THE STUDY OF THE EFFICENCY OF LEARNING "FERMAT'S PRINCIPLE" FOR THE LOWER SECONDARY SHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the effect of learning "Fermat's Principle" for the lower secondary school students. The results of this investigation revealed the following points. 1) It is not difficult for students to learn "Fermat's Principle" on the basis of the way of thinking that light advances in shortest time. There are a lot of students who felt interesting and motivated to learn "Fermat's Principle". 2) To teach students "Fermat's Principle" is very efficient in terms of correctly solving the problem of "from air into water" and the problem of "from in water to air" in the case of refraction of light. 3) About 30% of the students who had learned "Fermat's Principle" played a central role to explain the reason of the phenomenon of refraction of light by means of "Fermat's Principle". Scholastic attainments of the students who had answered based on the "Fermat's Principle" were not necessarily high. Therefore, it can be said that it is one of the most effective ways to have the lower secondary school students promote their comprehension of basic concept concerning science by teaching "Fermat's Principle".