Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems

This study investigates how students understand and apply the area under the curve concept and the integral-area relation in solving introductory physics problems. We interviewed 20 students in the first semester and 15 students from the same cohort in the second semester of a calculus-based physics...

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Autores principales:	Dong-Hai Nguyen, N. Sanjay Rebello
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2011
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6b56d8bc1be84d06af182fd88b8f3ac3
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:6b56d8bc1be84d06af182fd88b8f3ac3
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6b56d8bc1be84d06af182fd88b8f3ac32021-12-02T11:11:34ZStudents’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.7.0101121554-9178https://doaj.org/article/6b56d8bc1be84d06af182fd88b8f3ac32011-06-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.7.010112http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.7.010112https://doaj.org/toc/1554-9178This study investigates how students understand and apply the area under the curve concept and the integral-area relation in solving introductory physics problems. We interviewed 20 students in the first semester and 15 students from the same cohort in the second semester of a calculus-based physics course sequence on several problems involving the area under the curve concept. We found that only a few students could recognize that the concept of area under the curve was applicable in physics problems. Even when students could invoke the area under the curve concept, they did not necessarily understand the relationship between the process of accumulation and the area under a curve, so they failed to apply it to novel situations. We also found that when presented with several graphs, students had difficulty in selecting the graph such that the area under the graph corresponded to a given integral, although all of them could state that “the integral equaled the area under the curve.” The findings in this study are consistent with those in previous mathematics education research and research in physics education on students’ use of the area under the curve.Dong-Hai NguyenN. Sanjay RebelloAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research, Vol 7, Iss 1, p 010112 (2011)
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 Dong-Hai Nguyen N. Sanjay Rebello Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
description	This study investigates how students understand and apply the area under the curve concept and the integral-area relation in solving introductory physics problems. We interviewed 20 students in the first semester and 15 students from the same cohort in the second semester of a calculus-based physics course sequence on several problems involving the area under the curve concept. We found that only a few students could recognize that the concept of area under the curve was applicable in physics problems. Even when students could invoke the area under the curve concept, they did not necessarily understand the relationship between the process of accumulation and the area under a curve, so they failed to apply it to novel situations. We also found that when presented with several graphs, students had difficulty in selecting the graph such that the area under the graph corresponded to a given integral, although all of them could state that “the integral equaled the area under the curve.” The findings in this study are consistent with those in previous mathematics education research and research in physics education on students’ use of the area under the curve.
format	article
author	Dong-Hai Nguyen N. Sanjay Rebello
author_facet	Dong-Hai Nguyen N. Sanjay Rebello
author_sort	Dong-Hai Nguyen
title	Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
title_short	Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
title_full	Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
title_fullStr	Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
title_full_unstemmed	Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
title_sort	students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2011
url	https://doaj.org/article/6b56d8bc1be84d06af182fd88b8f3ac3
work_keys_str_mv	AT donghainguyen studentsunderstandingandapplicationoftheareaunderthecurveconceptinphysicsproblems AT nsanjayrebello studentsunderstandingandapplicationoftheareaunderthecurveconceptinphysicsproblems
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Students’ understanding and application of the area under the curve concept in physics problems

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