Engineering Students' Conceptual Understanding of Force and Motion and Personal Beliefs
Keywords:
Engineering Students, Conceptual Understanding, Force, Motion, Personal BeliefsAbstract
This study determined the conceptual understanding of force and emotion and personal belief of second year civil engineering and electrical engineering students in selected state universities in Eastern Visayas during school year 2015-2016. This study employed descriptive-correlational research design. Out of 200 student-respondents, 137 or 68.5 percent had a “low” level of conceptual understanding corresponding to a percentage score of 21-40. Fifty seven or 28.5 percent had a “very low” level of understanding with percentage scores between 41-60. Their overall level of conceptual understanding of student-respondents of force and motion was 24 interpreted as “low” conceptual understanding with standard deviation of 8. Of the 200 student-respondents, 154 or 77.0 percent were “highly rational”, followed by 46 or 23.0 percent who were “moderately rational” in their superstitious beliefs. As a whole, the student-respondents were “highly rational” as revealed by a mean value of 1.27 with a standard deviation of 0.33. Student-respondents’ belief towards learning Physics was significantly related to their age; and school; but not with sex; course; religion; family size and average monthly family income. As a whole, student-respondents were highly rational in their superstitious beliefs. Physics professors should improve their content knowledge about force and motion through pursuing graduate degree in Physics.
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