EFFECTS OF MODEL-BASED TEACHING ON THE DURABILITY OF PRE-SERVICE PHYSICS TEACHERS' CONCEPTIONS OF LUNAR EVENTS

Abstract

This longitudinal study was conducted to determine the durability of pre-service physics teachers' scientific understanding of the Moon and some lunar events over an extended period after the model-based teaching. This research was a continuation of the previous study (Ogan-Bekiroglu, 2007) including determination of pre-service physics teachers' existing conceptions and their reasoning of the Moon and some lunar events, and examination of the changes in their conceptions after the model-based teaching. Participants of the previous study were given delayed post-questionnaire six months after their model presentations. Results of the previous study showed that nearly all participants developed conceptions consistent with the scientifically accepted perspective of many moon-related events after the model-based teaching. This study indicated that while a majority of the pre-service physics teachers continued to hold scientific conceptions, some of them had conceptual decay in their understanding of some lunar events