Exploring the parallelism between change in students' conceptions and historical change in the concept of inertia

This study investigates students' conceptions of inertia and compares these conceptions with historical change in the concept. A total of 736 students from four different age groups (i.e., age 11, 13, 15 and 17) participated in the survey. Questions in the questionnaire represent problems related to the concept of inertia which have been argued by past scientists such as Aristotle, Buridan, Galileo, and Newton. The questionnaire contained three questions, each concerned with one of the following applications of inertia: natural motion, the motion of a flying spear, and the falling motion of a stone on a moving ship. The results of the survey showed that there were considerable similarities as well as dissimilarities between students' conceptions and the views of past scientists. It is suggested that this kind of comparison studies would give useful background information on change in students' conceptions. To this day every student of elementary physics has to struggle with the same errors and misconceptions which then had to be overcome, and on a reduced scale, in the teaching of this branch of knowledge in schools, history repeats itself every year. (Dijksterhuis, 1961, p. 30)