This study investigated student`s prior conceptions and evidence evaluation about Light and shadow. One hundred twenty six students were given Explanation-after-choice type questions to investigate student` prior conceptions and Choicd type question ...
This study investigated student`s prior conceptions and evidence evaluation about Light and shadow. One hundred twenty six students were given Explanation-after-choice type questions to investigate student` prior conceptions and Choicd type question to identify student`s idea about scientific method and characteristics od observation. Forty-four of the 126 students were interviewed to explore student`s evidence evaluation. Eighty students (63.5%) thought that the shape of material affected the shape of shadow but the shape of light source did not. Only 58.8 precents of all responses were evidence-based responses. Characteristics of evidence affected student`s evidence evaluation : student made evidence-based responsed to the accord evidence more frequently than discord evidence. Among evidence-based response to the discord evidence, 35.5% of responses were the case that student felt cognitive conflict or explored other variables by recognizing discord between his/her own ideas and evidence or distort the evidence. Student`s idea about characteristics of observation did not affect the evidence evaluation, but student`s idea about scientific method affected the evidence evaluation.