Physical science educators’ and learners’ perceptions on the content knowledge and conceptual understanding of graphs in algebra and kinematics

Abstract

Studies have been done on the students’ understanding of kinematics graphs and kinematics. Mathematics has also been investigated to be the language and tool of learning physics. This means it will be difficult to comprehend physics without sound knowledge and understanding of mathematics. The poor performance of undergraduate physics students has been blamed for their lack of high school learners’ knowledge and hence on their physical science educators. The study mainly investigated the perceptions of the high school physical science teachers on this blame and the poor performance of their learners ll in kinematics. A mixed method approach was used to collect data through a questionnaire and open-ended questions which were distributed to available sample of educators. After analysis, the results indicated that high school educators were also blaming their learners’ lack of proper algebraic prior knowledge and the learners’ inability to understand to apply and or relate to conceptual knowledge and problem solving in kinematics. The results also indicated that most learners, from their perceptions, lack the knowledge of algebra to use in kinematics, their ability to use and apply algebra graphs to solve kinematics graphs, lacked prior knowledge of algebra and kinematics from previous grades, passed the previous grades without conceptual understanding. The study concluded that that there is a need for intervention strategies for these educators, even in lower grades, to be able to assist their learners in their poor knowledge or the lack thereof and the inability to apply that knowledge and skill in comprehending conceptual skills in algebra and kinematics graphs.