Needs Analysis of Hypothetical Didactical Design Integrating Newman^s Error Analysis and Learning Obstacles on Temperature and Heat Della Astri Widayani, Elvin Yusliana Ekawati, and Yulianto Agung Rezeki*
Master^s Program of Physics Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Jalan Ir. Sutami 36A, Surakarta 57126, Indonesia
*Corresponding Author: yarezeki[at]staff.uns.ac.id
Abstract
The progression of 21st-century education necessitates a shift from an orientation toward academic achievement to the development of 6C skills. This shift emphasises students^ thinking processes in learning. The topic of temperature and heat requires students to relate macroscopic and microscopic phenomena and to transform verbal, symbolic, and mathematical representations. Consequently, students frequently experience conceptual, procedural, and situational errors that can be classified using Newman^s Error Analysis (NEA). These errors should not merely be viewed as isolated failures, but also as being closely related to students^ learning obstacles. This study aims to analyse the need to develop a hypothetical didactical design based on the identification of NEA and learning obstacles in the topic of temperature and heat. The study employed a qualitative approach, including in-depth interviews with three physics teachers and questionnaires distributed to students, to identify learning obstacles related to the topic. The interview results revealed that teachers had identified various student errors, including conceptual misunderstandings, incorrect use of formulas, errors in mathematical operations, unit-conversion errors, and difficulties in solving word problems. Meanwhile, the three teachers stated that they had never used a specific framework to identify students^ errors and learning obstacles. Therefore, the teachers expressed the need for a learning design that incorporates identifying students^ errors based on NEA and learning obstacles in the topic of temperature and heat. This need was supported by the questionnaire results, which showed that 34.55% of students experienced difficulties understanding problems, 69.09% experienced difficulties at the transformation stage, 52.73% experienced difficulties with calculation operations, and 41.82% experienced difficulties determining units. In addition, the questionnaire results indicated that 57.41% of students experienced ontogenic obstacles, 55.84% experienced epistemological obstacles, and 31.82% experienced didactical obstacles. These findings indicate the need to develop a hypothetical didactical design integrating NEA and learning obstacles to support adaptive, anticipatory, and concept-oriented learning in temperature and heat topics.
