Abstract (eng)
Based on relevant literature on the field of didactics of, this thesis presents a principal explanation of students’ conceptions of the terms “artificial” and “natural” in the context of radiation. and offers support in deciding on how teachers can cope with those terms in the classroom. For this purpose, a clarification of what the terms “artificial” and “natural” mean in a philosophicallinguistic context is given, which poses the question about the origin as well as about shifts in the understanding of the terms in philosophical discourse until today. This theoretical analysis enables specifically to engage with the use of these terms related to radiation by the students und to clarify the question, whether students differentiate between “artificial” and “natural” electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, the empirical part of this thesis examines the actual representation of the terms investigated in physical language use at the student level. For this purpose, a suitable questionnaire was designed, which was used to collect answers of a sample of 128 Yearpupils of the ninth grade. In the subsequent content-analytical evaluation, a connectionbetween the data obtained and the desired clarification of the conception of the terms by the students was established. The students’ conceptions on electromagnetic radiation are, as this study validates, essentially influenced by everyday language and therefore, everyday-terms, like natural and artificial are finding their way into the technical jargon, the students are expected to learn in Physics education. This fact should in any case be considered when teaching physical content.