Investigation on the student's preferred choice of concepts/methods in answering problems regarding buoyant force

Abstract

The paper investigates the preferred choice of concept/methods of students in answering problems regarding buoyant force. The results of this study suggest that scientific concepts such as "floating objects experience higher buoyant force" can be used as basis of misconceptions. Also, the degree of misconceptions it creates could be more intense than misconceptions that are based only on personal inferences. Also, this paper shows that it is possible that the necessary knowledge to arrive at the correct answer might be present in the knowledge system of student but the students do not use it to make their answer correct.