F EATURES www.iop.org/journals/physed An analysis of the historical development of ideas about motion and its implications for teaching Fernando Espinoza Department of Middle and High School Education, Lehman College, The City University of New York, 250 Bedford Park Blvd West, Bronx, NY 10468, USA E-mail: Fernando.espinoza@lehman.cuny.edu Abstract The persistence of students’ misconceptions about motion illustrates the enormous difficulty that teachers face in their attempts to overcome these with traditional physics instruction. An understanding of students’ ideas about motion and ways to incorporate them into successful instructional approaches can be obtained from an analysis of historical evidence about certain aspects of dynamics previously held. Inquiry-based instruction can proceed effectively within a context that provides familiar situations to students, where teachers have an awareness of the origin and role of difficulties that inexorably lead to misconceptions about certain properties of motion. What appears as a bewildering array of views about motion can make sense when seen with a historical perspective on the evolution of human understanding about dynamics. Introduction Misconceptions in mechanics and other areas of physics naturally hinder instructional effective- ness as well as the development of scientific literacy. Physics education researchers find it difficult to apply a model of learning mechanics due to the perceived lack of consistency in the way students use previously held concepts as they encounter phenomena in a new context, that of formal instruction. Two predominant views on intuitive physics that attempt to provide a coherent organization of conceptual interpretations have been those of McCloskey [1] and diSessa [2]. Both views contain valuable insights into students’ pre-instructional understanding of important concepts in mechanics. McCloskey’s view draws interesting parallels between students’ views and historically held views of motion; diSessa’s suggests a student’s cognitive view that, although lacking systematic coherence, nonetheless possesses ontological features that are viable in the acquisition of proper mechanics understanding. In other words, students’ pre- instructional understanding of certain properties of objects in motion can help them to learn the proper description of these properties in the context of Newtonian mechanics. One of the reasons for students’ difficulties in understanding mechanics can be attributed to an incompatibility between their perception of certain properties of motion and the scientifically appropriate view expressed by physics experts’ use 0031-9120/05/020139+08$30.00 © 2005 IOP Publishing Ltd P HYSICS E DUCATION 40 (2) 139