Junior High School Physics Teaching Experimental Study, The Introduction Of Real-life Background

Researches on concept-forming and problem-solving revealed that junior high school students often employed false views from daily life when solving physics problems. According to constructivistic learning theory, new knowledge was gradually developed on the basis of existing experience. Therefore, in order to strengthen the students?understanding of scientific conception, and meanwhile to improve their interest in study, it is necessary to make use of real-life contexts to teach students on the basis of their experience. However, the former researches on context-based teaching primarily focused on the qualitative analysis, and did not solve the practical problems in teaching. This study aimed at providing positive evidence for context-based teaching for junior high school students. It fell into three parts. Part one examined through questionnaires and interviews the influences of real-life contexts on forming scientific conception. Part two investigated the diversity of students?interest in all kinds of real-life contexts through questionnaires. The last part discussed the instructional results of context-based teaching with different approaches ? inquiry style and demonstration style, compared with those of traditional teaching method. This study, choosing junior high school students as subjects and �'imple machine?as test contents, reached the following conclusions: ~JIA1E~F~ (1) The junior high school studei~ts were influenced by preconception from daily life when solving physics problems. Such influences had not significant differences between boys and girls, but significant ones between students with different physics base. It is easier for students with solid physics base to overcome the influences and form correct conception. (2) The students were affected by false preconception from life experience when solving both the physics problems in textbooks and ones connected with real life, but such influence was more significant in solving the latter problems than in the former ones. (3) It is significant that the junior high school students showed different interest in the various real-life contexts during study. Generally?speaking, concerning the real-life contexts students are more interested in ancient civilization, sports and cartoons than in household utensils and productive labor; boys had more interest in productive labor than girls, while girls had more interest in games and cartoons than boys. On the whole, girls are more interested in various real-life contexts than boys, and students with solid physics base are more i~nterested in various real-life contexts than those with poor physics base. (4) Considering how to help students solve inquiry style problems, the result of context-based teaching by using inquiry approach was significantly better than that of the traditional teaching method, so was the context-based teaching by using demonstration approach. However, given how to help students solve the traditional test problems, there was no significant difference between the results of context- based teaching by using inquiry approach and the traditional teaching method, and the result of context-based teaching by using demonstration approach is significantly poorer than that of the traditional method.