CONCEPTIONS OF SOUND: West

Kalimantan Case

Leo Sutrisno
Dept. Math and Science
Education
Faculty of Education
Tanjungpura University
Pontianak, Indonesia
1. Textbooks’ presentation of the physics of sound
1.1 The generation of sound
1.2 The transmission of sound
1.2 The detection of sound
2 Teachers' knowledge of the physics of sound
2.1 The generation of sound
2.2 The transmission of sound
2.3 The detection of sound
3. Students' pre-conceptions about sound
3.1 The generation of sound
3.2 The transmission of sounds
3.3 The medium of the transmission of sound
3.4 The velocity of sound
3.5 Light velocity vs sound velocity
3.6 The night phenomena of sound transmission
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 3.7 The sound of thunder
3.8 The loudness of sound
3.9 The Doppler Effect
3.10 The effect of the gravitational force on sound

List of figures
Figure 3.1 A model of the transmission of sound

List of Tables
Table 3.1 Percentages of students who held different ideas
from scientists' ideas related to sound phenomena

Table 3.2 Distribution of χ2 values of each sound

phenomenon by students' achievement, gender, and

ethnic group

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 This presentation discusses concepts of sound. The
concept as presented in Indonesian senior high school textbooks
will be the first. Although it is hoped that teachers' conceptions
would be consonant with scientists' conceptions, it would be
valuable to examine this assumption. As a focus for the
discussion, students' ideas about sound before they have been
taught (students' pre-conceptions) at secondary level will be
presented in detail.

1. Textbooks' presentation of the physics of

sound
Up to the middle of 1990s, textbooks are of great concern
in West Kalimantan. They are relatively expensive and not readily
available in some places. Most book stores are located in the
cities and distributed by the Ministry of Education and
Culture. These books are collectively called buku paket.
Originally these books were intended to accompany the
dissemination of the new curriculum in 1975 and there
was no revision. It was compulsory for schools to use
these books even if they were unable to provide a book
for each student. In such schools teachers carried the
books from one class to another, so most students were
only able to read buku paket during class time. At
secondary school level, the buku paket of physics is
Energi, gelombang aan meaan (EGM) [Energy, wave and
field]. Some contributing authors were university and
college lecturers and others were school teachers.
There are two other physics textbooks which are
available in several book stores: Buku Pelajaran Fisika
vntuk sMA (the General Senior High School physics
textbook] written by Widagdo Mangunwiyoto, and
Penuntun Pelajaran Fisika berdasarkan kurikulum 1984
untuk SMA [the General Senior High School physics guide
book based on the Curriculum - 1984], written by
Kamajaya and Suardhana Linggih.

1.1 The generation of sound

No one textbook gives an entirely clear definition of

sound. Mangunwiyoto writes "sound is a kind of

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disturbance which can be detected by ears" (p.34) - bunyi
adalah jenis usikan yang dapat diditeksi oleh telinga. The
word usikan has been used in the previous chapter to
describe an up and down movement of the surface of
water (ripples) when something is dropped. The following
sentences do not elaborate. So students may still not
have a clear idea of what sound is. EGM and Kamajaya's
books do not provide a satisfactory definition of sound.
These two books begin by describing the source of sound as "a
vibrating thing". To convince them, readers are asked to stick their
finger on their throat while speaking, so they can feel vibrations.
The limits of the auditory area are given as between 20 Hz and
20,000 Hz and EGM reminds readers that each person has a
different threshold of hearing: for elderly people, the auditory
band becomes narrow, and they may not be able to hear even the
song of crickets.

1.2 The transmission of sound

At the beginning of the section on "the medium of sound"

EGM states that "in order for sound to be heard, a vibration must
reach the ears. So a medium for transmission is needed" (p.54).
Similarly, Mangunwiyoto says "in order for sound to be heard, a
medium which transfers a sound from its source to the ear is
needed" (p.35). These statements are not entirely adequate
answers to the question of why a medium of sound is needed.
There is no attempt to relate a longitudinal mechanical wave and
the medium of transmission. The types of media of the
transmission are mentioned indirectly, for example, "sound can
travel through liquids as (EGM, p.54), "gases (air in general),
liquids of sound" (Mangunwiyoto, p.35), or "in gases, sound wave
is a longitudinal wave" (Kamajaya)
There is no discussion of the differences in the velocity of
sound in different media. There is also no explicit comparison of
the velocity of light and that of sound.
In relation to the transmission of sound at night, EGM says
that as a consequence of the velocity of sound in gases being the
square of the absolute temperature, in daytime sound will be
refracted upward and at the night it will be refracted downward.
Thus sound would be heard more clearly at night than in the
daytime. A similar account is given by Mangunwiyoto.
The three books take a similar line on the reflection of
sound: "in the same way as with waves, sound can be reflected"
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 (EGM, p.58). This statement may lead students to believe that
sound is not a kind of wave.
All books define resonance as a vibration which follows
another vibration. The condition for resonance is given as when
the frequency of the two vibrations are the same or one a multiple
of the other. However, they omit to say that something only
vibrates with its own natural frequency. Thus, they do not give an
adequate explanation of why resonance does not occur at any
frequency.
The loudness of sound which is determined by the
amplitude of the vibration is presented in Kamajaya's book and in
EGM. Mangunwiyoto suggests another factor: the distance
between the source and the listener. None relate loudness to the
transfer of energy.

1.3 The detection of sound

EGM and Kamajaya's books discuss activity in the human

ear when there is a sound entering the ear canal as follows:
• The outer part of the ear collects waves of sound and transfers
them into the eardrum ... the stimuli, then, are transfered to the
brain, and so we hear the sound (EGM, p.82).
• Ears change and increase the fluctuation of the air pressure to
become a wave of sound. This wave, which has been received by
eardrums, is changed into an electric signal and transfered to the
brain (Kamajaya, p.61).
These passages do not give any indication of how
the eardrums behave when sounds reach them, except
that eardrums transfer the sound to the inner part of the
ear or change the sound into an electric signal. Thus, they
could lead to misunderstanding among students.
The Doppler Effect is presented in a similar way.
The mathematical approach is used. Students who try to
solve problems using a diagram by placing the source to
the right side of observer would find difficulty. Confusion
may also occur if students use the usual convention of the
positive sign for the movement to the right and the
negative sign for the movement to the left.
Summing up, there are many inappropriate
explanations presented in Indonesian text books, which
may contribute to misunderstandings.

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 2. Teachers' knowledge of the physics of
sound
It is rather difficult to examine teachers' knowledge
directly by administering a set of tests. Not only did the
investigator lack the authority for doing this but also teachers
could be unwilling to take part in an exercise which might reveal
their inadequacies.
There were several physics teachers enrolled in an in-
service training program who were willing to participate in the
investigation. They were seven junior high school teachers and
five senior high school teachers. It is believed that this sample
may not be a representative sample. However, they share
common academic backgrounds with their colleagues in that they
did not have major studies in either physics or physics education.
Nine common students' ideas which are reported in
Section 3.3 were given to the teachers for comment. Teachers'
comments then are examined in the following sections.

2.1 The generation of sound

Most junior high school teachers agreed with the students'

ideas that "sound can be generated by striking one object with
another".
This explanation is correct, but it should be remembered
that there are many other sources of sound such as flute,
trumpet, or musical stringed instruments which can produce
sound without being struck. (Teacher no.2). Sound is the result of
vibration ... it is not because one thing strikes another. (Teacher
no.6).
One of them gave a rather different comment. “Although
we may strike a table powerfully, the sound would not be heard
clearly if the listener is very far away. (Teacher no.7).
All the senior high school teachers believed that striking
one thing on another will cause vibration, and a vibrating object
will produce sound. There were many explanations of the
limitation of human ears to detect sound. These were: the
distance between the source and the listener, and the human ear
itself. There was, however, no attempt to relate to the sensitivity
of the ear, the frequency of sound, and the sensitivity of age.

2.2 The transmission of sound

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 Only one of the junior high school teachers disagreed with
the student's idea that sound is carried by waves which is similar
to a “person being carried by a bus".

His comment is: “If the transmission of sound can be

viewed as a person who is carried by a bus the medium of sound
would move from one place to another. This is not true. Particles
of the medium vibrate rather than move from one place to
another”. (Teacher no.5)
Although they believed that sound is transmitted as a
wave, they believed that sound can be separated from the wave.
The wave is a carrier for sound. Only one junior high school
teacher agreed with the statement that "the velocity of sound in
air is hiqher than in the water “because air particles are freer to
move than water particles".
Although the others did not agree with this students' idea,
their reasons were varied. For example, teacher no.8 suggested
that the particle movement is not a factor which influences the
velocity of sound, and teacher no.ll believed that the energy of
sound in water is higher than in air.
All teachers disagreed with the similar belief that "the
sound of thunder which is heard on the earth consists of several
similarsounds produced by successive collisions in the air".
• It is not successive collisions but it is a sudden air explosion due
to the electric charges as they move from one place to another.
(Teacher no.8)
One junior high school teacher agreed that "increasing the
loudness of sound will increase e the velocity of the sound,
because a loud sound can be heard far away", Others believed
that loudness is correlated with amplitude and the distance
between the source and the listener.
• This students' idea may be based on their experiences in
everyday life. The louder its sound the higher is the speed of a
motorcar. The sound of a supersonic aero-plane is even louder
than an ordinary aero-plane". (Teacher no.9)

Two junior high school teachers did not fully agree with the
statement "because there is no sunlight at night sound can be
heard from far away".
• It is not completely true .... It depends on the nature of the source
of the sound. (Teacher no.7)

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• At night, air particles become close to each other. It is known that
the closer the medium is the more difficult it is to pass through it.
(Teacher no.6)

All senior high school teachers agreed but they gave

further explanations which were similar to scientists' conceptions.
They related sunlight to the air temperature and the transmission
of sound waves.

2.3 The detection of sound

All teachers accepted the first sentence in the following
statement "the sound of a siren will qet louder and hiQher as an
ambulance is_aaproachina a listener. This is because the number
of air particles which have to be passed through decreases".
There were several different comments on the second sentence
such as
• It depends on the loudness. (Teacher no.7)
• It is due to the increasing velocity. (Teacher no.3)
• It is because the distance becomes less and less (Teacher
no.2)

No one of them explained the effect of the movement of

the ambulance on the frequency of the sound that was heard.
Most teachers did not agree with the statement that "when
a sound wave reaches the eardrum the eardrums will vibrate".
They believed that vibration of the eardrums is due to resonance.
• The eardrums resonate to the incoming sound. (Teacher no.2)
A similar comment was given by teachers no.3, 4 and 7.
Other teachers viewed things differently.
• It is because the sound wave presses the eardrums back and
forth. (Teacher no.5)
• The energy of the incoming sound vibrates the air particles inside
the outer part of ears, they transfer this energy to the eardrums.
(Teacher no.ll)
In summary, there are some differences between teachers'
conceptions and scientists' conceptions. This is likely to be due to
their comparatively limited educational background. Only one of
them had graduated from the Teacher Training Institution (IKIP)
with specialisation in physics and mathematics education. The
others had graduated from colleges or even General Senior High
schools (SMAs), without physics courses as a major subject.
However, because of the lack of physics teachers they are
26
expected to teach physics at their schools. This is how they came
to be enrolled in the in-service program.

3 Students' pre-conceptions about sound

There are many approaches which can be used to prompt
students' knowledge. However, because the method of
investigation was based on half-hour recorded interviews and
the focus of the investigation was students' pre-conceptions
prior to instruction the Experiential Gestalt of Causation (EGC)
approach was used.
There were ten topics related to sound chosen for
investigation. These are the generation of sound, the
transmission of sound, the medium of transmission, the velocity
of sound, light velocity vs sound velocity, the night phenomenon
of sound, the sound of thunder, the loudness of sound, the
Doppler effect, and the effect of the gravitational force on
sound. The following sections deal with these topics.
One hundred first year General Senior High School (SMA)
students participated in this investigation. Subjects were chosen
by their school principals. Thus it is understood that subjects are
not equally distributed among schools, ethnic background, gender
nor achievement.
Based on schools' reports, the students could be grouped
into high (29); medium (37), and low (44) achievers. Fifty-six
students were male and forty-four female. Their fathers' ethnic
origins were Chinese (38); Dayak (21) and Malay (44).

3.1 The generation of sound

The first part of the interview was focused on how students

could generate sound, the relationship between sound and
vibrations,and the limits of audible sound.
There are two Indonesian words - suara and bunyi - which
refer to sound. Suara is usually for living things (voice) and bunyi
is for sound in general. However, many students used these
words interchangeably.
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 Some English translations are extracted as follows:
(I:Interviewer, P: Pupil)
I: How do you produce a sound?
P: Knock a door or table.
I: Another method?
P: Rubbing one thing against another.
I: What will happen if you knock this table? P: Sound!
I: What else?
P: ..(silence)
I: Put your palm around here (on the table). I'll strike the table ....
Do you feel that there's vibrations?
P: Yes.
I: Tell me the relationship between sound and vibration.
P: ...(silence)
I: Does a sound produce vibration or do vibrations produce a
sound?
P: Vibrations produce a sound. (Student no.99)

It seems that this student has some knowledge about how

to generate sounds. Another student (no.91) tried to explain how
to generate sounds by striking a table:
P: There is a force.
I: A force?!
P: Yes. Because if I am striking this table I am applying a force to it.
I: Do you believe that a force produces a sound? P: ...(silence)
I: Put your palm around here (on the table). I will hammer this table
.... Do you notice that something happens in your palm?
P: ...vibration.
I: Did your palm vibrate?
P: ... my palm and the desk ....
I: Is there any relationship between vibration and sound?
P: ...(silence)
I: Lets see .... Place this ruler on the edge of the table. Hold it firmly.
Pull down the end of the ruler and let it go .... When the ruler was
vibrating you heard a sound produced by the ruler, didn't you?
Which one was coming first, vibration or sound?
P: Vibration could be the first.
I: Does vibration produce sound or ....
P: Yes, it does. (Student no.91)
At the beginning, he did not mention vibration, but after
using several practical examples to prompt his knowledge it
seems that he understood the relationship between vibration and
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 sound. There were many students who need to be prompted as
these two students were. They also believed that there is a limit
to audible sounds by saying that human ears are unable to hear
all kinds of sounds.
Some other students did not recognize this limit. The
following extracts illustrate this point:
I: Can we hear all kinds of sound produced by vibration?
P: I don't know. We may be able to. (Student no.73)
P: I really don't know.
(Student no.57)
P: It depends on our ears sensitivities. Some elderly people cannot
hear sounds as we can. (Student no.88)

The response of student no.88 is difficult to classify. It is

not clear whether he really knows the limit of audible sounds or
not. The following extract is also difficult to classify.
I: How can you produce a sound?
P: Striking anything strongly. I. Why?
P: ... Because if I strike something strongly the air around this thing
will be split. A sound will occur when these air layers collide one
against the other. (Student no.57)

All responses fell into two groups. The first group consists
of students' responses which indicate that sound is generated by
vibration (77%). The second group consists of those which do not
(23%).

3.2 The transmission of sounds

The following conversations were dealing with the

transmission of sound. The conversation was started, usually, by
asking whether or not the student could hear a sound which came
from outside the room where the interview was being conducted.

29
 Figure 3.1 A model of the transmission of sound

The interviews reveal three types of students' ideas. The

first group believed that sounds travel as waves (7%). The second
group believed that sound is carried by waves (57%), and the
third group believed that sound is carried by wind (36%). Some
students' explanations are difficult to classify.

3.3 The medium of the transmission of sound

Some students believed that sound can travel through air

and water but not through solids, because "there is no air in
solids".
There are other students who believed that sound can
travel through either air (gases), water (liquids) or wood or iron
(solids). Thirty-six percent of students believed that sound can
only travel through air. Twenty percent believed that sound can
pass either through air and water, and another twenty percent
through air and iron. The rest (24%) said sound is able to pass
through air, water and wood or iron as well.

3.4 The velocity of sound

Further conversation was focused on the velocity of sound

in different media. This conversation was closely related to the
previous conversation. For example, if a student said that sound

30
could pass through air and water as well, another question would
be "In which medium is it faster?" Such a question was not asked
of students who believed that sound can only pass through air.

In general, students' answers fell into two groups: those

who believed that sound moves faster in either wood or water
than in air (53%) and those who believed that the opposite is
true (13%). The rest, 35%, believed that sound can travel
through air only.

3.5 Light velocity vs sound velocity

The interview also covered the comparison of the velocity

of sound and the velocity of light. Over half the students (55%)
believed that the velocity of sound is less than the velocity of
light. However, their explanations varied.

3.6 The night phenomena of sound transmission

Almost half the students (49%) believed that quietness (no

competing noise) is the important factor in explaining why sound
can be heard clearly from relatively distant places at night.
Some students believed there was a combination of the
effects of the quietness and the absence of the sun (20%), or the
quietness and the coolness at night (19%), and even the
quietness and the absence of wind (10%), on the clarity of sound
at night.

3.7 The sound of thunder

Seventy percent of students said that thunder consists of

multiple collisions in the air which produces similar sounds
successively. The first collision produces the loudest.

3.8 The loudness of sound

Almost all students (92%) stated that if the volume of a

radio is turned up the velocity of its sound will increase. The
reason is as given was

31
• P: A loud sound can reach a distant place. So its velocity
should be high. (Student no.17)

Another student explained:

• P: A loud sound can be heard from further places than a weak
(soft) sound. Everything which has high velocity can reach a
distant place. Thus a loud sound should have a high velocity.
(Student no.45)

Five percent of students believed that the frequency of

sound increases and only 3 percent of students said that the
amplitude of sound will increase. None of them gave satisfactory
reasons.

3.9 The Doppler Effect

When asked the question: "What happens if they are on

the way home and were approached by an ambulance with the
siren operating", most students (72%) said the loudness of the
siren increases.

Other students (24%) believed the frequency of sound will

increase. Only a few students (4%) believed that its frequency will
increase as well as its loudness.

3.10 The effect of the gravitational force on sound

The final stages of the interviews investigated the belief

that gravitational force influences the transmission of sound.
Seventy-two percent of students have this belief.

Summing up, ten concepts related to sound phenomena

have been investigated amongst students who were yet not
enrolled in physics classes at General Senior High Schools in West
Kalimantan. The results indicated that most students held
different ideas from the scientists' ideas.

Table 3. 1 Percentages of students who held

different ideas from scientists' ideas related to sound
phenomena

32
 Phenomena Per cent

The generation of sound 77

.
The transmission of sound 93
.
The medium of sound 76
.
The velocity of sound 88
.
Light velocity vs sound velocity 55
.
The night phenomena of sound 90
.
The sound of thunder 70
.
The loudness of sound 92
.
The Doppler Effect 72
. The effect of the gravitational force on 72
0. sound

As seen in Table 3.4.2, χ 2 tests show that students of

different levels of achievement have different ideas about the
transmission of sound, the medium of sound and the night
phenomenon of the transmission of sound (at the 5% level of
confidence). Boys and girls differed in their ideas about the night
phenomenon and the sound of thunder (at the 5% level of
confidence). Ethnic groups differed in their ideas about the
loudness of sound (at the 1% level of confidence).

Table 3.2 Distribution of χ 2 values of each sound

phenomenon by students' achievement, gender, and
ethnic group

Pheno Achieveme Gende

Ethnic
menon nt r
No#
1 0.12 3.45 1.89
2 12.76* 3.40 0.80
3 13.07* 4.94 ` 4.55
4 0.16 4.23 2.50
5 0.22 0.03 1.78
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 6 15.59* 9.56* 6.62
7 1.55 5.23* 0.80
8 8.69 2.87 14.18**
9 5.85 10.84 1.67
10 3.66 ** 0.35 0.09
# Descriptions are similar to those in Table 3.4.1.
* Significant at 5% level.
** Significant at 1% level.

These findings suggest strong reasons to investigate

students' conceptions about sound after being taught in formal
instruction. As Hewson and Hewson (1984) noticed, students
come to science classes with "theories about how the natural
world works - less coherent, less precise, less extensive than
accepted scientific theories" (p.3). Terry, Jones, and Hurford
(1985) argued that these ideas "are not likely to change simply
because pupils are exposed to teaching strategies in which they
are given the physicists' expectation of the situation (p.162). The
next chapter deals with the development of the diagnostic test
based on the students' pre-conceptions as the instrument with
which to investigate the students' conceptions after attending
formal physics

Important terms
textbooks are of great concern in West Kalimantan
buku paket
Energi, gelombang dan medan
Buku Pelajaran Fisika untuk SMA
The generation of sound as seen in the text
The transmission of sound
The detection of sound
Teachers' knowledge of the physics of sound
The generation of sound
The transmission of sound

34
 The detection of sound
Students' pre-conceptions about sound
Experiential Gestalt of Causation (EGC) approach
The generation of sound
The transmission of sounds
The medium of the transmission of sound
The velocity of sound
Light velocity vs sound velocity
The night phenomena of sound transmission
The sound of thunder
The loudness of sound
The Doppler Effect
The effect of the gravitational force on sound

35