Students’ misconceptions regarding everyday thermal
phenomena
Petr Kacovsky
Charles University in Prague
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
Department of Physics Education
Abstract
Thermodynamics belongs to the largest areas in the Czech physics curricula. On every school
level this area is conceptually very rich and uses terms that are familiar from everyday life but
have different meanings in physics. Such a language conflict can form or even strengthen
students’ intuitive incorrect beliefs – misconceptions. This contribution describes a research
focused on students’ misconceptions in the context of common, everyday thermal phenomena.
In order to identify typical students’ misconceptions in this field, the Thermal Concept
Evaluation (TCE) test was chosen. Since September 2013, more than 500 secondary school
students from 23 classes have filled in this test twice – both as a pretest and as a posttest.
Besides questions regarding thermal phenomena, the test included a few attitudinal questions to
learn additional information about the students.
Keywords
students’ misconceptions, Thermal Concept Evaluation, thermodynamics, secondary school
Introduction
As mentioned above, in the Czech curriculum, thermodynamics is one of the largest topics in
secondary school physics, together with mechanics and electricity and magnetism.
Unfortunately, according to brief literature search, this topic is (especially in comparison with
the two above mentioned topics) quite poor in experiments which would be able to attract
students’ attention. To develop such experiments and inquiry based activities associated with
them, it is at first necessary to have an overview of typical students’ difficulties in
thermodynamics – their misconceptions.
The concept of misconceptions is connected with constructivism [Piaget, 1928; Piaget, 1952]
which claims that students bring their past experience, their prior knowledge, to every learning
situation. This prior experience called preconceptions [e.g. Clement, 1993] is formed due to the
students’ natural interaction with their surroundings. Preconceptions can be consistent with the
scientific theories – so called anchoring conceptions [Clement, Brown and Zietsman, 1989] – or
inconsistent with them – so called misconceptions [e.g. Gilbert and Watts, 1983].
Terminology
It is suitable to emphasize that concerning terminology, there is a lack of consensus in this field.
Many researchers refuse the term misconceptions and use its equivalents or modifications, such
as alternative conceptions [e.g. Hewson and Hewson, 1984; Wenning 2008], alternative
frameworks [Driver, 1983], naive conceptions [Bliss and Ogborn, 1994], naive beliefs
[McCloskey, Caramazza and Green, 1980], etc. In this contribution, the term “misconceptions”
will be preferred because of its widespread use and familiarity.
The Thermal Concept Evaluation (TCE) test
On the basis of the literature search outcomes concerning surveys in the field of alternative
conceptions in thermodynamics, two most frequently used conceptual tests came up – the
Thermal Concept Evaluation [Yeo and Zadnik, 2001] and the Heat and Temperature
Conceptual Evaluation [Sokoloff and Thornton 2003]. While the first of these (shortly TCE)
consists strictly of multiple choice questions with four (exceptionally five) possible answers, the
latter (shortly HTCE) contains multiple-choice questions with four to eight options, but also one
productive question. Above all, there is a big difference in using graphic elements – while the
HTCE uses them quite often, the TCE completely avoids them.
Mainly due to the uniformity of items and less amount of longer texts I chose the TCE as my
research tool. It was originally developed by Shelley Yeo and Marjan Zadnik at Curtin
University in Perth (Australia) in 2001 as an extract from the literature on students’ beliefs
about thermal phenomena. Originally it consists of 26 multiple-choice questions mainly
inspired by common, everyday situations (in the household, at school, on a trip etc.), which
enables its use both on primary and secondary school level, respectively on universities. The
full text of this concept inventory was published in The Physics Teacher in 2001.
Use of the TCE in the world
Since its creation in 2001, the TCE has been used in countries all over the world. In this
paragraph, the most important studies using the TCE (both in its full and reduced version) are
stated chronologically.
Australia, 2001 [Yeo and Zadnik, 2001]
The authors themselves used their inventory to test 478 Western Australian students in four
consecutive year grades (from 10 to 13) in nine different institutions. The inventory was
administered both as a pretest and a posttest only in the grade 13, which represents the first year
on university.
USA, 2003 [Luera, Otto and Zitzewitz, 2005]
At the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the TCE was used both as a pretest and a posttest to
assess the effectiveness of activities based on so called misconception-guided instruction.
Almost 50 students (aged from 21 to 45 years), who participated in the study, were enrolled in
a science capstone course during the fall 2003; all of them were either seniors or postbaccalaureates. The average percentage of correct responses increased from 35 % (in the
pretest) to 57 % (in the posttest), resulting in a normalized gain g = 34 %.
Turkey, 2006 [Baser, 2006]
Translated and adapted to Turkish, the TCE was used at the Department of Elementary
Education of Izzet Baysal University to assess the effectiveness of the cognitive conflict based
instruction. The experimental group of 42 students taught this way, reached the normalized gain
g = 43 %, while the control group of 40 students who underwent traditional instruction reached
only g = 15 %.
Australia, 2008 [Georgiou et al., 2009]
Six questions of the TCE – number 1 to 6 – were chosen as a part of a test (12 multiple choice +
3 free response questions) which aimed at examining conceptions of first and second year
university physics students at the University of Sydney.
Libya, 2010 [Alwan, 2011]
At the Al.fateh University in Tripoli, the Heat and Temperature Concepts Questionnaire
(HTCQ) was established to find out misconception of 53 students in the field of heat and
temperature. In fact, this test consisted mainly of the TCE questions – 26 of 30 items of HTCQ
originated from Yeo and Zadnik.
South Korea, 2012 [Chu et al., 2012]
Two years ago, the TCE was administered to more than five hundred Korean students in grades
from 10 to 12.
The Czech version of the TCE
In March 2013, the TCE was translated into Czech; the translation was discussed with experts
of the Department of Physics Education (Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles
University in Prague) and with experienced secondary school teachers. During May and June
2013, the pilot study was held on the sample of 72 secondary school students, and on the basis
of its results and the experts’ opinion, the Czech version of the TCE (CTCE) was finally
reduced into its present form which includes 19 multiple-choice questions. Questions 12, 13,
14, 15, 20, 21 and 26 contained in the original version of the TCE were excluded, and that
mainly because of two reasons. In the pilot study, questions 12, 20, 21 and 26 showed very low
index of item discrimination [Chu et al., 2012], i.e. below 0.20, which means that these
questions are barely able to distinguish between good and poor students. Further, questions 13
and 14 were excluded due to its similarity to another test question and in the case of the
question 15 there wasn’t found an appropriate and unambiguous Czech translation.
The English version of the CTCE is attached to this contribution as an Appendix and all
question numbers which occur in the following text are related to the CTCE question
numbering.
Pretest
The majority of Czech secondary school students meets the topic of molecular and thermal
physics in the second year of their studies (grade 11); typically, they deal with this part of
physics from September for four, five, six or seven months (it depends on the school). For this
reason, it was necessary to administer the CTCE during the first two or three weeks in
September on as many schools as possible. To have the administration under control, I decided
to visit almost all schools (with two exceptions) in person.
Between the 3rd of September and 10th of October 2013, 586 secondary school students (341
girls and 245 boys) aged between 16 and 18 years, filled in the CTCE. Considering every
question as one point, the average students’ score was 8.7 points, which represents the gain of
46 %. Boys with the average score of 10.2 points (53 %) were notably more successful than
girls (average score 7.6 points, i.e. 40 %). There were no students with 0, 1 or 19 points; the
most frequent gain was 6 points.
The Cronbach’s alpha, which represents the reliability of the test, was 0.70 in the pretest.
Posttest
The posttest was administered in every class just after finishing the topic of thermal
phenomena, typically in shorter time than three weeks. The average score in the posttest was
11.0, which results in normalized gain of g = 0.23. This value indicates low effectiveness of
instruction, which is not surprising inasmuch as the majority of Czech teachers use traditional
teacher-centered approach which often doesn’t exceed the level of g > 0.30 regarded as
a bottom border of a moderately effective instruction [Hake, 1998]. At the conference time, the
posttest data were still being evaluated, so there is no deeper analysis described in this
contribution concerning comparison between the pretest and posttest scores. For this reason, the
item analysis in the next paragraph involves only the pretest data.
Pretest item analysis
The average students’ results in the CTCE pretest ranged depending on the question between
21 % (question 11) and 81 % (question 16) of correct answers; the scores reached in each
question are summarized in the Figure 1. If we consider the questions with lowest ratio of
correct answers, we get two thematic units which for students are probably more difficult than
others.
The first problematic part of thermodynamics identified by CTCE pretest can be called “boiling
and evaporation” – among four questions with the worst average gain, three of them (questions
no. 5, 6 and 13) are focused just on boiling and evaporation problems.
The second group of questions with quite bad gains is linked together by the concept of heat
conductivity – for example questions no. 12, 14 and 18, which deal with this topic, were
correctly answered by less than 40 % students.
Figure 1. Average scores reached in the pretest in every question.
Attitudinal questions
Besides the questions regarding thermal phenomena, the test includes four attitudinal questions
to learn additional information about students. The goal of these questions is to look into
possible relationships and correlations between the students’ scores and their attitudes towards
physics.
On the scale from 1 to 6 students should express their agreement or disagreement with these
four statements (S1 to S4):
• S1: I expect I will need physics in the future (at university, in work).
• S2: Physics is useful for society.
• S3: Physics is useful for me.
• S4: I enjoy physics, physics entertains me.
On the above mentioned scale, the choice of number 1 means “I totally agree” while the choice
of number 6 means “I totally disagree”. In the Table 1, the average values reached in the
statements S1 to S4 are summarized and completed with the comparison of boys’ and girls’
attitudes. At first sight it is evident that girls are more critical to physics and its usefulness in
general:
Table 1. Average values reached in statements S1 to S4, sample of 586 secondary school students. The
value 1 means “I totally agree”, the value 6 means “I totally disagree”.
statement
average value
(all students)
average value
(girls)
average value
(boys)
S1
3.8
4.2
3.3
S2
2.2
2.3
2.1
S3
3.3
3.5
3.0
S4
3.8
4.1
3.5
Conclusions and future plans
Altogether, 586 Czech secondary school students were involved in the study focusing on their
misconceptions in the field of everyday thermal phenomena. Using a Czech version of the TCE
test, the topics of thermal conductivity and boiling and evaporation were identified as those
most difficult for the respondents.
In the next school year, the testing will continue in order to involve schools in regions further
from the Czech capital Prague. After evaluation of the posttest data, the results of Czech
students will be compared with the results obtained by previous foreign studies and the most
problematic topics will be identified and investigated using qualitative methods; in addition
they provide an inspiration to developing suitable simple experiments designed to face
misconceptions in the field of thermal phenomena. Concurrently, possible correlations between
students’ results and their attitudes towards physics will be analysed.
Acknowledgment
The work is supported by The Charles University Grant Agency (GAUK), grant No. 1860214.
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Petr Kacovsky
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
Department of Physics Education
Charles University in Prague
V Holesovickach 2
180 00 Prague
Czech Republic
e-mail: petr.kacovsky@mff.cuni.cz
Appendix: The TCE – questions involved in the Czech version (CTCE)
1. What is the most likely temperature of ice cubes
stored in a refrigerator’s freezer compartment?
a) –10 °C
b) 0 °C
c) 5 °C
d) It depends on the size of the ice cubes.
2. Jirka takes six ice cubes from the freezer and puts four
of them into a glass of water. He leaves two on the
countertop. He stirs and stirs until the ice cubes are much
smaller and have stopped melting. What is the most likely
temperature of the water at this stage?
a) –10 °C
b) 0 °C
c) 5 °C
d) 10 °C
3. The ice cubes Jirka left on the counter have almost
melted and are lying in a puddle of water. What is the
most likely temperature of these smaller ice cubes?
a) –10 °C
b) 0 °C
c) 5 °C
d) 10 °C
4. On the stove is a kettle full of water. The water has
started to boil rapidly. The most likely temperature of the
water is about:
a) 88 °C
b) 98 °C
c) 110 °C
d) 120 °C
5. Five minutes later, the water in the kettle is still
boiling. The most likely temperature of the water now
is about:
a) 88 °C
b) 98 °C
c) 110 °C
d) 120 °C
6. What do you think is the temperature of the steam above
the boiling water in the kettle?
a) 88°C
b) 98 °C
c) 110 °C
d) 120 °C
7. Ivana takes two cups of water at 40 °C and mixes
them with one cup of water at 10 °C. What is the most
likely temperature of the mixture?
a) 20 °C
b) 25 °C
c) 30 °C
d) 50 °C
8. Petr believes he must use boiling water to make a cup of
tea. He tells his friends: “I couldn’t make tea if I was
camping on a high mountain because water doesn’t boil at
high altitudes.”
a) Martin says: “Yes it does, but the boiling water is just
not as hot as it is here.”
b) Pavel says: “That’s not true. Water always boils at
the same temperature.”
c) Jakub says: “The boiling point of the water
decreases, but the water itself is still at 100 degrees.”
d) Tomáš says: “I agree with Petr. The water never gets
to its boiling point.”
Who do you agree with?
9. Petra takes a can of cola and a plastic bottle of cola
from the refrigerator, where they have been overnight.
She quickly puts a thermometer in the cola in the can.
The temperature is 7 °C. What are the most likely
temperatures of the plastic bottle and cola it holds?
a) They are both less than 7 °C.
b) They are both equal to 7 °C.
c) They are both greater than 7 °C.
d) The cola is at 7 °C but the bottle is greater than
7 °C.
e) It depends on the amount of cola and/or the size
of the bottle.
10. A few minutes later, Petra picks up the cola can and
then tells everyone that the countertop underneath it feels
colder than the rest of the counter.
a) Tereza says: “The cold has been transferred from the
cola to the counter.”
b) Jitka says: “There is no energy left in the counter
beneath the can.”
c) Katka says: “Some heat has been transferred from the
counter to the cola.”
d) Eliška says: “The can causes heat beneath the can to
move away through the countertop.”
Whose explanation do you think is best?
11. Roman asks one group of friends: “If I put 100
grams of ice at 0 °C and 100 grams of water at 0 °C
into a freezer, which one will eventually lose the
greatest amount of heat?
a) Honza says: “The 100 grams of ice.”
b) Marek says: “The 100 grams of water.”
c) Milan says: “Neither because they both contain
the same amount of heat.”
d) Patrik says: “There’s no answer, because ice
doesn’t contain any heat.”
e) Aleš says: “There’s no answer, because you
can’t get water at 0 °C.”
Which of his friends do you most agree with?
12. Jana takes a metal ruler and a wooden ruler from her
pencil case. She announces that the metal one feels colder
than the wooden one. What is your preferred explanation?
a) Metal conducts energy away from her hand more
rapidly than wood.
b) Wood is a naturally warmer substance than metal.
c) The wooden ruler contains more heat than the metal
ruler.
d) Metals are better heat radiators than wood.
e) Cold flows more readily from a metal.
13. Dita took two glass bottles containing water at 20 °C
and wrapped them in washcloths. One of the washcloths
was wet and the other was dry. Twenty minutes later,
she measured the water temperature in each. The water
in the bottle with the wet washcloth was 18 °C, the water
in the bottle with the dry washcloth was 22 °C. The most
likely room temperature during this experiment was:
a) 26 °C
b) 21 °C
c) 20 °C
d) 18 °C
14. Pavel simultaneously picks up two cartons of chocolate
milk, a cold one from the refrigerator and a warm one that
has been sitting on the countertop for some time. Why do
you think the carton from the refrigerator feels colder than
the one from the countertop? Compared with the warm
carton, the cold carton —
a) contains more cold.
b) contains less heat.
c) is a poorer heat conductor.
d) conducts heat more rapidly from Pavel’s hand.
e) conducts cold more rapidly to Pavel’s hand.
15. Bára reckons her mother cooks soup in a pressure
cooker because it cooks faster than in a normal
saucepan but she doesn’t know why.
a) Kristýna says: “It’s because the pressure causes
water to boil above 100°C.”
b) Eva says: “It’s because the high pressure
generates extra heat.”
c) Karolína says: “It’s because the steam is at a
higher temperature than the boiling soup.”
d) Andrea says: “It’s because pressure cookers
spread the heat more evenly through the food.”
Which person do you most agree with?
16. When Ondra uses a bicycle pump to pump up his bike
tires, he notices that the pump becomes quite hot. Which
explanation below seems to be the best one?
a) Energy has been transferred to the pump.
b) Temperature has been transferred to the pump.
c) Heat flows from his hands to the pump.
d) The metal in the pump causes the temperature to rise.
17. Why do we wear sweaters in cold weather?
a) To keep cold out.
b) To generate heat.
c) To reduce heat loss.
d) All three of the above reasons are correct.
19. Lenka is describing a TV segment she saw the night
before: “I saw physicists make super-conductor magnets,
which were at a temperature of –260 °C.”
a) Radim doubts this: “You must have made a mistake.
You can’t have a temperature as low as that.”
b) Dominik disagrees: “Yes you can. There’s no limit
on the lowest temperature.”
c) Matyáš believes he is right: “I think the magnet was
near the lowest temperature possible.”
d) Tonda is not sure: “I think super-conductors are good
heat conductors so you can’t cool them to such a low
temperature.”
Who do you think is right?
18. Filip takes some Popsicles from the freezer, where
he had placed them the day before, and tells everyone
that the wooden sticks are at a higher temperature than
the ice part. Which person do you most agree with?
a) Radek says: “You’re right because the wooden
sticks don’t get as cold as ice does.”
b) Luboš says: “You’re right because ice contains
more cold than wood does.”
c) Viktor says: “You’re wrong, they only feel
different because the sticks contain more heat.”
d) Štěpán says: “I think they are at the same
temperature because they are together.”