Clerk, Douglas Philip PenicuikClerk, Douglas Philip Penicuik2014-03-142014-03-142014-03-14http://hdl.handle.net10539/14159Thesis (M.Sc.(Science Education))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Science, 1998.This study examines the possibility that language difficulties can be mistaken fcr misconception. A written test, consisting of twenty multiple choice items that had been used by other authors to diagnose misconceptions in physics was administered to a sample of matric level, English first language, South African students. A sub-sample of these subjects was then interviewed to explore the reasoning behind their choices. An analysis of the transcriptions of the recorded interviews revealed that in several cases, distractors were chosen by subjects who did not hold the target misconceptions the items were intended to diagnose, and that language problems, for example misinterpretation of the question text, were often the reasons behind the choices.enThesis