Analysis of the basis of student's misconceptions regarding physics concepts: A concatenation of the different researches conducted in University of the Philippines Los Baños published in the year 2003-2004

Abstract

Misconceptions in different areas of physics and their bases were obtained from the data published in the Proceeding of 21st and 22nd SPP Physics Congress for the years 2003 and 2004. In addition, the correct answers and the processes involved in arriving at them were identified. These were then compared with the processes involved in arriving at the misconception. Results of the comparison show that conceptual processes involved in having misconceptions involve lesser effort relative to the effort needed to arrive at the correct answer. This concurs with the principle that human knowledge system is a cognitive miser, in which people minimize as much as possible in doing cognitive thinking.