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Effect of Conceptual Change–Oriented Instruction on Students’ Conceptual Understanding and Attitudes Towards Simple Electricity

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Abstract

The purpose of current study was to investigate the effect of conceptual change–oriented instruction accompanied by conceptual change texts enriched with concept cartoons, gender, and their interaction on primary preservice teachers’ conceptual understanding and their attitudes towards simple electricity. Participants were 225 sophomores from six intact classes in a state university. A quasi-experimental design was used and the study lasted in 3-week treatment period. The experimental group studied the simple electricity concept with the application of the conceptual change texts enriched with concept cartoons and the control group studied it with traditional instruction. Seven conceptual change texts with concept cartoons were developed, keeping students’ misconceptions in mind. Students’ conceptual understanding and attitudes were measured by two-tired misconception test and physics attitude scale respectively. They were administered as pre- and post-tests before and after instructions. The main effects of treatment, gender, and their interaction on post-test scores were examined via MANCOVA with pre-conceptual understanding and pre-attitude scores used as covariates. The analyses yielded a significant treatment effect, but insignificant gender and gender × treatment interaction effects on the collective dependent variables of the post-test scores. The ANCOVA results revealed that the conceptual change–oriented instruction affected students’ conceptual understanding significantly with respect to traditional instruction, but it had insignificant effect on their attitudes. This study revealed that the use of the conceptual change texts enriched with concept cartoons is likely to be effective for primary preservice teachers’ conceptual understanding in teaching simple electricity.

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  1. Faculty of Education, Department of Basic Education, Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, İstiklal Yerleşkesi, 15030, Burdur, Turkey

    Erdal Taslidere

  2. Burdur Special Education Kindergarten, Burdur, Turkey

    Bilgetürk Yıldırım

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Correspondence to Erdal Taslidere.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Table 6 Common misconceptions in simple electric circuits
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Taslidere, E., Yıldırım, B. Effect of Conceptual Change–Oriented Instruction on Students’ Conceptual Understanding and Attitudes Towards Simple Electricity. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 21, 1567–1589 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-022-10319-w

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