Learning of introductory physics concept recognition and concept articulation by vocational-technical high school students

Thirty-three high school students who attended a half-day vocational-technical school and were enrolled in a modified Principles of Technology course engaged in a variety of course activities including teacher-made quizzes, a published objective test, and written projects about main topics of the course. Both in-class measures and written projects were analyzed for evidence of students' recognition of major concepts, articulation of concepts as presented in class, and articulation of concepts in the context of real-world examples selected by students based on their personal experiences in their vocational class or other everyday pursuit.;Results of analysis showed that students were generally good at recognizing instances of the main course topics. In addition, objective tests failed to demonstrate distinctions among theoretical and real-world explanations that were obviously present in written projects. There were distinct tendencies among the number and quality of ideas presented that differed by course unit and there was a strong tendency among students to offer completely correct statements of course concepts in theoretical explanation sections of written projects but not in real-world explanation sections. Furthermore, theoretical explanation sections tended to include a wider variety of ideas mentioned only once or twice each while real-world explanations tended to include a smaller number of ideas used over and over.;Students' lack of precision in explanations may be due to a lack of understanding about the main organizing principles of physics as well as the interference of misconceived beliefs with more accurate information learned in class. The misconceptions and misunderstanding of the nature of physics may be related to the organization of knowledge held by students as well as a lack of procedural knowledge. Students may know bits of information that are correct but be unable to access that information because they lack the procedural knowledge to organize and access that information to generate explanation of physics topics.;Suggestions and recommendations are made regarding the effectiveness with the study population of traditional, alternative, and research-based courses. The importance of using information from both written and objective assessment measures is considered.