Arnold Michael and Millar Robin: Learning the scientific “story”: A case study in
the teaching and learning of elementary thermodynamics (1996)
 12-13 years old
 Case study, maybe useful
 Research is described very carefully, but no useful for me
 Read this later, because it has really description about the case study
 Four case students, whose conceptions are reviewed
 Table 3 summarizes the results of case students’ learnings
Baierlein Ralph: Entropy and the second law: A pedagogical alternative (1994)
 Nice ideas and analogies about entropy and the second law. But there’s no data
about how this works
Banerjee A. C.: Teaching chemical equilibrium and thermodynamics to
undergraduate general chemistry classes (1995)
 This is about chemical equilibrium, so probably I have no use for this
Barbera Jack and Wieman Carl E.: Effect of a Dynamic Learning Tutorial on
Undergraduate Students’ Understanding of Heat and the First Law of
Thermodynamics (accepted)
 Authors have developed a learning tutorial and in this paper they present gains in
students’ conceptual understanding of heat and the first law
 Five semesters, 155 students, undergraduate physical chemistry I courses
 Classroom observations were done by two researchers who attended every class
period and recorded notes
 Informal students interviews were also conducted
 In the beginning students had problems with concepts of the first law (no exact
number is mentioned)
o Same findings than other papers (heat vs temperature, transfer of heat isn’t
understood, tendency to use ideal gas las
 Conceptual understanding was tested in the undergraduate course of physical
chemistry (N=32)
 Pre-tutorial quiz and post-tutorial quiz, first course exam two weeks after tutorial
 Control group. Teaching was identical, but no tutorial was used
 Less than 10% explained adiabatic compression correctly using the first law
 Group discussions
 Tutorial seems to be gaining students’ understanding
o Test and control group scored equally well on numerical problems but test
group was better in conceptual tasks
 Ok paper
Barker Vanessa, Millar Robin: Students’ reasoning about basic chemical
thermodynamics and chemical bonding: what changes occur during a context-based
post-16 chemistry course (2000)
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This is more about chemistry. Chemical bonds and stuff.
Some ideas about the energy changes
Maybe not my cup of tea
Baser Mustafa: Fostering conceptual change by cognitive conflict based instruction
on students’ understanding of heat and temperature concepts (2006)
 This is about concepts of pre-service primary school teachers
 Group was randomly divided into experiment and control groups
 Earlier papers tell that teaching aimed to change students’ alternative conceptions
is somewhat effective
 TCE was used (Yeo and Zadnik 2001)
 Teaching in both groups is described!
 Control group was significantly better in post tests
 Actually pretty good paper but I don’t think this is useful because this is about the
conceptions of primary school teachers
Beall Herbert: Probing student misconceptions in thermodynamics with in-class
writing
 This study has been done in general chemistry course in polytechnic institute
 Topics: Nature of gases, volume, work, internal energy and entropy, and atomic
and molecular particles
 The same old findings from school level: heat vs temperature, matter is
considered to be continuous instead of understanding atoms and molecules,
kinetic gas theory, processes
 Engineering majors with some background in mathematics and science
 Three five-minute writings were spaced during the presentation to examine
students’ level of understanding
 There were questions, like “Predict the effect that opening a cylinder of
compressed gas in the lecture hall would have on the temperature of the gas”,
“What is enthalpy and what is it used for?”…
o These were asked after the topics had been covered in lectures
 The students had several problems (Q1)
o Expansion processes are always isothermal
o Applying everyday life incorrectly
o Free expansion against the atmosphere
o Incorrectly used laws
o Idea of thermal equilibrium wasn’t used
o Heat vs. temperature, once again
 Problems (Q1 and Q2)
o Enthalpy is confused with the heat!
o Delta is not always understood to describe the change
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o It wasn’t clear when enthalpy should or could be used
Students liked (and thought it helpful) when they saw writings of other students
Ben-Zvi Ruth: Non-science oriented students and the second law of thermodynamics
(1991)
 Not interested, I don’t deal with non-science oriented students hopefully
Bhaskar R and Simon Herbert: Problem solving in semantically rich domains: An
example from engineering thermodynamics (1977)
 More about psychology, not very useful for me
Boo Hong-Kwen: Students’ understandings of chemical bonds and the energetic of
chemical reactions (1998)
 Grade 12 students’ understanding of chemical bonds
 Something about the energy changes in chemical reactions
 Maybe some good references about the interview methods?
 Too much chemistry
Boo Hong-Kwen and Watson J. R. : Progression in high school students’ (aged 16—
18) conceptualizations about chemical reactions in solution
 Chemistry, not much about physics
 Protocol of semi-structured interview is included in appendix. Take a look at the
references at some point.
D. Brookes, G. Horton, A. Van Heuvelen, E. Etkina: Concerning Scientific
Discourse about Heat (2005)
 Author talks about Meltzer’s findings and try to find if reasons are in language
 Three popular text books were analyzed
 Use of term “heat” in the textbooks was classified into three groups: substance,
process and state
 Figure 1 summarizes findings well: There are some huge differences
 Only one book used constantly righteous process based –language
o Other books referred heat as substance
 Table 2 summarizes the percentages of metaphors used to describe heat
 Use of language doesn’t reflect the understanding physicists have about heat
 Two students were interviewed using Meltzer’s questions. Those interviews
revealed that students tend to think that temperature is the measure of heat stored
in object
Bucher Manfred: Comment on “Development and assessment of research-based
tutorials on heat engines and the second law of thermodynamics,” by Matthew J.
Cochran and Paula R. L. Heron [Am. J. Phys. 74, 734—741 (2006)]
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Bucher comments Cochran’s and Heron’s article where “pipeline diagrams” are
used to describe engines
Author suggests that pipeline diagram is misleading because it emphasizes energy
conservation and practically neglects the entropy
Author represents the wedge diagram which includes the energy conservation and
entropy constraints as well
o For some reason it’s not used in physics texts
I think that this diagram is way more difficult to understand. Author really likes it.
Bury Brandon R., Investigations of students understanding of entropy and of mixed
second-order partial derivatives in upper-level thermodynamics (2007). Dissertation
 About understanding the entropy and the second law + about partial derivates (not
interested)
 Chapter 2
o Entropy is defined quite simply. Both the classical and the statistical
definitions
 Chapter 3
o A literature review about understanding entropy and other related concepts
o Heat and temperature –stuff
 Good list for references
o Undergraduate students understanding the concepts
 Mostly based on works done by Meltzer, Loverude, Viennot,
Reif… The people whose papers are familiar already somehow
o Previous research about understanding entropy and the second law
 Most of the articles are not based on research
 Studies have mostly been conducted with children or high school
students (upper secondary school?)
 Shultz and Coddington (1981), two experiments about marbles and
water level for children ages 9-15
 Marble-experiment seemed to be easier, does that mean
that statistical definition is easier to understand?
 Kesidou and Duit (1993) did research in German gymnasium
(about upper secondary school)
 Students didn’t seem to have readiness to understand The
second law profoundly
 Students’ understanding of entropy as a disorder cannot be
deep enough if no microscopic model is introduced
 Ben-Zvi (1999): energy degradation is somewhat understood but it
cannot be applied. Something about teaching non-science oriented
students vs. scientifically oriented students. Not really my
business.
 Cochran and Heron (2006): Undergraduate students abilities to
apply the Second law into heat engine and refrigerator –processes.
 Three processes, would they work?
 Read the whole article!
 Meltzer’s article (2005). Read it once again!
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Chemical education research
 Granville (1985), read it! Misconceptions about entropy.
About using Gibbs’ free energy.
 Beall (1994) and Banerjee (1995) confim the results of
Granville, and notice the fact that heat and temperature are
mixed
 Thomas and Schwenz (1998) have made interviews for
undergraduate students in physical chemistry course! Find
out the protocols. Problems found out are divided into five
themes
o difficulties associated with “everyday” language
and experience
o difficulties regarding the First Law and related
topics
o difficulties regarding spontaneity and Gibbs free
energy
o difficulties regarding entropy and the Second Law
o difficulties with the concept of equilibrium
 Pretty ok summary about the previous findings
Chapter 4. READ THAT CAREFULLY SOMEDAY!
o Aim of the study and diagnostic tool design
o Pretest: isothermal expansion of ideal gas and free expansion into vacuum:
questions about the change of entropy (positive or negative)
o Post-test: isothermal, adiabatic and free expansion processes. Student
should know changes of internal energy, work, heat and the entopy, and
rank them from greatest to least
o Processes are explained quite profoundly
o Mixed-methods! Worth of reading more carefully later
o 4.5.1.3. Interview data. Great!
Chapter 5
o Results from pretest. Those must be read someday, but first some articles.
o They are written wisely, one subsection handles one thing (like “entropy is
disorder of the system”, next one “incorrectly relating entropy to the
concept already known”…)
o Conceptions about entropy and the second law are handled separately.
Great notifications about both.
o 5.5.9.5, General consistency discussion
 Read it
o 5.6 Patterns in student reasoning
 What patterns students use when reasoning their answers?
o 5.7 Summary of pretest results
Chapter 6
o Results from the post-test
o Read later carefully. First some articles.
o 6.6 summary!
Chapter 7
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o The chapter describes the courses where the additional data was gathered
o It seems that choosing between statistical or classical definition is not a
clear choice: It depends of the group that which one gives the better
learning outcome
Chapter 8
o Conclusions
o Micro vs. macro
o Thermodynamics vs. statistics
o Nice chapter. Maybe some ideas can be applied into my work.
Chapter 9… Not interested
Bury Brandon, Thompson John and Mountcastle Donald B: What is entropy?
Advanced undergraduate performance comparing ideal gas processes (2005)
 Upper-level students understanding entropy and the second law when comparing
the isothermal and free expansion of an ideal gas
 Almost same tasks were asked before and after the teaching. The idea was to
compare entropy changes during processes
 Pretest results
o The most students were unfamiliar with the concept of entropy
o If students had some hint about entropy, their ideas were vague (disorder)
 Using statistical definition was tried but it wasn’t necessarily a success
 The free expansion process revealed some problems in pre- and post-tests
o Some students claimed that the temperature will decrease though it was
mentioned that temperature stays constant
 Entropy
o Students tend to think that entropy of the SYSTEM always increases
though it is entropy of the universe that always increases in irreversible
processes
o Problems to understand if entropy is 0 or >0
 Entropy as state function
o Pretest: Only one student used correctly the idea that entropy is a state
function in comparison task
o Post-test: Two students…
Bury Brandon, Thompson John and Mountcastle Donald B: Students
(mis)application of partial differentiation to material properties (2006)
 Partial derivatives in thermal physics
 This is more about problems using mathematics in physics
 Maybe this is useful later, not right now
Carlton Kevin: Teaching about heat and temperature (2000)
 This is mostly about teacher’s experiences
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Uses concept “heat energy” though I don’t know if that’s any real physical
concept. “Temperature is a measure of the concentration of heat energy”. This is
not accurate
Not based on research, this has not much value for me
Jin-Yi Chang: Teachers college students’ conceptions about evaporation,
condensation, and boiling (1998)
 An open-ended written test accompanied by demonstration was conducted on 364
students of the National Taipei Teachers College
 Students had different backgrounds -> four groups
o Junior students from department of mathematics and science education
o Junior students from three other departments, elementary education,
language arts and literature education, and social studies education
o Junior students from departments of music education and special
education
o Students who had worked as teachers in elementary schools
 Tasks about evaporation, condensation and boiling, actual tests are showed to
students during tests
 38 students were interviewed
o Researcher did the interviews, assistants made notes and did the
recordings
 About the results
o The majority of students know the concept of evaporation
 Some students claimed that water would disappear
 Some confusion between concepts which are almost the same
 Interviews revealed that students may know the concept though
they didn’t use them on the written tests
o Understanding the concept of condensation depended highly about the
group
 Some students knew that condensation has something to do with
temperature, but they had problems to know what
o Maybe this isn’t so relevant for me, because this is more about the topics
mentioned in the title, though of course they are part of thermodynamics
 Might be useful considering the interviews
Clark Douglas B: Longitudinal conceptual change in students’ understanding of
thermal equilibrium: An examination of the process of conceptual restructuring
(2006)
 Conceptual change of fifty interviewed students, from 8th grade to 12th grade.
Remember: Not university students
 Lots of references!
 Interviewed students were chosen randomly
o 50 students+4 whose conceptions were reviewed more profoundly
 Two successful students and two less successful (almost like I’ll
have)
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Analysis methods, read carefully!
Core coding scheme, page 477
Nice graphs about students conceptions (thermal equilibrium, temperature,
insulation and conduction, and heat flow) evolving during, and long time after the
course (pp.484 and 485).
o Some great development has happened. It seems that students remember
those after few years as well
The four case-study students
o Figure 8 (p. 492) is a nice example of case study classification. Is not
totally suitable for me, because topics of interviews vary
o Commonalities with all case-students
 Very profoundly review
 Students have multiple ideas that have some contradictions. Of
course the two less successful students have more of those, and
successful students were better to correct their conceptions
 False ideas supported by experiments (eq. wool always warms up,
idea that if something feels warmer, its temperature must be
higher,...)
 Problems connect new knowledge with the existing ideas (aka.
Students learn new things but cannot connect with the old one)
 “Weird explanations (like that “it feels warmer because it is more
solid”, or because of different surfaces)
 There are many of those explanations, especially related to
insulation and conduction
o Conclusions about the four students’ interviews
 Adding new information is easier that connect that to earlier
knowledge
 Contradictions between
o Table 13 (p 543) is kind of nice summary of notifications (basically it
sums up all the findings)
References!
Examples about the questions asked in the interviews in appendix A
About the process of coding maps in appendix B
Clark Douglas, Jorde Doris: Helping students revise disruptive experientially
supported ideas about thermodynamics: Computer visualizations and tactile models
(2004)
 This research focuses on a thermal equilibrium visualization using computers
 8th grade students
 This is more about using technology (in different school level) so maybe this isn’t
very useful for me
 The idea is that students have some tasks they need to do (predictions,
measurements…). They can use specially designed computer program to visualize
heat flow, for example.
o Experiment and control groups
 Results
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o Experiment group, who used to visualization, gained much better learning
outcome
Interviews were used
o To compare case students from control and experiment groups
o Students really like the simulations
o Students from the experimental group seem to have better abilities to
explain why objects feel the way they do
Appendices include the test questions and interview questions
Clough Elizabeth Engel and Driver Rosalind: Secondary students’ conceptions of
the conduction of heat: bringing together scientific and personal views (1985)
 This is about the conceptions of much younger individuals
 84 students (aged 12-16 years) were interviewed on tasks related to conduction of
heat
 Not bad research but for way too young students. Part of the background of
course.
Cochran Matthew J. and Heron Paula: Development and assessment of researchbased tutorials on heat engines and the second law of thermodynamics (2006)
 How students can apply the second law to cyclic processes like heat engines and
refrigerators
 Only some research has been done related to students understanding of the
concepts
 Undergraduate students
 Could process shown in the figure occur? Students were also asked to explain
their reasoning
 Great questions, Fig1
 After teaching: About 35% could answer heat engine and refrigerator –questions
correctly. A greater number of students could answer the strange device –question
correctly.
 Even the answers would have been wrong, students often had some idea about the
second law, like Clausius statement, Kelvin-Planck statement or that heat cannot
flow from cold to hot
 Some results
o The relevance of the second law is not recognized, only the first law is
applied
o Though students could somehow use the first law, it is not clear that they
understood that they were applying it. Some people confuse the laws
o Efficiency-related problems. About half of the students knew that
efficiency is a crucial factor when judging engines abilities to work. Many
didn’t realize that one should consider two efficiency values and compare
them. Some students did qualitative estimates, like “80% is extremely high
efficiency”, without any proper reasoning
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To improve students’ understanding two tutorials were developed
o Based on Carnot’s theorem. Step-by-step instructions to apply the
Carnot’s theorem to heat engines.
 Three parts: Possible and impossible processes, Heat engines and
Kelvin-Planck statement
 Results seem to have improved though it cannot be said that it is
only because of tutorial
o Based on entropy
 Four parts: heat engines, the second law of thermodynamics,
carnot’s theorem and non-cyclic processes
 This tutorial also seemed to be helpful for students
Cochran Matt: Student understanding of the second law of thermodynamics and the
underlying concepts of heat, temperature and thermal equilibrium (2005).
Dissertation.
 Chapter 2, Investigation of student understanding of heat engines
 Tests
o Figure of heat engine, is it possible?
 Good examples of students’ reasonings
o Three figures of engines, are they possible?
o Results
 Students often cannot apply the second law into the heat engine –
tasks. They use only the first law.
 Efficiency is a difficult concept
 Chapter 3
o Tutorial Heat engines and the second law of thermodynamics was
designed to help students understand the topics
 Three parts: Possible and impossible processes, Heat engines and
Kelvin-Planck statement of the second law
o The tutorial improved significantly the learning outcome of the students
o Authors are though worried if the tutorial is just “teaching to the test”
 Chapter 4
o New tutorial, Heat engines and the second law of thermodynamics
(entropy version)
o Four parts: Heat engines, The second law, Carnot’s theorem, Non-cyclic
processes
o It has questions about entropy as well
o Learning outcome improved significantly
 Chapter 5
o Understanding macroscopic aspects of entropy
 Questions eq. about free expansion, two processes (compression
processes, other one is isothermal)
 Same problems than noticed in other papers: adiabatic and
isothermal processes are mixed,…
o Understanding microscopic aspects of entropy
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Four molecules system. How much does the entropy of the system
change? (pretty nice question)
 The tree pennies question. Students have problems with
probabilities and maybe multiplicities are difficult to learn
(preliminary analysis)
o Not surprise: Students have problems with entropy, no matter what
PART II, Chapter 6: Heat and temperature
o This is well-known area, maybe we should ignore that and focus on the
laws of thermodynamics?
o Some calorimetry questions
o Results
 Heat vs temperature (of course)
 Students focus on rate of heat transfer even it’s not needed
 Students seem to think that heat transfer is dependent on the
properties of single object only
Chapter 7: More about heat and temperature.
o Something about conductivity
o Thermal equilibrium –task. Two blocks and water, temperature changes
and transferred heat are asked.
o Ranking question
o Results
 Thermal equilibrium isn’t understood properly
 Conceptual difficulties
o Maybe this is a bit far from my research?
Chapter 8
o Tutorial Heat and temperature was designed
 Four parts: Temperature, Changes in temperature, heat and heat
transfer, heat capacity and specific heat
o Tutorial didn’t work as well as expected
Chapter 9
o The first law is introduced
o Seven different forms of the second law are introduced
 What is the most general and best one?
Chapter 10
o Introductory textbook reviews about the statements of increasing entropy
Chapter 11
o Critique of the principle of increasing entropy
o Some reasons why principle of increasing entropy shouldn’t be viewed as
the most useful statement of the second law
Chapter 12
o Author suggests that we should use the “entropy inequality” –form of the
second law, reasons are mentioned in the text
Chapter 13
o Conclusion
Cotignola Maria, Bordogna Clelia, Punte Graciela and Cappannini Osvaldo:
Difficulties in learning thermodynamic concepts: Are they linked to the historical
development of this field? (2002)
 Students’ misconceptions were analyzed on historical grounds. It was noticed that
students have some hints about the caloric model for example.
 Some historical overview about the development of the understanding the “heat”,
and other stuff too. Useful if needed.
 Text books use terms heat, internal energy and thermal energy occasionally
carelessly
Ebenezer Jazlin, Fraser Duncan: First year chemical engineering students’
conceptions of energy in solution processes: Phenomenographic categories for
common knowledge construction (2000)
 Students were interviewed to find out their conceptions of energy changes in
solution processes
 Experience has shown that students’ inadequate understanding of concepts comes
evident when students should apply those concepts
 There’s something about the phenomenography, but I’m not interested
 This is chemistry, not thermal physics
 Something about conceptualizing energy, could be useful (or not)
Erlichson Herman: Kelvin and the absolute temperature scale (2001)
 This is all about history
Fuchs: Thermodynamics: A misconceived theory (1987)
 Weird paper. Based on idea that students aren’t wrong is theory is modified..
 Paper presented in seminar of misconceptions
 Basically this says that theory (the first law) should be changed to avoid
misconceptions
 Problem with thermodynamics: we must undo what nature has put into students’
minds
o The problem: Thermodynamics doesn’t allow for heat to be contained in
bodies
 Author suggests that theory should be rejected!
 Author’s reasons for rejecting the first law as we know it
o Author suggests that theory is not as general we are taught, and actually
Clausius’ words just prove the weakness of the theory
o No need to give up the concept of “thermal fluid” included in objects
(What the..)
o Author’s most important notification: There’s no misconceptions on the
part of the student (and teacher) who formed the image of thermal fluid
 First-year engineering students
o They all have been told earlier by teachers that heat is energy
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o Students believe that heat is contained in objects, this is even more
common than to confuse heat with temperature. And students tend to think
heat as invisible medium.
o When explaining heat, the energy has a minor role, but still students tend
to think that heat is energy
o Students’ ideas have similarities to the ideas presented 100 years ago (just
like in the other paper)
The theory is presented in the common form
o It’s emphasized that heat must be distinguished between internal energy
o Problem: Even physicists have some problems to understand nature of
heat
o It’s introduced how process quantity heat could be demonstrated using
piston-cylinder system
Historical development is introduced
o It is funny that theory was almost formed basis of the caloric theory
instead of dynamic theory
o The dynamic theory was formed because heat was wanted to be the
irregular motion of the atoms (not because of nature or pure reason, says
author)
o Terms “heat capacity” and “latent heat” confuse students to think that heat
is contained in bodies
o If we want to do it like in the other areas of physics, we should modify our
terminology
The first law is introduced based on the caloric theory of heat
o Some formulas and explanations. The idea is that the theory should be
changed so that “heat” in new caloric theory is like “entropy” in classical
thermodynamics
Three main points
o Students and teachers need a concept “heat” and they believe it’s
contained in objects
o Thermodynamics can be based on caloric theory
o The classical form is too limited (not very good reasons introduced)
If we change theory: it is not the conceptions that are wrong, it’s the theory…
“The form of theory is misconceived” author claims, and for didactic reasons it
should be rejected
Author doesn’t claim that this would solve all the problems
I don’t know if this author is serious
Fuchs Hans U: Entropy in the teaching of introductory thermodynamics (1987)
 Author says that entropy doesn’t get the “respect” it deserves in traditional
teaching
 He suggests that to understand thermodynamics students should understand the
concept of entropy in its broadest possible implications
 There have been some earlier studies with some similarities, maybe worth of
checking out?
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Earlier studies claim that using the word “heat” tells something about
understanding entropy
Besides teachers, researchers have also suggested approach where entropy is
treated as a fundamental quantity
Authors idea of an elementary course of thermodynamics
o To motivate students to search for the “thermal fluid”
 He talks about “substance-like quantities”, example from the area
of electricity is used before going to heat
o Heat in everyday language and experiences
 Essays about heat. Students use often heat correctly in the sense of
entropy
 Heat is later described, and the description is more like a
description of entropy. It is talked like “thermal fluid”
o Heat and temperature
 It must be shown that temperature is not equal to heat
 Analogy to electricity, temperature is like voltage
o Heat and energy
 If caloric theory is used, there will be immediate relationship
between heat and energy
o I’m not very convinced about author’s ideas (this and the earlier paper)
About the terminology
o We shouldn’t change their word “heat” into “entropy”
o Words should be used so that they could help students to understand
meanings
o Author claims that the knowledge that words can be used in different
meaning doesn’t confuse students
o The idea is to understand nature, not so about language
o
Gillespie Nicole Marie, Knowing thermodynamics: A study of students’ collective
argumentation in an undergraduate physics course (2004). Dissertation
 This dissertation analyzes classroom talk between students while working on
worksheet questions and laboratory exercises
o This is more about learning in group, so basically this have little in
common with my research
 Some theory about case study.
Goldring H and Osborne J: Students’ difficulties with energy and related concepts
(1994)
 Questionnaire done by 75 pupils (6th grade) revealed that students have problems
to understand key concepts of energy (surprise!)
o Younger students, maybe still useful
 26 questions, grouped into six sets: Free association, semi-quantitative questions,
qualitative questions I and II, simple calculations and units
 Answers were reviewed giving point from 0 to3
 Some notifications
o Half of the students lack a proper understanding of the concepts and ideas
related to entropy
o Students memorized phrases without understanding their meanings!
(might be useful)
o In the interviews some students started to realize that heat and work might
be a different thing
o Confusion between energy and voltage with the case of heating the water
Granville Mark F: Students misconceptions in thermodynamics (1985)
 Students seem to think that finding the right answer is more important than
understanding the problem
o Students learn to find proper terms so they can use same methods than
before
 There are several misconceptions introduced in the text. These can be righteous
but then those require some special conditions (only for ideal gas, for example).
Students tend to think that these are always true
 The “problems”
o Energy change is always 0 for an isothermal process
 this is true for ideal gas, but not for liquids and solids
o Change of entropy is always 0 for an adiabatic process
 only for reversible processes
o Change of entropy is positive for any spontaneous process
 Because of terminology. Change of entropy refers sometimes into
system’s entropy, sometimes into entropy of system+ surroundings
o Change of Gibbs energy is negative for spontaneous process
 Only for isothermal constant pressure changes
o Change of enthalpy>0 for and endothermic reaction
 This is true is only pV-work is included (not eq. electrical work)
 Is this based on research?
Hamby Marcy: Understanding the language: Problem solving and the first law of
thermodynamics (1990)
 Nice chart which summarizes different processes and equations needed.
o For ideal gas and general case
 This could be useful!
Harrison Allan G, Grayson Diane J and Treagust David F: Investigating a grade 11
student’s evolving conceptions of heat and temperature (1999)
 One student’s conceptions are reviewed using interviews during the course
 It is shown that concepts take plenty of time to evolve towards the scientific
meaning
o It doesn’t happen “at once”
 Also about understanding the first law, heat capacity, specific heat
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Case student, though he learned the difference between temperature and heat,
used later concepts inaccurately
The change happened in case student’s reasoning is huge
Later the case student teaches other students!
Nice paper though this isn’t about the university level physics
Helsdon: Teaching thermodynamics (letter) 1976
 Lecturer criticizes inaccurate definitions of heat found from the text books. The
author claims that the traditional definition, in which heat is regarded as the
random energy of the elementary particles in macroscopic systems, is easier and
more accurate form to understand.
 Some comments about using terms internal energy, heat energy and thermal
energy
 Author recommends using micro models when explaining the concept of heat,
because otherwise its random nature can been neglected, and the second law
might not be understood.
 This is not based on research. This is based on experience as a lecturer.
Ineke Frederik, Van der Valk Ton, Leite Laurinda and Thoren Ingvar: Pre-service
physics teachers and conceptual difficulties on temperature and heat (1999)
 Heat and temperature, all over again
 Pre-service teachers
 Conceptual difficulties of pre-service teachers+ Do they think that students might
have same problems
 Same conceptual difficulties than in other studies, except the idea that temperature
is non-intensive quantity
 Some students did not have any conceptual difficulties anymore
 Pre-service teachers’ ideas about students’ misconceptions is not my thing
 Overall there wasn’t as much misconceptions than in other studies (luckily)
 This is only about teacher education
Jasien Paul G, Oberem Graham E: Understanding of elementary concepts in heat
and temperature among college students and K-12 teachers (2002)
 Some comments about text books introducing concepts (no references)
o It’s mentioned that it’s assumed that later in the courses students have
“firm grasp” (tukeva ymmarrys) of thermal equilibrium and heat transfer
 Data was collected using survey (4-5 pages) administrated by authors or class
instructors
o Anonymity
o Quantitative data, analyzed using SPSS (might be great thing to look at
carefully)
o Student participants are from two universities
 1-4 years of studies. Those are explained quite specifically.
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Significant part of these students were in the teacher credential
program
o The group of middle- and high school teachers was also a part of subject
group
o One table represents how students and teachers think that they understand
the concepts of heat and temperature (nice idea)
Results
o Students have problems to understand the concept of thermal equilibrium
and its relations to temperature
 There are no significant differences between groups, teachers
performed a little bit better
o Students tend to think that mass, specific heat or heat capacity is the
reason for heat flow.
 Maybe students think that an object can hold a certain amount of
heat
 Teacher of course performed better than other groups. Other
groups didn’t have significant differences.
 It’s surprising that students had problems with tasks though
question 5 could be easily answered correctly based on everyday
observations.
o Question 3
 Awful results, pure guessing without thinking should give better
results statistically
 Authors are wondering if students are thinking that the real world
works differently than the science world
 Students might remember something about the proportionality
between heat and temperature, but not well enough
 Though students might have idea about relation between heat,
mass and temperature, they tended to fail when there was phase
change included in the task.
 This really is a bad question
 Maybe this indicates that students have problems to interpret
graphs
o Quantitative data analysis, this is useful later
Some solutions for problems are introduced
o Right in the beginning, introduce conceptual tasks and talk about them
with the students (surprise!)
o Measurements of two objects with different specific heats until they are in
thermal equilibrium
o Physics by inquiry
Johnson Philip: Children’s understanding of changes of state involving gas state,
Part 1: Boiling water and particle theory (1998)
 Three-year longitudinal study (ages 11-13)
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This is about the conceptions of way younger pupils, so this is not so interesting.
And actually topics aren’t relevant for my study. But I read it anyway.
Some conceptions about boiling water
o Bubbles are heat
o Bubbles are air
o Bubbles are air with some water mixed with it
o Bubbles are water
Even small kids seem to be able to understand some micro models, and that may
have been helpful when trying to learn phase changes
Johnson Philip: Children’s understanding of changes of state involving gas state,
Part 2: Evaporation and condensation below boiling point (1998)
 Same thing as the other paper, not my cup of tea
 Maybe I could have some use for the references, practically not much more
Johnstone A H and MacDonald J J: Misconceptions in school thermodynamics
(1977)
 Based on results of an investigation of the conceptual difficulties experienced by
pupils when studying contents of chemical equilibrium
 Wright (1974) have presented some criticism to teach thermodynamics in schools,
because it is unsuitable. He also mentions “perfectly scandalous inaccuracy” of
thermodynamics when taught in most universities. (Nice phrase, maybe I should
find this paper). Other author Ogborn (1977) suggests that if pupils can learn
Newtonian mechanics, they can learn basics of thermodynamics
 Findings
o Pupils didn’t seem to accept that at the boiling point gas molecules have
the same kinetic energy than molecules in liquid phase
 Kinetic vs potential energy
o Part of the pupils don’t understand that endothermic reaction can happen
spontaneously
o Pupils may have used analogy models from macrophysical world, and
that’s why they relate the free-energy change to the rate of reaction
o Problems to understand that heat released in reactions has something to do
with the work system does
o Problems with the term “reversibility”
 Tendency to think that slow reactions are always reversible
o Some pupils didn’t make a clear difference between the system and the
surroundings
 Conceptions about entropy
o Entropy is a measure of disorder. This can be ok definition, but it depends
how entropy is interpreted
o Nice sentence: “This one concept more than any other is perhaps
responsible for the unpopularity of thermodynamics: none of us likes what
we do not understand”
o Pupils have little or no concept of entropy
o Some tendency to confuse entropy and kinetic energy
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 Increase in entropy equates with increase in temperature
Some ways to make learning better is introduced but those are for younger pupils
and students
Jones M Gail, Carter Glenda and Rua Melissa J: Exploring the development of
conceptual ecologies: Communities of concepts related to convection and heat (2000)
 61 fifth-grade students from 5 schools
 Relationships and development of those related to the convection and heat
 Laboratory investigations
 Students knowledge was assessed before and after instruction using written tests,
concept maps, card sort tasks and interviews (fifteen dyads (pairs))
 Once again: much younger kids. Nice research, though.
 Some references about conceptual change
o Conceptual ecology, not interested
 Nice concept maps and table (1) about the prior knowledge of fifth-graders.
 Young students like to use analogies (“it looks like a tornado”) and not
surprisingly some of their conceptions are based on everyday life (fluids are
related to seeing the doctor, because doctor says to “drink fluids”)
Kaper Wolter H and Goedhart Martin J: ‘Forms of energy’, an intermediary
language on the road to thermodynamics, pt1 (2002)
 Nice collection of references about understanding the concept of energy
 Literature review
o People understand that energy means “free energy”
o Pupils have problems with the concept because it is not something
tangible
o Can energy be considered as something quasi-material
o Using language in text books may cause conceptions that energy is
something concrete that exists in the substance though it is only numerical
property
o Ellse (1988) proposes that forms of energy shouldn’t be taught in schools
at the beginning. Focus should be more on energy transfer between the
systems.
 Basically this is the case in university-level texts
 In some curricula this has been done, but teachers seem to still
include the forms of energy
 RQ: Should all forms of energy (expect kinetic and potential energy in
mechanics) be eliminated from science teaching?
 About teaching: It is not possible or reasonable to tell the whole truth
immediately. (eq. not to tell about Heisenberg when talking about classical
mechanics)
 Classical mechanics is “way to quantum mechanics”
 Some examples from secondary level –books. These introduce many forms of
energy
o Heat differs from other forms, because it’s always amount of energy
transferred
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There are some “rules” (p. 88) for forms of energy
Author searches if those rules and thermodynamics agree in their descriptions
o Of course thermodynamics is thought to be always valid
Mathematics related to test if internal energy fulfills the “rules”
o It was proven (I didn’t quite understand it) that there are some parts in
energy which are path-dependent, if we’re looking changes between two
systems
Using “forms of energy” language is ok just like using Newtonian mechanics is
valid for large objects (there are limitations)
The first of two criteria is ok: An intermediary language allows a consistent and
valid description and/or prediction of phenomena on a certain limited domain of
experiences.
o This means that talking about forms of energy might be useful as
intermediary language aka. On the road to language of thermodynamics
Kaper Wolter H and Goedhart Martin J: ‘Forms of energy’, an intermediary
language on the road to thermodynamics, pt2 (2002)
 Experiment in university
o Describe problems with the current teaching practices (one researcher
participated in the course as a teaching assistant)
 Tape recordings
o Relate problems to the students’ backgrounds
o Design a procedure from students’ “forms of energy” language to
thermodynamic language
o Test this designed procedure with five students
o Improve the assignment sequence and use it again
 Some notifications
o Students’ understanding of the concept of state function was tested
 Students mostly failed to use the concept when reasoning a task
about heat engine (table 1)
 My note: Is it lack of knowledge, or didn’t they just think
it’s necessary?
 Wrong ideas about the entropy
o Students consider heat as a state function
o Why ∆U is ok, but ∆Q is forbidden?
 Note from author: The difference between a state quantity and process quantity is
not made in “forms of energy” language
o Are these related?
 More notifications
o Students were surprised that change in chemical energy and change in heat
can be different, depending of path
 Author suggest huge modifications in “forms of energy” language
o They talk about exchange values
 Conclusion

o Change from “forms of energy” language to thermodynamic language can
be a challenge. Authors did some translation for the language and used
“exchange value” language. It helped significantly case students to use
thermodynamic language properly
Nice paper about teaching energy, very experimental.
Kautz Christian H, Heron Paula R L, Loverude Michael E and McDermott Lillian
C: Student understanding of the ideal gas law, part 1: A macroscopic perspective
(2005)
 University level. Great.
 The adiabatic compression of gas (preliminary testing). 45 students were
interviewed
o Student knew the answer but couldn’t justify it (yep)
o They couldn’t use the first law
o Incorrect microscopic explanations
 Based on these, the group developed several written items. Pre- and posttests.
 Really nice tasks about ideal gas
 Notifications
o Students focused on the relations between two quantities though this can
be done only if the third one stays constant
o Students think that P~1/V always (no mention about temperature)
o Students think that P~T always (no mention about volume)
 These confirm notification of Rozier and Viennot that students do
not understand equations of multiple variables
o Students lack ability to understand connection between pressure and
mechanical equilibrium
o Incorrect microscopic models for pressure
o Students think that temperature stays constant in adiabatic process
o Insulator is in some cases considered as active component which keeps
temperature constant. Though it should be considered as material which
prevent heat transfer
o Heat vs. temperature
o Heat as state quantity
o Wrong microscopic explanations for temperature
o Difference between volume and amount of gas
 Even mass vs volume
 Heat vs temperature –module in Physics by inquiry, laboratory-based curriculum
o Helps students to separate the concepts
 Tutorials on the ideal gas and the first laws were developed+ tutorial laboratory
experiment on the ideal gas law
 The ideal gas law –tutorials, four parts
o Constant pressure though piston moves
o Increase of temperature doesn’t necessarily increase pressure
o pV-diagrams
o Substance independence of the ideal gas law
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Tutorial laboratory experiment
o Quantitative measurements, qualitative parts, conceptual understanding
o This isn’t so much of my business, though nice experiments
The first law –tutorial, four parts
o Definition of the mechanical work
o Change of internal energy in insulated system is equal to the work done on
the gas
o Isochoric process where temperature changes, heat transfer is introduced
o Change of internal energy due to work and heat is combined in the fourth
part
Tutorials are used in lectures and take about 20 minutes. So no extra class time is
needed!
Several post-tests (check from the article)
o After tutorial lectures or tutorial experiments students’ results on the posttests were significantly better (tables 3 and 4)
Conclusions
o Students don’t truly interpret macroscopic variables pressure, temperature
and volume
o These tutorials take some extra time from the lectures but these are so
important topics that it must be allowed. Learning these properly is critical
when trying to understand other thermal phenomena
Kautz Christian H, Heron Paula R L, Shaffer Peter S and McDermott Lillian C:
Student understanding of the ideal gas law, part 2: A microscopic perspective (2005)
 More than 1000 students
 Research was started by making interviews to get some ideas about students
understanding
 Students microscopic models are often seriously flawed
o These prevent students’ deeper understanding of crucial concepts of
thermal physics
 Authors designed written problems to get more information
 Three types of problems (some results are also introduced)
o Isobaric expansion or compression problems
 What happens to the kinetic energy per molecule?
o Change in momentum and particle-flux tasks
 Really hard tasks
 Rebounding-particle task
o Problems with basic concepts of mechanics cause problems when trying to
understand the kinetic gas theory
o Moving ball hits the unmovable wall. What’s the change in momentum?
 Two-tanks task
o Two tanks containing two different gases, are the number of moles equal?
 Analysis of misconceptions
o Using incomplete or incorrect microscopic models of pressure
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Average change of momentum of one particle is related to the
pressure. Failure to understand the meaning of particle-flux
(though it’s not the only thing that affects)
 Failing to use momentum as a vector quantity
 Applying the conservation of momentum incorrectly
 Energy vs momentum?
 Misinterpret of particle flux
o Incorrect responses related to temperature
 Lower particle density implies lower temperature (what?)
 Related to the collisions between particles
 Collisions generate kinetic energy
o Incorrect responses related to the number of moles (molecules)
 Substance independence of the ideal gas law (students tend to think
that molar mass have something to do with the ig-law)
 Greater number of small molecules is needed to fill a given
volume. Or mass of molecules indicate this.
 Greater number of small molecules is needed to cause same
pressure.
 Misinterpreting the quantities
Tutorials, ideal gas law and worksheet on microscopic processes
o Substance independence
o Temperature in microscopic model of an ideal gas
 Two particles collide, what happens to kinetic energy?
 Fictional students’ claims which should be corrected
Problems designed to assess students’ understanding
o Two containers, would their sizes be equal
o Two tanks (again), would the pressures be equal?
o Compare temperatures and average speed of particles for two states
represented in PV-diagram
o Kinetic energy –task (almost same than the one introduced earlier)
Conclusions
o This was motivated because of the results gained when studying students’
understanding of the macroscopic variables in the ig-law
o Research-based instruction can help students significantly
Kesidou Sofia and Duit Reinders: Students’ conceptions of the second law of
thermodynamics – An interpretive study (1993)
 34 clinical interviews were conducted to find out students’ conceptions of the
second law of thermodynamics
 Pretty open questions in the beginning
 The most important findings
o Heat vs temperature (as always). It was thought that temperature can be
measured, but heat cannot (table 1)
o Problem 4 uses term heat inaccurately (at least in text), of course students
answer wrong
o Heat isn’t maybe understood as extensive quantity (or then specific heat
isn’t understood)
o Heat is sometimes used as a process and state quantity without noticing
any contradictions (check quotation in page 91)
o Temperature is thought to be a measure of heat in a body
o Some students think that temperature must be conserved
o Only some (21%) students used explanations in the terms of particle
model. Many students couldn’t give micro-level explanations though
interviewer asked
o Conceptions about particle model
 In solid bodies particles move only at low speed, or not at all
 It’s harder to get particles moving in solid objects (like inertia was
different)
 Belief that particles’ motion slows down and eventually ends
 Heating is explained using idea that particles rub against each other
and hence become warmer
 Author “Heat is produced by rubbing”. NOT
o Energy conceptions
 It is generally seen as something that brings about actions and
effects (table 2)
 The change in extensive quantities were usually neglected
 Ideas of transformation, conservation, transformation and
degradation are usually missed
 Energy conservation was mentioned but probably not
understood
 Basically no idea of energy degradation
 It is understood that heat and energy are related but not in scientific
way
o Conceptions of temperature equalizations
 Temperature differences are explained using ideas of different
materials
 Idea that temperatures continue to increase or decrease because of
heat inertia
 Students had problems to know what “becomes the same”,
temperature, heat or energy
 Idea that bodies cool spontaneously, without interacting object
o Conceptions of irreversibility
 Idea of temperature irreversibility is used well but explanations are
not scientific
 Some students explain that “nothing can be created from
nothing”. Basically idea of conservation is used.
 Students couldn’t explain irreversibility in the case of
pendulum
 Overall students knew that most processes happen only in one
direction but couldn’t explain why
 Cause-effect thinking was dominant
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Some classical ideas that objects have some natural state
Discussion
o Students didn’t understand the second law
o My own note: Why they talk about heat energy? (translation problem, I
think)
o Some ideas how to teach it, no data presented
Kurnaz Mehmet Altan and Calik Muammer: Using different conceptual change
methods embedded within the 5E model: A sample teaching for heat and
temperature (2008)
 Something about the 5E-model of which I haven’t heard
 Article represent analogy model to teach difference between heat and
temperature. Maybe a bit childish and unscientific for university-level (not used in
university) so maybe not useful
 Lots of references
Lavonen Jari, Koponen Ismo and Kortesniemi Terhi: Collaborative concept
mapping in physics teacher education (2002)
 Study groups were asked to make graphical representations (eq. concept maps)
about temperature
 These were given to lecturer and then they were developed in the study groups on
the basis of instruction
 Finally groups had to do final maps about the structural relationships of
temperature, and how this is related to phenomenon and statistical physics
 Five students were interviewed
 Table 1 summarizes findings
 More about structure of physics, not much about thermodynamics
Leite Laurinda: Heat and temperature: An analysis of how these concepts are dealt
with in textbooks (1999)
 11 9-grade textbooks used in Portugal were analyzed
o Level of conceptualization and correctness of concepts
o Teaching approach
o Learning activities
 Level of conceptualization, example of heat and temperature
o Seven books discuss these concepts in the daily life context
o Nice table 1! Too bad it’s not about the university level textbooks
o Not really my cup of tea
 The language of some textbooks reveals that the concept of heat might be difficult
even for textbook writers
 Some textbooks try to notify these known problems but phrases may cause more
confusion
o Suggestion: Avoid using heat as noun and use it only as a verb
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Some microscopic models are introduced for students using concepts they aren’t
familiar with (temperature~kinetic energy)
Everyday life vs physics –language should be emphasized in textbooks more
Conclusions
o There are differenced among the textbooks’ levels of conceptualization
o Books aren’t always accurate
o There aren’t much of problem-solving
o Some activities
 Mostly paper and pencil –tests and some low cognitive demanding
laboratory activities
o Some practical implications, nice
Liew Chong Wah: A predict-observe-explain teaching sequence for learning about
students’ understanding of heat and expansion of liquids (1995)
 Predict-observe-explain strategy (Gunstone, 1990) was used in year 11 (age 16-17
years) physics over a period of six weeks
o Once again, younger students.
 Strategy
o Predict what will happen when…
o Observe what happens
o Explain what happened and why
 This strategy suggests that pre-knowledge and beliefs affect observations and
interpretations of new learning (surprise)
 This teaching sequence did create opportunity to reconstruct and change their
conceptions. For the majority of students, this didn’t happen
 Not much
Lin Huann-shyang, Cheng Hsiu-Ju and Lawrenz Frances: The assessment of
students’ and teachers’ understanding of gas laws (2000)
 119 11th-grade students and 36 chemistry teachers
o Students were in advanced program designed for high achievers in
physical sciences
o Teachers were from 36 different high schools from Taiwan
 Paper and pencil –tests, which were asked after showing practical demonstration
for groups
 Conceptual understanding of gas properties, gas laws and abilities to apply these
in different situations
 Nice conceptual tasks, could be useful in the earlier course of thermal physics
 Results
o Not big difference between students and teachers in some tasks
o Even teachers have major problems to understand the difference in
pressure between open and closed systems
o Table 1 summarizes results pretty good
 Notified misconceptions
o “Nature abhors vacuum” –conception from the 17th century
o Misuse of pV=nRT
o
o
o
o
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Students used intuition to reason their answers instead of scientific view
Failure to make a difference between system and surroundings
Misuse of randomly chosen gas laws
Not even “capable” students could apply the kinetic gas theory though it
had been introduced
 Molecules are pushed down by the atmospheric pressure
 Molecules stay away from heat
 Molecules expand
o Summary: About 80% of the students weren’t able to give sound
explanations for four conceptual tasks
 They know how to use equations
Maybe historical review where students should learn from mistakes made in past
would improve learning outcome
Loverude Michael, Kautz Christian and Heron Paula: Student understanding of the
first law of thermodynamics: Relating work to the adiabatic compression of an ideal
gas
 One of the greatest paper
 First-year students in physics courses and the second-year students performing the
course thermal physics
 Students’ abilities to apply the first law in the case of adiabatic compression of an
ideal gas
 Check the references at some point
 Methods
o Real life situation (bicycle pump) and interviews
 Cannot be solved without the first law
o Written problems (in examination or ungraded quizzes). Basically same
contents than in the interviews
o Comments about the concept of work in the interviews -> a task about
interpreting pV-diagram
 Results
o Problems with work
 Some students knew right away that temperature would increase
but couldn’t reason it easily. Others spent several minutes to
discuss about the ideal gas law/the first law before giving the
answer
 Only few students mentioned work spontaneously
 To help students, interviewer asked if term energy is related.
Several students stated that they don’t know how it might be
helpful
 The structure of interviews are described well
 Students seem to have problems, not only to remember, but also to
understand the concept of work
o Ideal gas law related problems
 Students think that changes in volume/pressure would always
increase temperature
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Focusing only on two state variables and using incorrect
relationships between them. Even neglecting some variable
entirely
 Wrong ideas about the microscopic definitions for the concepts
 Density ~ temperature, smaller volume causes bigger
velocities, particles are closer together, collision release
heat…
 Students responses suggest that the change of internal
energy happens because of interactions inside the system
 Microscopic explanations were used more in the interviews than in
tests
o More problems with the work
 Process quantities are confused with the ones related to the states
 Confusion among heat, work, internal energy and temperature
 Temperature cannot increase because system is insulated!
 Confusion between isothermal and adiabatic processes
 No understanding how work is connected to temperature
 Students tend to use term heat instead of work in the
interviews
 Interviews revealed that students really have problems, they aren’t
just carefree using the concepts
 Problems with the sign of the work (of course, two different forms
are used)
 Failure to understand that to the work done on the system and by
the system have the same absolute value
 Students tend to think work somehow too practically
instead of physical view
 Failure to recognize that work is path-dependent
o Problems with work in mechanics
 Sign of the work depends on the chosen coordinate system
 Relation between work done on and by the system
Excellent conclusion
Loverude Michael, Kautz Christian and Heron Paula: Helping students develop an
understanding of Archimedes’ principle. 1. Research on student understanding
(2003)
 This isn’t very useful for my research, more about hydrostatics
 University level
 Read later if needed. Basically this has nothing in common with my research
(maybe concept of volume)
Marin E: Teaching thermal physics by touching (2008)
 We usually try to tell object’s temperature by touching it, though there are other
variables (conduction..)
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Author suggests that touching objects could be used to understand the concept of
heat
Not based on research, just an idea (I think)
Meheut Martine: Designing a learning sequence about a pre-quantitative kinetic
model of gases: the parts played by questions and by a computer-simulation (1997)
 Very old article
 About using computer-simulations when teaching kinetic gas theory
 Might be useful, but not very relevant because this is really old
 Students seem to have learned little better when using this model, but after two
years there wasn’t significant difference
Mettes C T C W, Pilot A and Roossink H. J.: Linking factual and procedural
knowledge in solving science problems: A case study in thermodynamics course
(1981)
 There’s some huge experiment about teaching thermodynamics
 Whole course were redesigned
 Maybe this is worth reading later
 There are some results but description of this course is emphasized
Mettes C T C W, Pilot A, Roossink H J and Kramers-Pals H.: Teaching and
learning problem solving in science (1981)
 The examples are from the area of thermal physics but basically this isn’t very
useful for me
Millar Arnold, M., , R. (1996). Exploring the use of analogy of heat, temperature
and thermal equilibrium. *In: Welford, G., Osborne, J., Scott, P.: Research in
science education in Europe. London: The Falmer Press, 22-35.
 Secondary school students are teached by using analogy model about water
Monteyne Kereen, Gonzales Barbara L. and Loverude Michael E.: An
interdisciplinary study of student ability to connect particulate and macroscopic
representations of a gas (2008)
 University level
 Tasks about ideal gas. Idea was for research items was to provide students with
information at one level (macroscopic or particulate) and ask that they make
predictions at the other level
 Majority in these classes answered questions correctly
 Useful results if comparing micro/macro-level explanations
 Micro -> macro was understood better
Moore Guy S M: General, restricted and misleading forms of the first law of
thermodynamics (1993)
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At first the paper discusses about the system, surroundings and system boundary
Nice explanations about heat and work
Example of bottle with ball in it: No external work has been done or no heat has
been transferred from the surroundings but the temperature increases
Defining the concept of energy is crucial (now the potential energy has decreased,
and kinetic energy has increased). Stored energy and internal energy are not the
same thing
Other examples of balloon and rigid ball in the container
Stored energy and internal energy are not the same thing, and changes aren’t
either
The role of “delta” is discussed, not important for me
About the sign of work
Really thorough consideration about the dQ, Q and intergrals
Nice paper but not very practical
There are some sample problems and questions in appendix. These relate to
situation of real life, and Q, W, ∆E and ∆U are asked
Moore Robert J. and Schwenz Richard W.: The problem with P. chem. (provocative
opinion) (1992)
 Ideas to change curriculum are presented, but no any actual data
Mountcastle Donald B, Bucy Brandon R and Thompson John R: Student estimates
of probability and uncertainty in advanced laboratory and statistical physics
courses (2007)
 One theme of research is to find out which mathematical conceptual difficulties
might affect understanding of physics concepts
 27 students
 Students were asked to predict x=a+∆a, when n coins are flipped
o They should understand that relative uncertainty decreases when n
increases
o Less than half of students answered correctly in pretest
 When the situation was more concrete (measuring amount of rain), all the
students answered correctly that relative uncertainty of measurement should
decrease when there are more measuring devices
 Something about the deviations, but those are not important for me
 Those questions could be useful
 Discussion
o Students were able to make predictions about the most probable state in
coin flipping task, but they weren’t able to predict uncertainty of
measurement correctly
o In qualitative system students were able to predict both correctly when the
situation was macroscopic
o The most serious conceptual problem was that students weren’t able to
predict system’s convergence towards n/2 when n increases
Mäntylä Terhi and Koponen Ismo T.: Conceptual hierarchy of physics as a
principle leading to structured knowledge in physics teacher education (2004)
 Same example of temperature than in their other paper
 Example of heat and energy as well
 Not very useful, at least not yet
Ogborn Jon: The second law of thermodynamics: A teaching problem and an
opportunity (1976)
 Firstly author tells how difficult concept entropy is, even in universities
 Chemists don’t have problems with entropy. They don’t know what is it, but they
can use it.
 People who look thermodynamics from a statistical point of view know
something and can tell something about the way it works
 Check out the book Henry Bent: The second law (1965)
 Author presents several ways how to start and make subject easier to start with
 Eq. balls in the two boxes –tasks
o Might be helpful start before going to large numbers
 Simulation game about energy distributing
 How to go towards temperature from the statistics
 Author just tells how it could be taught, but he has no actual data about the
learning outcome. Not based on research.
Payton Ray: Students’ deductive reasoning about state changes in a model
biosystem (1991)
 This is biology. I doubt that this is useful.
Pinto Roser, Couso Digna and Gutierrez Rufina: Using research on teachers’
transformations of innovations to inform teacher education. The case of energy
degradation (2004)
 Spanish secondary school teachers
 “The paper describes the transformations found in teachers’ interpretations of the
rationale for the teaching sequence that could give rise to alternative conceptions
about energy degradation and related concepts in students”
o Aka. What is teachers’ influence for alternative conceptions?
 Nicely said “Energy degradation is like a missing piece necessary for a complete
construction of the energy concept”. Just like we say it!
 There are some conceptions of teachers introduced in the paper (maybe useful,
because there’s no reason to think that these wouldn’t occur in Finland)
o Energy degradation as opposed to energy conservation
o Energy degradation as energy transferred to a different place
o Energy degradation as a decrease in the amount of energy
o Energy degradation not related to internal energy
o Energy degradation as heat (meaning that heat is process of losing energy)
o Energy degradation as a change of energy form
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Authors developed teacher training program
Results are not discussed very clearly
Pollock Evan B, Thompson John R and Mountcastle Donald B: Student
understanding of the physics and mathematics of process variables in P-V diagrams
(2007)
 One theme of our research is the extent to which student mathematical conceptual
difficulties may affect understanding of physics concepts in thermodynamics
 Questions analogous to Meltzer’s questions, but purely mathematical in nature.
Not physics included
 Students performed significantly better in post-test
 Students have problems to understand integrals of the functions with the different
paths
o Relevant to thermodynamics, because there one variable often represents
multiple functions (p(V))
 Maybe some difficulties are attributed to difficulties with the mathematics, not so
much about not understanding physical concepts
 Results suggest that while students have a better understanding of state function
than of process function in physics, the reverse is true for the mathematical
distinction between these two concepts! This is really interesting.
Pushkin David B.: Scientific terminology and context: How broad or narrow are
our meanings?
 Author criticizes his previous paper, and some “definitions” presented in it
 Discussion about terminology in thermal physics (heat and work)
o Eq. Why cannot “heat be done” or “work been transferred”
o Author suggests new linguistic form for the first law: “Changing the
internal energy of a system (DU) is the result of heating (Q) and work (W)
on or by that system.”
 Author presents new definitions for thermal conductivity and specific heat
 Students had problems to understand the concept of specific heats and affect of
mass of an object to the amount of energy needed
 Author has introduced concept “pseudoconception” in his earlier paper. Maybe
not necessary to know
Ruif Frederick: Thermal physics in introductory physics course: Why and how to
teach it from a unified atomic perspective
 Author presents a way to teach basics of thermal physics using microscopic
approach
 Macroscopic approach is not easy for students because it is abstract and doesn’t
offer visualizable mental models
 Why an atomistic approach?
o Highly unified approach, because it’s based on two basic ideas:
 All systems consists of atomic particles
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
Properties can be understood using basics of mechanics and some
simple probability considerations
o Modern. This is based more on present-day knowledge of the atomic
structure
o Students find this more interesting
o The ideas presented in this approach can be used widely
Approach is useful because it basically doesn’t require anything that students
don’t handle
Atomistic approach to thermal physics is introduced (author has used this several
years)
o Macro vs. atomistic descriptions
 The relation between the macro and atomistic descriptions is one
of the most central questions this paper tries to answer
o Thermodynamic energy law (1. Law) is introduced slightly different.
 Heat is called nonmacroscopic work
 Useful analogy about water in lake, where amount of water can be
changed in two different ways (stream or condensation)
 Measuring internal energy and heat are introduced
o Statistical description of macroscopic system. This is important!
 Spesify the possible states
 Statistical assembly (kokoaminen) of systems. Though outcome of
one system cannot be predicted, probabilities of different outcomes
can be determined
 Postulates (eq. every microstate is equally probable)
 Use these postulates to calculate probabilities
o Qualitative properties of macroscopic systems
 Probability of equilibrium situation
 Example of simple gas in equilibrium with the conclusions
about this specific system
 There are always some fluctuations in equilibrium, but those can
basically be neglected.
 Approach to equilibrium
 Irreversibility
 Tendency to equilibrium can be used to determine the
direction of time and furthermore system’s
reversibility/irreversibility
 Reverse process isn’t impossible in theory, it’s just highly
improbable
o There’s no strict line between irreversible and
reversible process
o Number of basic states and entropy
 How does the number of microstates depend on the macroscopic
parameters
 Dependency of volume and kinetic energy are introduced
 The number of possible states increases exceedingly
rapidly when V or Ek of the gas become larger

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Because numbers are very large, logarithms are used to make
working more convenient
 Properties of entropy
 Entropy and internal energy
 Entropy gradient
 Entropy and absolute temperature
 Energy dependence of variables T…
 Entropy of composite systems
Thermal interaction
 How are probabilities calculated when energy is distributed
 The most probable situation
 Approach to thermal equilibrium
 Systems exchange energy until they are in thermal
equilibrium
 The zeroth law about the thermal equilibriums
Ideal gases and temperature measurement
 Measurement of kT
 Temperature scale
 Determination of k
 Importance of absolute temperature
Heat capacity
General thermodynamic interaction. More general situations
 Entropy change due to bodily motion
 Quasi-static adiabatic process
 Quasi-static processes
 Measurement of entropy change
 Implications of the entropy-heat relation
 Entropy related to the system parameters
 Applications to an ideal gas
All these are inferred from the knowledge that the system consists of
atomic particles
Applications
 Heat engines, biological systems
 Phase transformations
 Boltzmann distribution and molecular speeds
Simple way to teach thermal physics from an atomistic point of view
without student knowing anything too fancy mathematics, for example
 If students don’t have a glue about quantum mechanics, there
might be some problems
 Author has noticed that this approach ain’t more difficult for
students than the classical approach
Roberts I. F., Watts D. S.: The teaching of thermodynamics at preuniversity level
(1976)
 Series of joint workshops for chemistry and physics teachers was arranged to find
out what happens in school level before university
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
Groups introduced their syllabuses
Groups thought that exercise was worthwhile
o Basic ideas were clarified
o It was revealed that physics and chemistry teachers should speak the same
language (there were some differencies)
o Even author admits that this study should have done differently
Romer Robert H.: Heat is not a noun (2001)
 Author tells about difficulties faced with the language of thermal physics
 He suggests that term “heat” could be abandoned
 Just about linguistic problems, no research involved
Van Roon P. H., van Sprang H. F. and Verdonk A. H.: ‘Work’ and ‘heat’: on a a
road towards thermodynamics (1994)
 This paper describes difficulties that university freshmen displayed when they had
to use thermodynamic concepts of heat and work
 Authors idea is to teach work and heat using students’ own contexts as a starting
point
 Author makes a notification that understanding the first law requires
understanding of other concepts as well
o System, equilibrium state, surroundings, process, state quantities,
boundary, walls, process, path… NICE
 Course of physical chemistry at the University of Utrecht
 How was study done?
o While working on special exercises, students were asked to discuss
between themselves the solutions and difficulties
 These discussions were recorded and written materials were
collected
o Idea is to find out the difference between the scientific meaning of
concepts heat and work and the meaning given to these words by students
 Notifications
o Heat
 Is understood as state quantity
 Heat reservoir is understood as ‘adiabatic system’. This means that
adiabatic means constant heat
o Terms system and surroundings are not used
o Problems to distinct terms mechanical energy and thermodynamic internal
energy
o Conceptions about the work were analyzed based on students discussing
about the text found from secondary level text book
 Students didn’t make a distinction between ordinary life concepts
(muscular strength) and scientific concept force
 Work isn’t understood as process quantity (surprise!)


o Note: the term ‘work’ can be used in mechanical work concept and as
thermodynamic work concept, and there’s some difference between them
(or is there..)
o Energy conversion is necessary in thermodynamics, because there’s only
internal energy, no other forms
o Work is used as an ordinary life concept
o Work and heat are related by means of energy conversion
o Students think that heat is “energetic” concept, eq. “heat is conserved”
o Students use relations between heat and work though there isn’t this kind
of “common factor”
 Author uses weird term “heat particle”
Author present implication for teaching work and heat
o Begin with objects, not system
o Next step by students, from thermochemical objects to thermodynamic
system
o Next step is adiabatic processes
o States of the system, no longer adiabatic process
Author suggests that this cannot be done only lecturing
Rozier S. and Viennot L.: “Students’ reasoning in thermodynamics” (1991)
 This study concentrates analyzing students’ reasoning patterns, for example
related to tasks about adiabatic compression
 Students and teachers are involved+ some examples from books
 Multi-variable tasks
o Students seem to forget (or neglect) some or relevant variables
 Eq. pressure is ascribed only to ‘density’ of particles
 Book used as an example use this kind of phrases as well
 Even teachers had problems to notify these flaws
o Two variables are combined, aka. They are always related the same way
(eq. volume and temperature)
o Students have problems to notify symmetries (eq. if increase in
temperature increases volume, they don’t understand it other way)
o Linear causal reasoning is used inaccurately (eq. reasoning is in conflict
with the text given)
 Notifications
o Collisions between particles produce heat (yup)
o Teachers seem to tolerate this inaccurate use of language which might
cause problems
o Problems to understand meaning of kinetic energy related to temperature
 Conclusion is a bit messy, read again when not feeling tired
Ryan, Charly: Student teachers' concepts of purity and of states of matter (1990)
 Forth-coming teachers, two groups of students following a B.Ed. degree course of
initial education as primary teachers
Samiullah, Mohammad: What is a reversible process? (2007)
 Author suggests that the way that concepts are introduced in introductory physics
courses creates much confusion for students
 Lack of clarity is apparent in the case of reversible process
 Author criticizes definitions in text books
 Students misinterpret these definitions thinking that reversibility means that
system and surroundings return to the original energy states, though this is
basically just energy conservation law
 Author suggests new pedagogical approach to talk about the second law before
reversibility (like we do, of course).
o Concept of quasi-static process first
o Carnot Cycle to develop concept of reversible processes
 Reversible processes are idealized processes in which entropy is exchanged
between system and surrounding but no new (net) entropy is created
 Author gives definitive meaning for reversibility: Reversing a reversible process
brings both the system and the environment back to the original entropy states.
 This is just a suggestion, no actual data is presented
Sciarretta M.R. and Missoni Vicentini: On the thermal properties of materials:
common-sense knowledge of Italian students and teachers (1990)
 Use of word “temperature” in relation to common life experiences. Word “heat”
was avoided
 Students and teachers. Students are 18 years old or younger (5 groups)
 Notifications
o Common-sense theoretical framework is not so far from scientific view
that was thought
o No indication of confusing heat and temperature!
o There is something good but no clear results are introduced
Shultz Thomas R. and Coddington Marilyn: Development of the concepts of energy
conservation and entropy (1981)
 This is from a journal of psychology
 Children between 5 and 15 years of age
 At least abstract is very interesting pointing out that conservation (using
pendulum) of energy isn’t understood until children are 15 and understanding
entropy is dependent on the apparatus used (marbles easy, water bottles hard to
understand)
 Concepts are used a bit carefree in this paper..
 Of course this is about younger kids but nice paper anyway
Slisko Josip and Dykstra Dewey Jr. : The role of scientific terminology in research
and teaching: Is something important missing? (comment) (1997)
 This is a comment (maybe a bit provocative) for earlier discussions between Lewis
and Linn (vol. 33, 1996) and Pushkin (vol 33, 1996) about the scientific terms (eq.
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heat)
Pushkin has claimed that there exists a precise scientific terminology, and Lewis and
Linn suggests terminological diversity. Find those papers!
Author agrees with Lewis and Linn, but says that of course that teachers must pay
more attention to the terminology
Among physicists it’s clear that there’s no complete agreement over the meaning of
many different terms like temperature and heat
About the term “heat”
 Two different interpretations have conceptual conflict, is it process of energy
transfer of a form of energy?
 These interpretations cause some linguistic problems (like transfer of transfer)
 Terminology is expected to have a logical structure, which it clearly doesn’t have
Use of appropriate language and terminology is not clear even for trained people who
should be able to know scientific meanings and be able to use them in research and
teaching
Examples of carefree usage of terminology from the book that is written to ‘support
and extend teachers’ own science knowledge’. Heat, heat energy and thermal energy
are used to mean the same concept basically.
How could students be able to use scientific terms when they face this kind of use of
‘scientific terminology’
It should be understood that scientific term means different things to different people
Nice comments, maybe not relevant
Sözlibir Mustafa and Bennett Judith M. : A study of Turkish chemistry
undergraduates’ understandings of entropy (2007)
 Check references at some point, there might be useful papers
 What do Turkish chemistry undergraduates understand about entropy and what are
their misunderstandings?
 Diagnostic questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, before and after the
course. Two universities
 Courses are described
 Students have no books and they don’t know English, so they have to rely on their
notes. This might be a common problem? Maybe even in Finland because we
don’t use books though students understand English
 50 minutes questionnaire. Nice idea: the order of questions was varied to get
enough data for every question
 Questions were designed to test the following ideas:
 Any process that increases the number of particles in the system
increases the number of microstates and therefore increases the
entropy of the system
 Entropy is the measure of the number of ways that energy can be
shared among particles. Entropy increases if the number of ways of
distributing the available energy among the particles is increased
 During a spontaneous change the entropy of the universe increases
 The entropy of a substance depends on its structure and the number of
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atoms it contains
Authors mention that their questionnaires is not the perfect one but good enough
to reveal students’ understanding
This is really useful paper, much in common with my research
Interviews are described very shortly
Conclusions and discussion
 Misunderstandings
 Defining entropy as disorder and thinking visual disorder as
synonymous for entropy
 Inaccurately connect entropy with collisions between particles and
intermolecular interactions
 Inaccurate connection between entropy of the system and entropy
changes in the surroundings
 Belief that entropy of the whole system decreases or remains
constant when spontaneous change occurs
 Supposing something about the entropy of molecules (more
chemistry..)
 Instruction did not prevent misunderstanding; in some cases
misunderstanding increased!
 Maybe they really are resistant to change in traditional teaching
environments
 Factors affecting entropy were understood poorly, if at all
 Students describe entropy as disorder but they understand disorder as
”visual disorder”, like chaos, randomness…
 If term ”disorder” is used, its meaning should be stated clearly
instead using it carefree
 Check references 10 (especially page 187), 24, 25. They are about using
term disorder
 Only small number of students tried to use micro-level explanations
 Students tried to use mathematical equations
 Tendency to think that science is ”math in disguise”. This is caused
by teachers, accidentally of course
Implications for teaching
 Tendency to use macro-level explanations -> Instructors should make sure
that students have scientific ideas about entropy and related concepts, and
that students have abilities to apply these in different situations. Instructor
should also pay attention out-of-class -situations with the terms they use to
make a difference between everyday and scientific language
 Classroom discussions to compare own ideas with those of others. Shortanswer questions before and during teaching.
 In-class writing. Showing good students’ writings might help to clarify
difficult topics.
 Context-based approach, where scientific applications is the starting point
 Some study (30) points out that thermodynamic entities should be defined
qualitatively first
 Some simple examples about micro-level explanations could be


introduced (31) to help students to understand energy distribution
 And the last notification: Results and notifications should be shared to
teachers, instructor and students as well
Appendixes, questionnaires and coding scheme
 This coding scheme could be useful, tasks are too much about chemistry
 Nice way to present results
More notifications
 Enthalpy is confused with the total energy
 Students confused the generalizations that systems tend to minimize energy and
maximize entropy of the universe
 Using terminology is vague and the second law is missunderstood
 Collisions increase entropy, or movement of particles is entropy
 Belief that if system is thermally insulated, entropy remains unchanged
 Some results indicate that students memorize facts without understanding the
underlying principles
Sperandeo-Mineo R. M., Fazio C. And Tarantino G: Pedagogical contenct
knowledge development and pre-service physics teacher education: A case study
(2005)
 This study focuses on the central issue of the relationships between observable
phenomena, like macroscopic thermal properties of matter and their interpretation
and/or explanation in terms of corpuscular characteristics and/or thermodynamics
theory
 Pre- and post-tests included presented three experimental situations and
participant were asked to describe thermal processes
 This is more about structuring new models, something about thermal physics
 Student teachers
 Pre-test
o Explanations are practical/everyday –based, only 19% are interpretative
 Post-test
o Half of the responses are more interpretative
 Notifications (some of these are just for few students whose conceptions are
reviewed)
o At least example students had problems understanding the meanings of
heat capacity and thermal conductivity
o Once again: Qualitative undestanding is weak
o Thermal equilibrium and phase changes are problematic before
experiments
 Take a look later, not very relevant (yet)
Tarsistani Carlo and Vicentini Matilde: Scientific mental representations of
thermodynamics (1996)
 This is about analyzing textbooks. Idea is to find mental representations, and find
differencies and similarities
 Textbooks are analyzed using conceptual maps
 Interesting but not my thing


Micro vs. Macro in books, might be useful
There’s not really any practical results
Teichert Melonie A. and Stacy Angelina M.: Promoting understanding of chemical
bonding and spontaneity through student explanation and integration of ideas
(2002)
 College students
 During the course two intervention discuss sessions were performed (on bond
energy and spontaneity)
 Research group and control group. Note: Controlling the variables is explained
carefully later in the paper.
 Idea of intervention is to integrate students preconceptions into class discussions
 Research group performed better in several tests of conceptual understanding
 This is more about chemistry but research is interesting
 There are some studies mentioned about the energetics of chemical bondings, but
those aren’t my area. Check references some day.
 Background-section includes some theory of preconceptions, integration of ideas,
characterization of initial ideas, integration of ideas and student explanations
o There might be some good references for my background theory?
 University of California
 Results are just what could be expected: the intervention group performed
significantly better
o I’m not sure if the research question is very good, because the answer is
kind of self-evident
o When students explain their conceptions, their understanding develops
 Article presents instructional method how to reduce common thermodynamic
misconceptions
 Article reveals how much preconceptions affect classroom learning
 Read discussion later again, it might be useful because it deals with interviews
Thomas Peter L and Schwenz: College physical chemistry students’ conceptions of
equilibrium and fundamental thermodynamics (1998)
 Absolutely useful paper, tables at least
 Hour-long interviews were conducted with 16 students in physical chemistry
classes (University of Northern Colorado)
 Chemical equilibrium is not interesting but there’s good stuff about the
thermodynamics. Only interesting parts are mentioned here.
 Introduction might have some good references, though they are mostly about
physical chemistry
 Purposes of the study
o Identify, classify and characterize students conceptions and concepts of
thermodynamics
o After that, students’ conceptions can be compared with those of experts
(as expressed in textbooks)
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

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o Is students’ performance in tests possible to predict by the quality of
his/her conceptions
Interviews are described well
o Several questions related to the chemical reaction in the piston-cylinder
system were asked in the interviews
o Qualitative descriptions and explanations
Contents (interesting me)
o The first law and reversibility
o Heat
o Work
o Enthalpy
o The second law and entropy
Responses were rated from 0 to 5 by two experts to find how well those match an
response derived from physical chemistry textbook
Table 2 tells themes that are used to classify answers, tables 4 and 5 present some
prevalent misconceptions
o Six themes (from a to f). Two based on everyday language or experience.
Three based on confusion of concepts, one based on inability to express
any idea about the concept
Nice way to present how common misconceptions are
Table 4, alternative conceptions about the first law (from the most common to the
least common)
o The fundamental equation is not applied (is this a mistake? I don’t think
so)
o Reversibility is not understood
o Reversible change is described using incorrect terms
o No heat occurs under isothermal conditions
o Reversible change is inaccurately related to equilibrium
o Heat is energy added to something
o The enthalpy change is the same as internal energy change
o Misinterpretation of energy conservation (aka. The internal energy of
system stays constant)
Table 5, alternative conceptions about the second law
o The fundamental equation is not mentioned (Is this a mistake?)
o Idea that entropy of the system must increase
o The second law cannot be remembered
o Some real chemical changes are reversible
Conclusions
o Note: These are about chemistry
o Undergraduate students have difficulties with fundamental concepts that
have been covered multiple times
o Author tells how these could be taken into account
 Lecturer should know the conceptions of the class
 It should be considered if lectures should be supplied with other
teaching strategies

Bachelor studies should be modified so that the major conceptual
problems are addressed all the time
o Use of everyday language can be good or bad thing
o Instructors may overestimate their students
o Six themes mentioned and tabulated in the article could might be useful
for instructors when trying to address alternative conceptions
Thomaz Marilia, Malaguias I. M. and Valente M. C.: “An attempt to overcome
alternative conceptions related to heat and temperature”(1993)
 Nothing new in backgrounds
 Secondary school students
 The study
o Two secondary school teachers were introduced to the issue of alternative
conceptions
 Literature review and discussions
o Diagnostic questionnaire designed was given to students
 Other teacher’s class worked as an control class
 Students were supposed to make a choice and reason it
o Based on analysis of questionnaire, teaching model was developed and
implemented in classes
o Post-test was designed
o Lessons were video recorded and analyzer later
o This cycle was done again next year -> results presented in the paper
 It was notified that thermal equilibrium is not understood in the pre-test, though it
is important to understand temperature and heat -> It was chosen to be a central
concept from which all the others would appear
 There’s really some pedagogical theories included (development model of the
adoption process)
o Five stages needed to understand new concept
 Table 2 summarizes finding pretty well, I think. Some examples:
o Idea of thermal equilibrium is understood much better after experimental
teaching
o So is idea of heat or cold as substance in objects
o Some ideas went to worse direction in the control group
o Before teaching, none of the students could present scientifically accepted
idea of heat and temperature, when asked to explain to another person
those concepts. After teaching 66,67% of experimental group could do
that, none from the control group.
o Concept of temperature in microscopic terms seems to difficult to
assimilate
 Very encouraging results
 Teachers though this very fruitful
 There’s one very good point: co-operation with secondary level and university
teachers! (not much here, but it was totally useful)
 Some examples of used items in appendix
Towns Marcy Hamby and Grant Edward R. : “I believe I will go out of this class
actually knowing something”: Cooperative learning activities in physical chemistry
(1997)
 Cooperative learning sessions - Friday discussions - were tested in the course of
graduate-level thermodynamic course
 Big list of references related to cooperative learning
 Idea was to find out what these Friday sessions meant to students
 Development of these sessions is described profoundly (maybe no useful for me)
 Findings:
o Students believed that their conceptual understanding of physical
chemistry had improved
o Sessions helped students towards more meaningful learning strategies
o Those helped students with interaction skills
o Students said that sessions forced them to understand materials instead of
memorizing them
o Actually these are what students think, it hasn’t been tested (but probably
they are right)
o Students said that topics must be understood so you can teach others
o Some people felt anxious in sessions
 Nice paper but conceptual change is not tested anyhow
Trumper Ricardo: A longitudinal study of physics students’ conceptions on energy
in pre-service training for high school teachers (1998)
 Paper from Israel
 This is about forth-coming teachers. Could be useful because we have those too
 There are students’ and teachers’ conceptions about energy listed in this paper
 Find the paper of Trumper (1996), conceptions of forth-coming teachers
o They are mostly focused on human
o Alternative conceptions when describing physical situations, instead of
scientific concepts
o Idea that energy is a concrete entity, not an abstract idea
o Energy degradation isn’t accepted
o Confusion between energy and force
 How are these conceptions developed?
 The structure of their studies is described
o Basic courses
o They watch physics lessons and practice some teaching, and later teach in
secondary school
o During third and fourth years they study physics and didactic of physics
 Two-part written questionnaire was presented for students on the first day of class
for four years running (four times?)
 Different conceptual frameworks are identified (not interested)
 Notifications of students’ conceptions changing
o Significant increase in students’ recognition that different bodies possess
or store energy
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o The idea of energy being abstract was developed somehow, but it wasn’t
understood “always”
o Understanding energy conservation was improved significantly
o Understanding energy degradations was NOT improved much
o Difference in recognizing energy forms was significant during years, but
it’s hard to say if it was improved (text and table are in contradiction)
Students’ views of energy
o Students’ idea that energy is present only if there’s movement was
decreased significantly
o Confusing force and energy was decreased, but still part of students
confused them
o Idea that energy is needed to do something increased
Discussion summarizes findings well. There are some implications
Very simple questionnaire, I’m not sure if it’s a really good one
Tytler Russell: A comparison of year 1 and year 6 students’ conceptions (2000)
 So much younger kids that no useful for me. And actually topics aren’t interesting
for me
 Check those references related to the interviews
Viennot Laurence: Experimental facts and ways of reasoning in thermodynamics:
Learners’ common approach (1998)
 10-16 years old students
 Once again, young students
Warren J. W.: The teaching of the concept of heat (1972)
 Author tells some history, and how Joule used concepts differently
 Old paper, maybe not useful but still worth of referring
 Examples from textbooks
o Heat and int. energy are confused
o Heat is confused with molecular kinetic theory
 Units are discussed, but those are really old ones
 Heat capacity is mentioned to me misleading
 148 students were asked to define concepts of heat and internal energy
o No one gave meaningful definitions of both these quantities
o Notifications
 Heat is a form of energy
 Not very deep analysis, but this reveals that problems have existed long
Warren J. W.: Teaching thermodynamics (letter) (1976)
 Some historical background for the concept formulation
 Comment on Helsdon (1976)
 There’s not much on this letter
Williamson Bryce E. and Morikawa Tetsuo: A chemically relevant model for
teaching the second law of thermodynamics (2002)
 This is really a chemical model, not so useful for physicists
 It could work, but it hasn’t been tested. Or at least there’s no evidence or actual
data about the students’ understanding
De Wos Wobbe and Verdonk Adri H.: A new road to reactions: Part 3. Teaching
the heat effects of reactions (1986)
 Chemistry
 Some notified problems
o Comparing amounts of heat
 Something about exco- and endothermic reactions
Yeo Shelley and Zadnik Marjan: Introductory thermal concept evaluation:
Assessing students’ understanding (2001)
 An instrument was developed to test understanding of 15- to 18-year old students
 Younger students, but this is still useful
 Five earlier findings are listed
o Explanations are related to specific situations
o Students’ explanations are inconsistent
o Real-life situations aren’t explained based on view learned in school
o “What” is understood easier than “why?”
o Students may make correct statements but still admit to be unclear
 Questions related to these conceptions are listed. Which is nice
 Check the references, those might be useful
 This instrument is designed to be useful in the first year of university studies as
well
 Questionnaire is based on real-life situations
 It was tested well
 There aren’t basically much of results or discussion, just the test introduced
 Is there a paper with more results?
Zemansky Mark W.: “The use and misuse of the word “heat” in physics teaching,”
Phys. Teach. 8, 295-300 (1970).
 Old article, 1970
 Maybe one of the first ones notifying what problems inaccurate language causes
in the area of thermal physics?
 Good examples about confusing internal energy, thermal energy and heat
 Thermal energy is said to be undefined concept. Is it?
 A great table where elementary processes are listed + heat, work, internal energy
change and temperature change