Teaching and Learning About Hypothese. Designing and evaluating a sequence of physics labs in upper secondary school

Abstract

The objective for this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of how to teach explicitly about hypotheses in upper secondary school physics. This is a part of the discussion on how to teach explicitly about scienti c inquiry, and deals with the problem of how to come to terms with common misconceptions about hypotheses. A sequence of laboratory sessions is developed and implemented in a rst-year upper secondary school class. The sequence aims to give the students opportunities to develop their conceptions of the hypothesis concept. This is achieved by drawing on the notion of constructive alignment and through a combination of interrelated teaching and learning activities: direct instruction, activities of scienti c inquiry and re ection assignments. Using data from students' de nitions of the hypothesis concept, work sheets, laboratory reports and interviews, the sequence is evaluated through analysis of the students' conceptual development, changes in their general approaches to scienti c inquiry, and causes for their learning. Five important aspects of the hypothesis concept are identi ed, and conceptual development concerning each of these are assessed. The degree of conceptual development is found to be dependent on the students' abilities to discern an aspect in di erent types of teaching and learning activities. Changes towards more re ective approaches to scienti c inquiry are noted among many students. These changes are strongly connected to a guided re ection assignment that relate to students' practical performance and that are built on extensive feedback. The results of this study suggest that the developed sequence can provide examples of design for e ective teaching about hypotheses and scienti c inquiry.