Assessment of Senior Secondary School Students Conceptual Understanding of Force and Motion.

ABSTRACT This project work was based on the assessment of senior secondary school students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. Four researcher questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. Two research designs were adopted for the study namely: descriptive survey and Ex-post facto designs. Two hundred and twenty two senior secondary two (SS2) physics students in seven intact classes from six senior secondary schools that were purposively sampled from the area of study constituted the sample for the study. Those seven intact classes were drawn through simple random sampling within the SS2 physics classes in each of the six schools. The instrument for data collection was Force Motion Concept Evaluation (FMCE) developed by Thornton and Sokoloff, (1998). This instrument was adapted by the present researcher. Data collected was analyzed using WinBUGS computer program, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test of independent samples. While WinBUGS computer program, frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, t-test of independent samples was used to test the null hypotheses. The results of the study showed that: (1) most of the Students responded to force and motion concepts using the impetus model (model 2) which is not exactly the correct model. (2) The nature of items determines the students’ choice of models. (3) Gender has a significant influence on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion in the direction of the female students. (4) School location has no significant influence on the students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion. The implications of the above findings as well as recommendations were highlighted.