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Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation"
Includes bibliographical references.
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Physics
2015
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| _version_ | 1867614103711776768 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Takane, Mpeli Alice |
| author2 | Allie, Saalih |
| author_browse | Allie, Saalih Takane, Mpeli Alice |
| author_facet | Allie, Saalih Takane, Mpeli Alice |
| author_sort | Takane, Mpeli Alice |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13299 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:46:43.666Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Department of Physics |
| publisherStr | Department of Physics |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13299 Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" Takane, Mpeli Alice Allie, Saalih Tertiary physics education Includes bibliographical references. For the public to be able to participate meaningfully in debates regarding issues that are related to science and technology it is important that they are properly informed and that their sources of information are reliable. One source of such information are university science students and it is therefore interesting to find out what their views are regarding various scientific concepts. For example such an area of interest is that of using nuclear power for electricity generation, in particular the dangers associated with radiation. A reasonably correct view of radiation would be seen as an important part of having a meaningful debate. The present study aims to find out the views that a group of university students who are studying physics hold about radiation, in particular their immediate response to being asked to clarify what the term radiation means. However, the notion that students simply have conceptions that are unitary and static has been challenged by several Physics Education Researchers. Instead a view summarised as “knowledge in pieces” has been proposed in which it is suggested that much smaller units of ideas are brought together dynamically depending on the situation at hand and that context plays an important role in how students respond to questions. Thus, the thesis explores to what extent context plays a role in their responses by preceding the question with four different scenarios which are suggested as the contexts in which the question is being asked. In summary, the guiding questions for the present work are: (1) What do students understand by the term radiation and (2) To what extent do student response patterns depend on “textual priming”. The thesis is divided into two parts (1) a pilot study in which the methodology is established and (2) a follow up study (main study) in which the effect of textual priming on the responses is explored. 2015-07-02T08:45:11Z 2015-07-02T08:45:11Z 2014 Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13299 eng application/pdf Department of Physics Faculty of Science University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Tertiary physics education Takane, Mpeli Alice Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" |
| title_full | Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" |
| title_fullStr | Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" |
| title_full_unstemmed | Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" |
| title_short | Context dependence of Physics students' responses to the term "radiation" |
| title_sort | context dependence of physics students responses to the term radiation |
| topic | Tertiary physics education |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13299 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT takanempelialice contextdependenceofphysicsstudentsresponsestothetermradiation |