The Future of Education

This study examines pre-service primary school teachers' knowledge structures to explain free fall by using diSessa's (1983, 1993) "phenomenological primitives (p-prims)" framework. P-prims might operate in mind both individually and with the combination of other elements in the construction of concepts. For this reason, they can be described as the minimum cognitive elements that individuals use while explaining physical phenomena. A test for free falling objects considering different contexts (familiar-experienced, familiar-inexperienced, and unfamiliar-inexperienced) was implemented to 274 pre-service primary school teachers. The results indicate the role of familiarity and experience in use of cognitive elements.

References: diSessa, A. A., Gillespie, N. M., & Esterly, J. B. (2004). Coherence versus fragmentation in the development of the concept of force. Cognitive Science, 28, 843-900. diSessa, A. A. (1993). Towards an epistemology of physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2&3), 105-225.

Keywords: Free fall, phenomenological primitives (p-prim), physics education;