Student misconceptions about light: A comparative study of prevalent views found in Western Australia, France New Zealand, Sweden and the United States

Science educators have continued to show interest in the identification and documentation of students' alternative knowledge frameworks as they relate to school science and learning outeomes. This interest has been highlighted in recent publications of scienee education journals sueh as the 1985 and 1986 volumes of Researeh in Seienee Education and conference proceedings such as Arehenhold et al. (1980), Helm and Novak (1983), Jung, Pfund and v. Rhoneck (1981). Although there is ample scope and need for researchers to expose student understanding in many unprobed areas, seienee educators are already shifting their efforts toward the utilisation of established data in terms of instructional design. The investigation reported here elicited views about the nature and propagation of light as identified by 13-16 year old students at one Western Australian secondary school. Initially, this paper considers the existing literature on children and adolescent understanding of light as reported from France, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States. Seeondly, these doeumented understandings are compared with those eneountered in Western Australia. The final aim of this study, which is not reported here, is to utilise this overseas and local information to plan instruction which takes into account student misconceptions to bring about conceptual change