Students’ Misunderstandings about the Energy Conservation Principle: A General View to Studies in Literature

This paper serves to review previously reported studies on students’ misunderstandings about the energy
conservation principle (the first law of thermodynamics). Generally, studies in literature highlighted student’
misunderstandings about the energy conservation principle stem from preliminaries about energy concept in daily
life. Since prior knowledge of students’ misunderstandings of scientific content knowledge is the first step in
preventing these misunderstandings, it is considered that such a study will provide an important source for studies
which aims to reduce or eliminate misunderstandings on the energy conservation principle.