New Perspectives in Science Education

Abstract

Students’ misconceptions have been an interest content in Science Education, because its structural function to implicite theories of individuals about physical world. We implemented an investigation about thermal concepts of secondary students of 20 schools from Central Region of Portugal being arranged in random allocation to the control and experimental groups. The data collection instrument was the Introdutory Thermal Concept Evaluation Test (Yeo and Zadnick, 2001). In the preliminary process analysis scores was used statistical software Bilog-MG and R, according modern psychometrics. Questions involves quotidian situations and do not demand calculations.  We present analysis of results of 2545 secondary school students (10th, 11th and 12th grade) with a view to developing a proficiency metric (by reference to the qualitative study) before the thermal alternative conceptions of students.

Keywords: Evaluation, Science Education, Thermal Conception