This paper describes a small-scale piece of research using concept mapping to elicit A level
students’ understandings of particle physics. Fifty-nine year 12 (16- and 17 year-old) students from
two London schools participated. The exercise took place during school physics lessons. Students
were instructed how to make a concept map and were provided with 24 topic-specific key words.
Students’ concept maps were analysed by identifying the knowledge propositions they represented,
enumerating how many students had made each one, and by identifying errors and potential
misconceptions, with reference to the specification they were studying. The only correct statement
made by a majority of students in both schools was that annihilation takes place when matter and
antimatter collide, although there was evidence that some students were unable to distinguish
between annihilation and pair production. A high proportion of students knew of up, down and strange
quarks, and that the electron i…