Spontaneous reasoning of graduate students

Investigations into students’ conceptions have led to the conclusion that alternative ways of reasoning coexist with those forms learnt in science classes at school. This paper presents a study of the persistence of such conceptions among physics graduate students. Results show that, for this population, the conceptions are the same as those which have been found amongst secondary course students. The topics which were selected were Special Relativity Theory and the Classical Theory of Collisions. Within these topics it was possible to identify some fundamental and common characteristics of ways of thinking.