Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference

The concepts of the Coriolis and the centrifugal force are essential in various scientific fields and they are standard components of introductory physics lectures. In this paper, we explore how students understand and apply concepts of rotating frames of reference in the context of an example lectu...

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Autores principales:	S. Küchemann, P. Klein, H. Fouckhardt, S. Gröber, J. Kuhn
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2020
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/09dfc69e3719438f930fcf2f29f9e5d2
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:09dfc69e3719438f930fcf2f29f9e5d22021-12-02T15:29:52ZStudents’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.0101122469-9896https://doaj.org/article/09dfc69e3719438f930fcf2f29f9e5d22020-03-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.010112http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.010112https://doaj.org/toc/2469-9896The concepts of the Coriolis and the centrifugal force are essential in various scientific fields and they are standard components of introductory physics lectures. In this paper, we explore how students understand and apply concepts of rotating frames of reference in the context of an example lecture demonstration experiment. We found in a predict-observe-explain setting that after predicting the outcome prior to the demonstration, only one out of five physics students correctly reported the observation of the trajectory of a sphere rolling over a rotating disc. Despite this low score, a detailed analysis of distractors revealed a significant improvement in the distractor choices during the observation of the experiment. In this context, we identified three main preconceptions and learning difficulties: The centrifugal force seems to be only required to describe the trajectory if the object is coupled to the rotating system, the inertial forces cause a reaction of an object on which they act, and students systematically mix up the trajectories in the stationary and the rotating frame of reference. Furthermore, we captured students’ eye movements during the predict task and found that physics students with low confidence ratings focused longer on relevant task areas than confident students despite having a comparable score. Consequently, this metric is a helpful tool for the identification of preconceptions using eye tracking. Overall, the results help us to understand the complexity of concept learning from demonstration experiments and provide important implications for instructional design of introductions to rotating frames of reference.S. KüchemannP. KleinH. FouckhardtS. GröberJ. KuhnAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Physics Education Research, Vol 16, Iss 1, p 010112 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
spellingShingle	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999 S. Küchemann P. Klein H. Fouckhardt S. Gröber J. Kuhn Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
description	The concepts of the Coriolis and the centrifugal force are essential in various scientific fields and they are standard components of introductory physics lectures. In this paper, we explore how students understand and apply concepts of rotating frames of reference in the context of an example lecture demonstration experiment. We found in a predict-observe-explain setting that after predicting the outcome prior to the demonstration, only one out of five physics students correctly reported the observation of the trajectory of a sphere rolling over a rotating disc. Despite this low score, a detailed analysis of distractors revealed a significant improvement in the distractor choices during the observation of the experiment. In this context, we identified three main preconceptions and learning difficulties: The centrifugal force seems to be only required to describe the trajectory if the object is coupled to the rotating system, the inertial forces cause a reaction of an object on which they act, and students systematically mix up the trajectories in the stationary and the rotating frame of reference. Furthermore, we captured students’ eye movements during the predict task and found that physics students with low confidence ratings focused longer on relevant task areas than confident students despite having a comparable score. Consequently, this metric is a helpful tool for the identification of preconceptions using eye tracking. Overall, the results help us to understand the complexity of concept learning from demonstration experiments and provide important implications for instructional design of introductions to rotating frames of reference.
format	article
author	S. Küchemann P. Klein H. Fouckhardt S. Gröber J. Kuhn
author_facet	S. Küchemann P. Klein H. Fouckhardt S. Gröber J. Kuhn
author_sort	S. Küchemann
title	Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
title_short	Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
title_full	Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
title_fullStr	Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
title_full_unstemmed	Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
title_sort	students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/09dfc69e3719438f930fcf2f29f9e5d2
work_keys_str_mv	AT skuchemann studentsunderstandingofnoninertialframesofreference AT pklein studentsunderstandingofnoninertialframesofreference AT hfouckhardt studentsunderstandingofnoninertialframesofreference AT sgrober studentsunderstandingofnoninertialframesofreference AT jkuhn studentsunderstandingofnoninertialframesofreference
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Students’ understanding of non-inertial frames of reference

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