Abstract:
Research about students’ understanding of energy in physics has revealed that students
have ideas about the physical world that are different from those accepted in the
scientific community. Nowadays, the effect of the language used and the teacher’s
verbal input during class instruction have been topics of research in the literature. This
research aimed at answering the following three research questions: What are the
construals of energy reflected in a grade eight physics teacher’s input during
instruction? How do students of grade eight interpret the language use of their physics
teacher while learning about energy? What is the relationship between students’
interpretation of their grade eight physics teacher’s verbal input and their conceptual
achievement? The sample of this study included a teacher of grade eight and her 27
students in a Lebanese private school. Data was collected through a pretest and posttest,
two semi-structured interviews, and audio recordings of the teacher’s verbal input
during the explanation of a unit about energy. The results of the study showed that
students use material like construals while discussing about energy similar to those used
by the teacher. Moreover, students interpreted the language use of their teacher as two
construal types: energy as material like or substance, and energy as ability to do work,
which defines energy as a conserved quantity, but not necessarily abstract. In addition,
results showed that students hold misconceptions about energy transformation.
