Département de Mathématique, Section des Sciences et Technologies, Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Mbanza-Ngungu, Mbanza-Ngungu, Kongo Central, RD Congo
In this study, based on a sociogenetic approach involving 7 teachers and 182 fourth-year scientific students from 21 schools offering the scientific section in Inkisi and Kimpese, two cities in the Kongo Central province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the central question focused on identifying the main initial representational obstacles in kinematics among these students and their origins. As a result, it was noted that most teachers were unaware of these initial representations. In addition, the students had primitive, negative and collective conceptions, stemming from educational and cultural contexts, relating to the basic notions of kinematics such as motion (moving), time (duration), trajectory (distance), speed (rapidity), rectilinear motion (movement on a flat surface), uniform motion (fixed), varied motion (accelerated) and free fall (falling suddenly and involuntarily). There is thus a persistent and evolving contradiction between these initial representations-obstacles and the new knowledges that teachers have to transmit.
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