Interdisciplinary science takes an increasingly prominent place of importance in the modern world. This places progressively greater importance on adequate understanding of the topics that are foundational for multiple science fields. Thermodynamics and molecular kinetic theory (MKT) play such role for physics, chemistry and biology. However, rather than being taught from a unifying and cohesive perspective, thermodynamics as a whole is generally separated from other units in physics courses, and it is mostly focused on the ideal gas system. Consequently, although most students become aware of the particulate nature of matter already in the elementary school, and also study MKT within introductory and specialized physics courses, studies find numerous students’ misconceptions related to MKT. These findings broadly point to the lack of understanding of macroscopic events from the microscopic level - which is a pivotal perspective for all of the natural sciences.

Effective teaching incorporates explicit investigation of the incorrect ideas while building a proper physical model in parallel with addressing the pre-existing misconceptions. For this purpose, conceptual tests that detect students’ misconceptions are widely used in combination with tutorials and methodic handbooks for conceptual understanding.

The goal of this project is to investigate conceptual understanding of MKT in the context of solid-state objects, and among students in Croatia and the United States. This investigation is a logical continuation of our corresponding studies in the context of gases and liquids. Based on this and earlier investigations, we plan to develop a multiple-choice conceptual test, with distractors based on students’ answers obtained through clinical interviews, and to create a methodic handbook related to MKT with the goal of increasing the effectiveness of learning and teaching of MKT in accordance with contemporary achievements in the field of physics teaching methods.