ABSTRACT
Previous studies have shown that secondary school students may have misconceptions about geological scientific information. By the end of secondary education these misconceptions may remain unresolved. As a result, students enter university studies and still hold them. Students of engineering, as for example civil engineering, are no exception. The aim of this study was to investigate and analyse misconceptions of this specific target group. A closed questionnaire was designed and given to 102 University students who attended the 2nd semester course "Geology for Civil Engineers” in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Patras. The questionnaire was designed and validated according to previous research findings and implemented through google forms that were prepared and given electronically to the students to fill them online. The participants completed the questionnaire on the principles of geology electronically due to Covid-19 conditions. The results showed that in some questions most of the students answered correctly while in others there were many wrong answers, which revealed their misconceptions in geology. Many misconceptions were traced especially regarding mineral properties like color and luster. An important observation was that a notable number of students confused hardness with brittleness and as a result they expressed their belief that hard minerals are hard to break. Gender and age differences were tested using appropriate statistical tests. In cases that there was a significant difference between the genders, women were the ones with higher percentage of correct answers. The results may be seen in relation to educational practices. © 2022 International Multidisciplinary Scientific Geoconference. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has reformed the teaching-learning processes in engineering education across the globe. Virtual classrooms substituted physical classrooms with the widespread use of online meeting platforms. The proliferation of virtual classrooms not only paved the way for accelerated digital transformation but also brought back some elementary issues in engineering education. Many engineering students face difficulties in comprehending the fundamental concepts in their courses during virtual learning. As real-world engineering solutions depend on conceptual clarity, misconceptions of basic engineering principles need to be taken seriously. If not identified, analysed and corrected with constructive feedback, misconceptions on various engineering topics can create challenging obstacles in learning. Against this backdrop, this research study introduces a novel solution titled Classification of Students Misconceptions in Individualised Learning Environment (C-SMILE). The primary objective of the C-SMILE system is to examine the usefulness of personalised automated feedback to students to enhance their conceptual understanding by pinpointing their misconceptions. Besides, we propose a method by which students' misconceptions can be effectively classified for every instructional objective in every engineering course using machine learning techniques. Our pilot-study results show that the proposed C-SMILE system can precisely classify students' misconceptions in engineering education settings. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This research aimed to describe undergraduate students' misconception about projectile motion after learning physics during the Covid-19 pandemic era. This research was qualitative research with a descriptive method. The subjects were 52 first-year undergraduate students who took physics courses. Data collecting methods used in this research were a test, questionnaires, and interviews. The test was taken from Physics by Giancoli with an additional question about certainty of response index (CRI). Data from the test were analyzed by categorizing it into lack of knowledge, knowledge of correct concepts, and misconception while open-ended questionnaires and interviews were used to help to clarify the condition. The test results indicated that 5.13% of students in lack knowledge, 28.85% the knowledge of correct concepts, and 66.02% in misconception. The questionnaire responses showed that students learned physics via online meeting with direct instruction model and ask-answer method, exercised with only applied problem (C3), and virtual practicum. The interviews showed that only a few of the students learned physics and responded to the lecturer during the online meeting. The results are that the majority of first-year undergraduate students are in misconception after learning physics during the Covid-19 pandemic era and need remedial learning about projectile motion. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.