Abstract
Before, during, and after a class practice for force and motion at a public junior high school, we investigated how the practice and everyday experience affect the mechanics concepts of the students, using questionnaires and concept maps. The results are as follows: 1) Students treat the label of “force does not act” as a lower concept before the practice and as an upper concept similar to “force acts” after the practice. 2) Students, who maintain scientifically adequate concepts after the practice, treat both labels of “force acts” and “force does not act” as upper concepts and separate the labels associated with the first law of motion from the labels associated with the second law of motion. 3) It is difficult for most students to separate the label of “force does not act” from the label of “slowing down” in the practice. In their concept construction, the wrong everyday-experience-knowledge, in which the velocity of an object is slowing down when no force acts on the object, prevents the students from getting scientifically adequate concepts. Even for other students who temporarily have scientifically adequate concepts in the practice, the wrong everyday-experience-knowledge tends to reconstruct the MIF misconception after the practice.
