ABSTRACT

Although students are expected to finish school having a solid understanding of scientific concepts, they graduate from universities maintaining their former misconceptions in several fields, like physics. This study aims at validating the Thermal Concept Evaluation (TCE) test for university student’s misconceptions of thermal concepts in everyday contexts. The test was administered to 643 first-year students from six different tertiary education departments in Greece. Item Response Theory (IRT) was used in order to validate and adjust the instrument to the Greek population of students and estimate the discriminating power of items. This assessment found that the majority of students held alternative conceptions about thermal concepts. Socio-demographic and academic variables have impact on students’ performance.

摘要

尽管希望学生在完成学业后对科学概念有扎实的理解，但他们还是从大学毕业，并在物理等多个领域保持了以前的误解。这项研究旨在验证热概念评估（TCE）测试，以解决大学生在日常情况下对热概念的误解。测试是针对来自希腊六个不同的高等教育部门的643名一年级学生进行的。使用项目反应理论（IRT）来验证和调整该工具以适应希腊学生群体，并估计项目的区分能力。这项评估发现，大多数学生对热学概念持有另类的观念。社会人口和学术变量会影响学生的表现。