Investigation And Study On Phases Of The Moon Misconception Of Middle School Students

Pupils' knowledge and experience learned bring much important influence into them studying science and one that are inconsistent to science conception will obstruct pupils' comprehension, which has already been made known. Some foreign scholars on science education name the original conception "Misconception", which is not consistent to pupils' science knowledge and comprehension and is wide-ranging in mind. Misconception has the two features: extensive and obstinate. So it would affect pupils' comprehension of the right conception. In the field of subjects, the focus of all existing studies on misconceptions is on physics and chemistry. Is there misconception of pupils as studying earth science then? The author tries to begin studies with this question.Based on the summary of documents and teaching experience, phases of the moon misconception of middle school students is discussed in the article, because phases of the moon is one of the difficulties for middle school students' learning and it is the most serious field on misconception of pupils. So the author investigates phases of the moon misconception through the following four dimensions: work out a two-tier diagnostic test; discover what misconception on phases of the moon of middle school students; explore whether grade and gender will have significant influence on pupils' misconception of phases of the moon; find out the factors of misconception on phases of the moon by the data observed and put forward some teaching strategies to promote conceptual change of middle school students.The author designs "open questionnaire for investigating phases of the moon misconception of middle school students" and works out a two-tier diagnostic test prelims questionnaire on the basis of the data collected from the open questionnaire and interview. After the two-tier diagnostic test prelims questionnaire is tested, the author revises it on the basis of the coefficients of reliability, difficulty and distinction that are counted by SPSS 11.0 statistical software. The index including reliability, difficulty and distinction of the formal test is according to the standards for test.