The students' basic conceptions of buoyant force

Abstract

The conception of buoyant force is an advanced concept. If students need to solve the problem on the buoyant force, they have to understand basic concepts which are mass, volume, force, pressure, and density. For solving the problems about buoyant force, students need to make a decision and use many concepts to solve the problems. The difficulty of solving a problem about buoyant force is students cannot construct and link their own related knowledge to solve the problem. In this study, the purpose was to study students' basic concept in buoyant force of grade 10 and grade 11 students. The target group consisted of 18 students in Phangwittayayhon school. Two-tier multiple choice was used as a conceptual test in this research consisting of eight items. All of students were taught about the buoyant force concepts before doing the conceptual test. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistic. The results showed that more than 80 percent of students have many alternative basic concepts which are related to buoyant force including mass, volume, depth, pressure, and density even they have already studied buoyant force since they were in grade 9.