Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity

We analyze the development in students’ understanding of fundamental principles in the context of learning a current interdisciplinary research topic—soft matter—that was adapted to the level of high school students. The topic was introduced in a program for interested 11th grade high school student...

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Autores principales:	Elon Langbeheim, Samuel A. Safran, Shelly Livne, Edit Yerushalmi
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2013
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/a1c58e78c8b04738b351ee1d1f07d95d
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:a1c58e78c8b04738b351ee1d1f07d95d2021-12-02T11:53:15ZEvolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.9.0201171554-9178https://doaj.org/article/a1c58e78c8b04738b351ee1d1f07d95d2013-11-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.9.020117http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.9.020117https://doaj.org/toc/1554-9178We analyze the development in students’ understanding of fundamental principles in the context of learning a current interdisciplinary research topic—soft matter—that was adapted to the level of high school students. The topic was introduced in a program for interested 11th grade high school students majoring in chemistry and/or physics, in an off-school setting. Soft matter was presented in a gradual increase in the degree of complexity of the phenomena as well as in the level of the quantitative analysis. We describe the evolution in students’ use of fundamental thermodynamics principles to reason about phase separation—a phenomenon that is ubiquitous in soft matter. In particular, we examine the impact of the use of free energy analysis, a common approach in soft matter, on the understanding of the fundamental principles of thermodynamics. The study used diagnostic questions and classroom observations to gauge the student’s learning. In order to gain insight on the aspects that shape the understanding of the basic principles, we focus on the responses and explanations of two case-study students who represent two trends of evolution in conceptual understanding in the group. We analyze changes in the two case studies’ management of conceptual resources used in their analysis of phase separation, and suggest how their prior knowledge and epistemological framing (a combination of their personal tendencies and their prior exposure to different learning styles) affect their conceptual evolution. Finally, we propose strategies to improve the instruction of these concepts.Elon LangbeheimSamuel A. SafranShelly LivneEdit YerushalmiAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research, Vol 9, Iss 2, p 020117 (2013)
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 Elon Langbeheim Samuel A. Safran Shelly Livne Edit Yerushalmi Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
description	We analyze the development in students’ understanding of fundamental principles in the context of learning a current interdisciplinary research topic—soft matter—that was adapted to the level of high school students. The topic was introduced in a program for interested 11th grade high school students majoring in chemistry and/or physics, in an off-school setting. Soft matter was presented in a gradual increase in the degree of complexity of the phenomena as well as in the level of the quantitative analysis. We describe the evolution in students’ use of fundamental thermodynamics principles to reason about phase separation—a phenomenon that is ubiquitous in soft matter. In particular, we examine the impact of the use of free energy analysis, a common approach in soft matter, on the understanding of the fundamental principles of thermodynamics. The study used diagnostic questions and classroom observations to gauge the student’s learning. In order to gain insight on the aspects that shape the understanding of the basic principles, we focus on the responses and explanations of two case-study students who represent two trends of evolution in conceptual understanding in the group. We analyze changes in the two case studies’ management of conceptual resources used in their analysis of phase separation, and suggest how their prior knowledge and epistemological framing (a combination of their personal tendencies and their prior exposure to different learning styles) affect their conceptual evolution. Finally, we propose strategies to improve the instruction of these concepts.
format	article
author	Elon Langbeheim Samuel A. Safran Shelly Livne Edit Yerushalmi
author_facet	Elon Langbeheim Samuel A. Safran Shelly Livne Edit Yerushalmi
author_sort	Elon Langbeheim
title	Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
title_short	Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
title_full	Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
title_fullStr	Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
title_full_unstemmed	Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
title_sort	evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2013
url	https://doaj.org/article/a1c58e78c8b04738b351ee1d1f07d95d
work_keys_str_mv	AT elonlangbeheim evolutioninstudentsunderstandingofthermalphysicswithincreasingcomplexity AT samuelasafran evolutioninstudentsunderstandingofthermalphysicswithincreasingcomplexity AT shellylivne evolutioninstudentsunderstandingofthermalphysicswithincreasingcomplexity AT edityerushalmi evolutioninstudentsunderstandingofthermalphysicswithincreasingcomplexity
_version_	1718394824834416640

Evolution in students’ understanding of thermal physics with increasing complexity

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