Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics

Investigations related to expertise in problem solving and ability to transfer learning from one context to another are important for developing strategies to help students perform more expertlike tasks. Here we analyze written responses to a pair of nonintuitive isomorphic problems given to introdu...

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Autor principal:	Chandralekha Singh
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2008
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/2956684b507a40698cd92edd0deac2b5
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:2956684b507a40698cd92edd0deac2b52021-12-02T11:51:49ZAssessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.4.0101041554-9178https://doaj.org/article/2956684b507a40698cd92edd0deac2b52008-03-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.4.010104http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.4.010104https://doaj.org/toc/1554-9178Investigations related to expertise in problem solving and ability to transfer learning from one context to another are important for developing strategies to help students perform more expertlike tasks. Here we analyze written responses to a pair of nonintuitive isomorphic problems given to introductory physics students and discussions with a subset of students about them. Students were asked to explain their reasoning for their written responses. We call the paired problems isomorphic because they require the same physics principle to solve them. However, the initial conditions are different, and the frictional force is responsible for increasing the linear speed of an object in one of the problems while it is responsible for decreasing the linear speed in the other problem. We categorize student responses and evaluate student performance within the context of their evolving expertise. We compare and contrast the patterns of student categorization for the two isomorphic problems. We discuss why certain incorrect responses were better than others and shed light on the evolution of students’ expertise. We compare the performance of students who worked on both isomorphic problems with those who worked only on one of the problems to understand whether students recognized their underlying similarity and whether isomorphic pairs gave students additional insight into solving each problem.Chandralekha SinghAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research, Vol 4, Iss 1, p 010104 (2008)
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 Chandralekha Singh Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
description	Investigations related to expertise in problem solving and ability to transfer learning from one context to another are important for developing strategies to help students perform more expertlike tasks. Here we analyze written responses to a pair of nonintuitive isomorphic problems given to introductory physics students and discussions with a subset of students about them. Students were asked to explain their reasoning for their written responses. We call the paired problems isomorphic because they require the same physics principle to solve them. However, the initial conditions are different, and the frictional force is responsible for increasing the linear speed of an object in one of the problems while it is responsible for decreasing the linear speed in the other problem. We categorize student responses and evaluate student performance within the context of their evolving expertise. We compare and contrast the patterns of student categorization for the two isomorphic problems. We discuss why certain incorrect responses were better than others and shed light on the evolution of students’ expertise. We compare the performance of students who worked on both isomorphic problems with those who worked only on one of the problems to understand whether students recognized their underlying similarity and whether isomorphic pairs gave students additional insight into solving each problem.
format	article
author	Chandralekha Singh
author_facet	Chandralekha Singh
author_sort	Chandralekha Singh
title	Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
title_short	Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
title_full	Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
title_fullStr	Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
title_full_unstemmed	Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
title_sort	assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. i. performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2008
url	https://doaj.org/article/2956684b507a40698cd92edd0deac2b5
work_keys_str_mv	AT chandralekhasingh assessingstudentexpertiseinintroductoryphysicswithisomorphicproblemsiperformanceonnonintuitiveproblempairfromintroductoryphysics
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Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics

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