Students' misconceptions about heat transfer mechanisms and elementary kinetic theory

摘要

Heat and thermodynamics is a conceptually rich area of undergraduate physics. In the Indian context in particular there has been little work done in this area from the point of view of misconceptions. This prompted us to undertake a study in this area. We present a study of students' misconceptions about heat transfer mechanisms, i.e. conduction, convection and radiation, and about elementary kinetic theory.