Why sound?
Many misconceptions and lack of knowledge exist about sound. Sound is heard and experienced everyday, but where does it come from? How does sound travel? It was these questions that led us to explore the thinking and understanding about sound.
formality
Using a variety of ages, we explored the understanding of sound. We carefully created 8 questions and ensured that each interviewee was asked the same 8, in the same order. This ensured quality data from which we could critically think about the understanding of sound.
Questions asked
1) "Draw a picture of what you think sound looks like?"
2) "Can you describe your picture? Why do you think it looks like that?" Clarification questions if needed
3) "Show spoon Listen to me tap against the table. Describe what you hear. Now, lean your head against the table and listen to me tap again. What do you notice about the sound?"
4) "Why do you think that is?" Clarification questions if needed
5) "Do you think you can hear sound under water?"
6) "Why do you think that is?" Clarification questions if needed
7) "Do you think you can hear sound in space?"
8) "Why do you think that is?" Clarification questions if needed
- We started with this question to engage our participants. With this question, we predicted we would see a variety of results. Sound is one of those things that we hear everyday, but rarely critically think about it. We think even less about what sound looks like.
- Participants were given a sheet of paper and a writing instrument to create their image.
2) "Can you describe your picture? Why do you think it looks like that?" Clarification questions if needed
- Follow up questions are asked after all of our content questions in order to show understanding. The goal of the follow up questions was to support us in finding patterns. We expected the answers to vary based on the drawings.
3) "Show spoon Listen to me tap against the table. Describe what you hear. Now, lean your head against the table and listen to me tap again. What do you notice about the sound?"
- The purpose of this experiment was to assess our participants knowledge of sound. Do our participants know why the sound is getting louder or can they merely identify that the sound is louder? This question asks students to identify their observations, it does not require them to explain why.
4) "Why do you think that is?" Clarification questions if needed
- This follow up question to the experiment shows us the thinking behind the experiment. Why does the sound get louder? Do our participants know?
5) "Do you think you can hear sound under water?"
- We expect most of our participants to know that they can hear sound under water, but why do they know this?
6) "Why do you think that is?" Clarification questions if needed
- We expect these answers to vary for the participants. We expect many people to refer to personal experiences and/or movies they have seen.
7) "Do you think you can hear sound in space?"
- We predict their to be many misconceptions with this question. Those that are not familiar or confident with the science behind sound will be stumped by this question. Knowing that none of our participants have traveled to space they have no personal experiences to rely on. Their only knowledge of space is going to be books they have read or things they have seen in movies and TV.
8) "Why do you think that is?" Clarification questions if needed
- Again, we are looking at why our participants responded the way they did. What is their rationale for their response. The why questions allow us to look at the thinking and understanding behind the content.