Investigation of students' misconception regarding the buoyant force of floating objects

Abstract

Almost eighty-one percent (81.40%) of the valid respondents believed that the object floating on a larger density liquid experiences larger buoyant force than those objects floating on a lower density liquid, even thhough their masses are the same. Data shows that this arises from their belief that the buoyant force is proportional to the density of fluid medium. This case is an example wherein a misconception arises from a scientific concept that was used wrongly. Also, data shows that some students know that when an object floats, its weight is equal to the buoyant forces but were not able to use this to avoid having a misconception.