Analysis of students and teachers’ misconception on heat and temperature in Borena zone in secondary School, Oromia Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore students and teachers' misconceptions on heat and temperature. The study administered in six secondary schools from six Woredas (Moyale, Dire, Yabello, Dillo, Miyo and Dubulk) of Borena Zone in Oromia regional state from which 60 grade 12th natural science students randomly selected and 60 physics teachers purposively selected participated. To come up with this, twenty structured questionnaires and interviews were prepared and data collected from the participants. Mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage were used to analyze the quantitative data and the qualitative data analyzed thematically. Subsequently, these used to analyze the data by SPSS. The results of the study indicate that most of the students involved in the study are overwhelmed with misconceptions about heat and temperature. Specifically, about 76.99% of students and 69.67% of teachers were overwhelmed with misconceptions about the heat whereas 70.8% of students and 51.4% teachers of participated in temperature. The result of the study showed that the students and teachers expressed misconceptions, which challenges and obstacles in learning and teaching process. The school administrators and stakeholders need to prepare training for physics and science teachers focusing on what is a misconception and how we can manage it in a class to help students.