Michal Shemesh

Development of children's ideas on motion: intuition vs. logical thinking

The development of childrens concepts of motion was investigated among children from grade 4 (aged 9‐10 years) to grade 10 (aged 15‐16 years). A question relating to Galilean invariance and inertia was given to the children. Their responses were analysed and compared with those of university students. The two major categories of response were ‘intuitive’ (correct, but displaying faulty reasoning) and ‘logical’ (incorrect, but displaying logical reasoning). The proportion of responses in each category remained almost constant from grade to grade. The proportion of ‘logical’ responses among undergraduate university students who had already studied mechanics was not significantly different from the proportion of these responses among the schoolchildren.