Secondary and university students' expectations on learning physics

Many students have expectations on physics and physics learning different from those of experts, which affect their learning strategies or often prevent understanding of physics concepts. These expectations may change with the age because different curricular, assessment systems and learning environments are experienced at different educational levels. Thus, it is necessary to explore the way in which students' expectations on physic and learning physics change with their ages. In this study we investigated, firstly, how the initial state of students' expectations on physics and learning physics differed from the view of experts and to what extent the initial state of students' cognitive belief varied with age. For this, we modified and used the Maryland Physics Expectation survey developed by the physics education research group at the University of Maryland. In total 532 (male = 344, female = 188) Korean students were engaged in this study. Subjects were divided into 6 groups according to the level of school. Students' responses were rated as 'favorable' and 'unfavorable' in regards to those of experts. The responses were analyzed by the level of school and by the dimensions of expectation. Students' expectations on learning physics at all ages differed substantially from the experts', and expectations for the students gradually changed towards 'unfavorable' as the level of school became higher during secondary school. The expectations of university students, who were more oriented to science than secondary students, were relatively 'favorable', but still quite different from those of experts. Students showed relatively unfavorable expectations in independence beliefs about learning physics and coherence beliefs about the structure of physics knowledge among 6 dimensions. The everyday-life-link beliefs were the most favorable for junior-high school students and decreased as the level became higher, however, the effort beliefs were the most unfavorable for 3rd graders of high school. The results infer that instructors need to realize that students have belief about learning physics that are substantially different from those of experts, and that fact should be considered in the context of the students' level or educational environment.