PRESERVICE ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL TEACHERS CONCEPTUAL CHANGE ABOUT PROJECTILE MOTION - REFUTATION TEXT, DEMONSTRATION, AFFECTIVE FACTORS, AND RELEVANCE

This study investigates changes in preservice teachers' conceptions ab out projectile motion brought about by a combination of reading and de monstration and an appeal to usefulness. Participants were either told in advance they were expected to teach a videotaped lesson on project ile motion or that information was withheld. In addition, teachers eit her participated in a combined demonstration-text or in a text-only gr oup. We randomly assigned 73 preservice teachers with nonscientific co nceptions to one of four groups comprised of the two levels of the two conditions (Told/Not Told, Demo-Text/Text only) and documented concep tual change through short-answer, true/false, and application tasks. A dditional data were obtained from an interview questionnaire to determ ine the influence of preservice teachers' attitudes and experiences on conceptual change. Furthermore, the videotapes and transcriptions of 16 videotaped lessons and postlesson, structured interviews were analy zed to provide information about the interaction of variables producin g change and to track the changes in thinking that were made. The resu lts indicated the effectiveness of a combined Demo-Text condition on i mmediate posttests and effectiveness of text in producing long-term ch ange. Descriptive and qualitative analyses indicated an interaction of instructional, motivational, and knowledge factors; provided evidence that conceptual change proceeds in a piecemeal fashion; and documente d that restructuring of knowledge may lead to new nonscientific concep tions. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.