An analysis of the historical development of ideas about motion and its implications for teaching

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.