Mathematical Tutorials in Introductory Physics

Students in introductory calculus-based physics not only have difficulty understanding the fundamental physical concepts, they often have difficulty relating those concepts to the mathematics they have learned in math courses. This produces a barrier to their robust use of concepts in complex problem solving. As a part of the Activity-Based Physics project, we are carrying out research on these difficulties and are developing instructional materials in the tutorial framework developed at the University of Washington by Lillian C. McDermott and her collaborators. In this paper, we present a discussion of student difficulties and the development of a mathematical tutorial on the subject of pulses moving on strings.