Abstract
We have investigated whether and how a categorization of responses to questions on linear distance-time graphs, based on a study of Irish students enrolled in an algebra-based course, could be adopted and adapted to responses from students enrolled in calculus-based physics courses at universities in Flanders, Belgium (KU Leuven) and the Basque Country, Spain (University of the Basque Country). We discuss how we adapted the categorization to accommodate a much more diverse student cohort and explain how the prior knowledge of students may account for many differences in the prevalence of approaches and success rates. Although calculus-based physics students make fewer mistakes than algebra-based physics students, they encounter similar difficulties that are often related to incorrectly dividing two coordinates. We verified that a qualitative understanding of kinematics is an important but not sufficient condition for students to determine a correct value for the speed. When comparing responses to questions on linear distance-time graphs with responses to isomorphic questions on linear water level versus time graphs, we observed that the context of a question influences the approach students use. Neither qualitative understanding nor an ability to find the slope of a context-free graph proved to be a reliable predictor for the approach students use when they determine the instantaneous speed.Received 23 September 2015DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.010108This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasConcepts & principlesEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsPhysics Education Research
Highlights
This paper examines the generalizability and applicability of a categorization of students’ responses to questions concerning numerical linear distance-time graphs developed by Wemyss and van Kampen [1], referred to as [1] on
We have investigated whether and how a categorization of responses to questions on linear distance-time graphs, based on a study of Irish students enrolled in an algebra-based course, could be adopted and adapted to responses from students enrolled in calculus-based physics courses at universities in Flanders, Belgium (KU Leuven) and the Basque Country, Spain (University of the Basque Country)
We verified that a qualitative understanding of kinematics is an important but not sufficient condition for students to determine a correct value for the speed
Summary
This paper examines the generalizability and applicability of a categorization of students’ responses to questions concerning numerical linear distance-time graphs developed by Wemyss and van Kampen [1], referred to as [1] on. They based their categorization on responses from science students at Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland. The main findings of [1] are the following: on a pretest, two-thirds of the DCU students could determine the direction of motion from a linear distance-time graph not passing through the origin.
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