The Sources of Students' Misconception about Newton's Third Law

Newton의 제3법칙에 대한 오인(誤認)의 원인분석

It is very important for a teacher to know what his students know and what they do not; however, it seems not true for the most Korean secondary school science techers. This study tried to find students' misconception Newton's third law and the sources of the misconceptions. The researcher examined 609 students from middle schools, high schools, and college. In this study, students' understanding on Newton's third law were examined by school level, sex, stream (science and liberal arts), and departments. The following results were obtained by this study. 1. Students' understanding seemed to be improved continuously from middle school to university; however, their misconception (the most frequent incorrect selection of options of the test items) did not changed very much. 2. Students' answers were significantly affected by size of objects, existence of physical contact and the existence of life in the objects. 3. The answer were significantly affected by the source of attraction. 4. The answer to Newton's third law were affected by the magnitude of potential force which the target bodies have, state of motion, velocity, weight, friction and acceleration. This study could show the sources of the misconception on Newton's third law. The identified sources could be very useful for designing an instruction to teach Newton's third law in schools and universities.