Analyzing the upper secondary school students’ difficulties in the rotation of rigid body

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that students have difficulties in understanding some concepts related to circular motion of particles. However, there are few studies on rigid body rotational dynamics. In this study, we have studied difficulties that Upper secondary school students have about the rotation of a rigid body. We have designed an 8 questions open-ended questionnaire. In designing the questions, we took into account the key concepts that students have to know in order to understand the rotation of rigid body in a proper way. We conducted a study with 85 Upper secondary school students after their Mechanics course and the analysis has been performed using phenomenography, which is focused on the explanations rather than in the correctness of the answers. The results suggest that students have several difficulties in understanding some concepts of rigid body rotation and that there are significant alternative ideas among them.