Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity

This work is an attempt to see how physics undergraduates view the basic ideas of general relativity when they are exposed to the topic in a standard introductory course. Since the subject is conceptually and technically difficult, we adopted a “case studies” approach, focusing in depth on about six...

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Autores principales: Atanu Bandyopadhyay, Arvind Kumar
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: American Physical Society 2010
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/7d6321e204ec491c8ef8504f9f9a5804
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:7d6321e204ec491c8ef8504f9f9a58042021-12-02T11:53:14ZProbing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.6.0201041554-9178https://doaj.org/article/7d6321e204ec491c8ef8504f9f9a58042010-07-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.6.020104http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.6.020104https://doaj.org/toc/1554-9178This work is an attempt to see how physics undergraduates view the basic ideas of general relativity when they are exposed to the topic in a standard introductory course. Since the subject is conceptually and technically difficult, we adopted a “case studies” approach, focusing in depth on about six students who had just finished a one semester course on special relativity. The methodology of investigation involved a combination of text comprehension questionnaire and detailed clinical interviews. The aim was not to investigate the technical proficiency of the students, but to probe in detail the nuances of their conceptions of several basic points of the subject. Analysis of their responses reveals a large number of “alternative conceptions” of students in the domain. The study should be useful to physics education researchers as well as to teachers of introductory general relativity at about the senior undergraduate level.Atanu BandyopadhyayArvind KumarAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research, Vol 6, Iss 2, p 020104 (2010)
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
Atanu Bandyopadhyay
Arvind Kumar
Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
description This work is an attempt to see how physics undergraduates view the basic ideas of general relativity when they are exposed to the topic in a standard introductory course. Since the subject is conceptually and technically difficult, we adopted a “case studies” approach, focusing in depth on about six students who had just finished a one semester course on special relativity. The methodology of investigation involved a combination of text comprehension questionnaire and detailed clinical interviews. The aim was not to investigate the technical proficiency of the students, but to probe in detail the nuances of their conceptions of several basic points of the subject. Analysis of their responses reveals a large number of “alternative conceptions” of students in the domain. The study should be useful to physics education researchers as well as to teachers of introductory general relativity at about the senior undergraduate level.
format article
author Atanu Bandyopadhyay
Arvind Kumar
author_facet Atanu Bandyopadhyay
Arvind Kumar
author_sort Atanu Bandyopadhyay
title Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
title_short Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
title_full Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
title_fullStr Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
title_full_unstemmed Probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
title_sort probing students’ understanding of some conceptual themes in general relativity
publisher American Physical Society
publishDate 2010
url https://doaj.org/article/7d6321e204ec491c8ef8504f9f9a5804
work_keys_str_mv AT atanubandyopadhyay probingstudentsunderstandingofsomeconceptualthemesingeneralrelativity
AT arvindkumar probingstudentsunderstandingofsomeconceptualthemesingeneralrelativity
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