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A Modern Understanding the Origins of Students’ Difficulties to Operate with the Weight Concept

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Abstract

The study outlines historical evolution of the weight concept in physics and the currently employed ways to present this concept in physics course in intermediate — high school and college. The twentieth century changes in scientific method, science itself, social environment and theory of learning might have a direct implication in considering the way to define the weight concept. The article presents two alternative definitions. To facilitate the appropriate considerations a research effort was undertaken to investigate high schoolcollege students’ pertinent knowledge. The study shows that even after the advanced instruction (provided only to a minority of population) students badly assimilate apparent and true weight concepts and construct alternative knowledge in this domain. Students’ confusion could be interpreted as an evidence of a mismatch between the mental image of weight, students possess, and the gravitational weight definition provided by most English language physics textbooks. The article nominates the aspects in favor of operational weight definition which may improve students’ success in learning physics as it is understood nowadays.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science Teaching Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

    Igal Galili

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  1. Igal Galili
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University “La Sapienza” of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Carlo Bernardini , Carlo Tarsitani  & Matilde Vicentini ,  & 

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Galili, I. (1995). A Modern Understanding the Origins of Students’ Difficulties to Operate with the Weight Concept. In: Bernardini, C., Tarsitani, C., Vicentini, M. (eds) Thinking Physics for Teaching. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1921-8_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1921-8_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5786-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1921-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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