Children's Mental Models of the Free-fall of Objects

The purpose of this study was to identify children's mental models of the free-fall objects. This study examined children's prediction and observation about the free-fall of objects. The experimental procedure involved conducting interviews with first-, third-, fifth-, and seventh grade students. The interview had three phases: Prediction, explanation, and observation. During the prediction phase, the object pairs which varied on the dimensions of size, weight, shape, color were presented to students. The students were asked to predict what would happen if the objects were dropped simultaneously. During the explanation phase, the students were asked to explain how they arrived at their answers. During the observation phase, the students observed the free-fall of the object pairs and were asked to describe what they saw. The results showed as follows. (1) Fifth-and seventh grade students made more correct predictions than first- and third grade students. (2) The conflict problems, object pairs involving the dimensions of size and weight, were the most difficult for students to accurately predict. (3) With regard to observations, there was a non-significant effect of grade, indicating equivalence in the number of correct observations made by first-, third-, fifth-, and seventh graders. (4) The conflict problems were the most difficult for students to correctly observe. (5) First- and third grade students showed a significant difference between prediction and observation about the free-fall of objects. However. no difference was found in the fifth- and seventh grade students.