Lay conceptions of energy often conflict with scientific knowledge, hinder science learning and scientific literacy, and provide a basis for ungrounded beliefs. In a sample of Finnish upper secondary school students, energy was attributed with features of living and animate beings and thought of as a mental property. These ontologically confused conceptions (OCC) were associated with trust in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and independent of scientifically valid conceptions. Substance-based energy conceptions followed the correlational pattern of OCC, rather than scientific conceptions. OCC and CAM decreased both during the regular school physics curriculum and after a lesson targeted at the ontological confusions. OCC and CAM were slightly less common among students with high actively open-minded thinking, low trust in intuition and high need for cognition. The findings are discussed in relation to the goals of scientific education. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
CITATION STYLE
Svedholm, A. M., & Lindeman, M. (2013). Healing, Mental Energy in the Physics Classroom: Energy Conceptions and Trust in Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Grade 10-12 Students. Science and Education, 22(3), 677–694. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9529-6
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