Related papers: Consequences the extensive use of multiple-choice …
In many ways, the American learning system is unique in its reliance on testing using multiple-choice questions. Learning in physics, as well as in any other subject, is a context-dependent process. In this paper, I consider a broader…
The traditional approach to studying student understanding presents a question and uses the student answers to make inferences about their knowledge. However, this method does not capture the range of possible alternative ideas available to…
As part of large-scale assessment project at Texas Tech University, we studied the effect of problem format on students responses to quiz questions. The same problem was written in multiple formats and administered as a quiz in the large…
How students use mathematics in their physics classes has been studied extensively in the physics education literature. In addition to specific mathematical methods in specific physics contexts, possible effects of more general "cultural"…
In recent years there has been growing evidence that even after teaching designed to address the learning difficulties dictated by literature, many physics learners fail to create the proper reasoning chains that connect the fundamental…
Student learning of sound waves can be helped through the creation of group-learning classroom materials whose development and design rely on explicit investigations into student understanding. We describe reasoning in terms of sets of…
In recent years there has been growing evidence that even after teaching designed to address the learning difficulties dictated by literature, many physics learners fail to create the proper reasoning chains that connect the fundamental…
With an investigation into how students in a physics Master of science program make sense of their whole first year study experience in one of the years following a programme reform, we try to offer insights and advice to consider when…
The theme of the World Conference on Physics Education 2012 is "Context, Culture, and Representations." In this talk I present a brief outline of a theoretical framework that allows us to discuss these issues using a model based in…
Most students struggle when faced with complex and ill-structured tasks because the strategies taught in schools and universities simply require finding and applying the correct formulae or strategy to answer well-structured, algorithmic…
One finding of cognitive research is that people do not automatically acquire usable knowledge by spending lots of time on task. Because students' knowledge hierarchy is more fragmented, "knowledge chunks" are smaller than those of experts.…
We address previous hypotheses about possible factors influencing the gender gap in attainment in physics. Specifically, previous studies claim that male advantage may arise from multiple-choice style questions, and that scaffolding may…
Learning advanced physics, in general, is challenging not only due to the increased mathematical sophistication but also because one must continue to build on all of the prior knowledge acquired at the introductory and intermediate levels.…
We investigate student understanding of energy and momentum concepts at the level of introductory physics by designing and administering a 25-item multiple choice test and conducting individual interviews. We find that most students have…
In this paper we investigate the extent to which students' problem-solving behaviors change as a result of working on multi-faceted, context-rich problems. During the semester, groups of two to three students work on several problems that…
Education is a goal-oriented field. But if we want to treat education scientifically so we can accumulate, evaluate, and refine what we learn, then we must develop a theoretical framework that is strongly rooted in objective observations…
Student content knowledge and general reasoning abilities are two important areas in education practice and research. However, there hasn't been much work in physics education that clearly documents the possible interactions between content…
In the symposium contributions we discuss research in physics education and the consequences of its results for physics teaching. The symposium presents four different aspects of physics teaching and learning, but all of them have…
Interacting many-body physical systems ranging from neural networks in the brain to folding proteins to self-modifying electrical circuits can learn to perform diverse tasks. This learning, both in nature and in engineered systems, can…
The ability to make decisions based on data, with its inherent uncertainties and variability, is a complex and vital skill in the modern world. The need for such quantitative critical thinking occurs in many different contexts, and while it…