Abstract
Amongst more that 8,000 studies across all areas of scientific learning (Duit, 2009), there are several studies related to energy in the area of physics such as Duit and Haeussler (1994) and Finegold and Trumper (1989), who developed a framework for teaching and learning the concepts of energy in physics. There have been several further recent examples of research about the energy concept in physics (Domenech et al., 2007; Liu & McKeough, 2005; Papadouris, Constantinou & Kyratsi, 2008), but very few involving energy and the human body. One exception is the study by Lin and Hu (2003) that investigated students’ understanding of energy flow in the context of food chains, photosynthesis and respiration. Twenty five years ago, Gayford (1986) observed that the concept of energy is rarely covered adequately in biology classes, and consequently students of biology find the concept of energy difficult to comprehend. More recent research is consistent with Gayford’s findings; Lee and Liu (2010) provided evidence from a large sample across 12 schools in several states of the USA that grade eight students who took a physical science course had a significantly higher understanding of energy concepts than those students who took a life or earth science course.
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Mann, M., Treagust, D.F. (2011). Possible Pathways for Conceptual Development Related to Energy and the Human Body. In: Cheng, M.M.H., So, W.W.M. (eds) Science Education in International Contexts. SensePublishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-427-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-427-0_3
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