The effect of using the history of sciences on conceptual understanding and intrinsic motivation

In the last two decades, many researchers in physics education were interested in the concepts and students’ beliefs about light because the optics field has seen a tremendous development.

Terms such as misconceptions, preconceptions, alternative frameworks, children’s science, naive conceptions and so forth; are used to describe such beliefs (Blizak et al., 2009). In the present paper we prefer using the word “misconception”, because the student may be judged right or wrong, although a misconception is produced when people integrate new information, learnt at school, with previously held information resulting in the new knowledge being reinterpreted to correspond with everyday experiences (Duit, 2006).

Misconceptions about light in different countries have been investigated (Galili and Hazan, 2000; Şahin, 2008; Blizak et al., 2009; Anil and Küçüközer, 2010; Blizak and Chafiqi, 2014;…). The scientists have established that students come to geometrical optics (hereafter GO) lectures with misconceptions about optical phenomena derived from prior learning and everyday experiences.

In addition, the studies of post instruction students have revealed persistence and resisted changing misconceptions even after formal learning of optics (Goldberg and McDermott, 1986). Given that these misconceptions in GO hinder true understanding of scientific concepts, researchers have to inspect a new teaching strategy. Some researchers think that the applications of Technologies of Information and Communication (TIC) (Bell and Linn, 2000) and laboratory experiments (Tiberghien, 1999) are the best way to teaching light rather than learning abstract ideas given in regular and traditional instruction. Goldberg and Bendall (1995) showed that while more time is required for the computer learning environment for teaching optics than for traditional instruction, students had a positive experience and tended to be more actively engaged in the learning process.

Other scientists have used the history and philosophy of science to help students change conceptions (Piaget and Garcia, 1989; Dedes, 2005; Kousathana et al., 2005; de Hosson and Kaminski, 2007). Hosson and Kaminski (2007) developed a teaching sequence for students in middle school. They used a fictitious dialogue about vision. From the analogy between the effects of light and pain, dialogue describes a progressive construction of the concept of light as a stimulus of sight built by Ibn Al Haytham (Kitab al Manazir). These researchers showed that this sequence, which uses the history of science (HoS), has proven successful in terms of learning and motivation. Kousathana et al. (2005) suggest the addition of HoS in instruction to prepare teachers to anticipate students’ misconceptions and to motivate student to learn.

Piaget and Garcia (1989), also suggest that there is a parallel between the development of individual scientific thought and the development of scientific thought in history. In addition, Dedes (2005) has underlined the significant role of the HoS as a rich bank of ideas for the design of educational material in the case of light. It may help the students to discover the practices or the intellectual processes by virtue of which they could construct the conceptual changes. He has shown that positive results for teaching vision have clearly indicated the significant role of HoS in science teaching.

If students are not motivated in a subject, they tend not to make an effort to understand the meaning of concepts that are being taught to them (Lindahl et al., 2011). Also, Breen and Lindsay (2002) draw attention to the importance of distinguishing between general and specific motivation. It is possible that a student who is not motivated to learn physics, can be very motivated to learn GO.

In our country (Algeria), for the important number of students in class rooms, the traditional teaching strategies are employed alone for teaching OG in university. Even, these methods were not successful in conceptual change, they can not been given up and modern teaching strategies such as experiment and simulation are rarely used.. Thus why, other way should be explored.

As students’ intrinsic motivation plays an important role in their science learning achievement and conceptual change, the objective of this study is the use of HoS for increasing their motivation to learn OG. We show in this study that giving to the students a HoS approach, without excluding the traditional teaching, can increase students’ intrinsic motivation and help them better understand the concepts of the OG.

Research questions

Even if, the literature continue to affirm that using the TICs and experiments for learning optics give an appreciable result, teaching GO with transmitting methods cannot be neglected in our university especially in biology. We have large groups with an insufficient of technological and communications means. Also, in GO courses lecturers often cover a great deal of material in a short time.

Sure the history of sciences can help our students to correct their misconceptions, but the large number of students in the first year at our university and also the short times assigned to the topic of light, obliges us to ask this question: how to use HoS to change students' conception about light refraction, propagation of light and vision?

So, infusing a historical dimension can spice up interest levels, pique attention and promote motivation. The challenge is to see how this could be done judiciously without compromising curriculum objectives (Oon and Subramaniam, 2009)

We have chosen to limit this study just for; vision, propagation of light and refraction, for the reason that the HoS is very rich with interesting examples about them. And also, these concepts are fundamental for learning GO. Refraction phenomena include many aspects of optical phenomena. Furthermore, misunderstandings and misconceptions about “propagation of light”, "vision" and "light refraction" often cause difficulties for students in their examination on GO. So these basic concepts must be known very well.

Moreover, gender is a factor which is likely to affect students’ performances in science education. However, in this study we have chosen not to take in consideration gender differences, for the reason that the majority of students in our population are girls. Recently, Taşlidere (2013) showed that the applications of the concept cartoon worksheet to teach GO, has no significant effect of gender.

In light of the studies and ideas outlined above, the research questions of our study are twofold:

What is the effect of a teaching sequence using HoS approach on university students’ intrinsic motivation for learning GO?
What is the effect of a teaching sequence using HoS approach on university students’ understanding of GO concepts?
Is there any correlation between intrinsic motivation and students’ understanding of GO concepts?

Based on prior theory, we expect that HoS could improve the students’ motivation which could be in correlation with conceptual change.

The originality of our work comes from, to our knowledge, that no person has measured intrinsic motivation after the introduction of the HoS in the courses of GO. Also the effect of the intrinsic motivation on the conceptual understanding among university students in case of GO has not been studied before.