science lessons, which are based on these preconceptions, are presented in the conclusion.

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Notes

  1. In this literature review, we do not address students’ conceptions about visible radiation. In the field of optics, numerous studies about students’ ideas can be found (e.g., Galili and Hazan 2000; Guesne 1985; Jung 1987; Watts 1985).

  2. The complete questionnaire can be found in the appendix of this article.

  3. For a description of these cards see the appendix of this article.

  4. Note that the interviews were conducted in May/June 2010, when IR interfaces were still widely used in mobile phones.

  5. This seems to be especially remarkable at first sight, as Austria does not have any nuclear power plants. As a result, the Austrian public as well as Austrian media appear to be very concerned about the nuclear power plants in the neighbor countries with the result of a high level of media coverage about nuclear energy.

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Conflict of interest

As mentioned in the text, all students interviewed as well as their parents had given their informed consent in written form. In addition to that, the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vienna, Austrian Educational Competence Centre Physics, Porzellangasse 4/2, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Susanne Neumann & Martin Hopf

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  1. Susanne Neumann
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  2. Martin Hopf
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Correspondence to Susanne Neumann.

Appendix

Appendix

Interview Guideline

  • Question 1: Please list some words that spontaneously come to your mind when you hear the term ‘radiation’?

  • Question 2: When confronted with the term ‚radiation‘, what feelings do you have? Why?

  • Question 3: I am going to show you pictures of different objects. Which of these objects do you associate with the term ‘radiation’? Why?

    The pictures associated with this question showed the following motifs (due to copy rights, these pictures cannot be published but can be sent upon request): an X-ray photograph of a foot, a mobile phone, a computer screen with keyboard and mouse, a factory, windmills, a flower, a dog, a campfire, a nuclear power plant, stars in the night sky, a beach with a sunshade, an I-Pod, a TV-set and a child watching TV, a man, a woman in a tanning booth, kids playing a video game console, a mobile phone tower, a laser pointer

  • Question 4: I am going to list some specific types of radiation (mobile phone radiation, microwave radiation, infrared radiation, visible radiation, UV radiation, X-radiation, nuclear radiation). Please tell me whether or not you have heard of them, in what context you have heard of them, and if you think these types of radiation are harmful. Can they be detected by the human eye?

  • Question 5: Have you already discussed ‘radiation’ in physics class or in any other subject? Tell me what you have discussed.

  • Question 6: Do you think you should protect yourself against radiation? Why (not)? How can you do that?

  • Question 7: On this sheet of paper, please draw an object that emits radiation.

  • Question 8: You read in a magazine that all objects emit radiation. Do you think this could be true? Why (not)?

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Neumann, S., Hopf, M. Students’ Conceptions About ‘Radiation’: Results from an Explorative Interview Study of 9th Grade Students. J Sci Educ Technol 21, 826–834 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-012-9369-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-012-9369-9

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