Kinematic Graphs Research Articles

Evaluating vision-capable chatbots in interpreting kinematics graphs: a comparative study of free and subscription-based models

This study investigates the performance of eight large multimodal model (LMM)-based chatbots on the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K), a research-based concept inventory. Graphs are a widely used representation in STEM and medical fields, making them a relevant topic for exploring LMM-based chatbots’ visual interpretation abilities. We evaluated both freely available chatbots (Gemini 1.0 Pro, Claude 3 Sonnet, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT-4o) and subscription-based ones (Gemini 1.0 Ultra, Gemini 1.5 Pro API, Claude 3 Opus, and ChatGPT-4). We found that OpenAI’s chatbots outperform all the others, with ChatGPT-4o showing the overall best performance. Contrary to expectations, we found no notable differences in the overall performance between freely available and subscription-based versions of Gemini and Claude 3 chatbots, with the exception of Gemini 1.5 Pro, available via API. In addition, we found that tasks relying more heavily on linguistic input were generally easier for chatbots than those requiring visual interpretation. The study provides a basis for considerations of LMM-based chatbot applications in STEM and medical education, and suggests directions for future research.

Analysis of Kinematics Graph Interpretation Skills Using RapidMiner

This study explores the application of data mining techniques in physics education research, focusing on the analysis of kinematics graph interpretation skills. The research had two main objectives: to demonstrate the utility of RapidMiner, a data mining tool, in analyzing educational data, and to compare its effectiveness with traditional item analysis methods. Fifty-nine Grade-10 students at Chiang Mai University Demonstration School completed the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K) before and after participating in a problem-based learning module integrating high-speed video analysis. Traditional statistical analysis revealed significant improvement in student performance (p<0.001, effect size 0.76). Association rule mining, conducted using RapidMiner, uncovered key relationships between test items that were not apparent through traditional analysis. These relationships provided insights into common student misconceptions and areas requiring targeted instruction. The study demonstrates the potential of advanced data mining techniques to reveal deeper patterns in educational data compared to conventional item analysis methods. This novel application of RapidMiner in physics education research offers a promising approach for more detailed analysis of student understanding, potentially informing more effective teaching strategies and curriculum design in physics education.

Practice rehearsal pairs with dynamic video media: Improving students' kinematics graph interpretation skills

Practice rehearsal pairs with dynamic video media: Improving students' kinematics graph interpretation skills

Improved Metacognition Reviewed Based on Mathematical Resilience through Flipped Classroom

This study investigates students’ interpretation of kinematics graphs. A total of 121 students taking a physics class were selected to solve problems involving the analysis of graphs depicting position, velocity, and acceleration versus time. Conducting interviews aimed to uncover students’ difficulties while solving kinematics problems. The result emphasizes that students were able to determine velocity (if given positiontime graph) and acceleration (if given velocity-time graph). However, students faced difficulty in selecting textual descriptions and choosing the corresponding graph when given a kinematics graph. These findings suggest that in learning physics, there should be an increased emphasis on deep analysis of kinematics graphs. Keywords: flipped classroom, mathematical resilience, metacognition

Performance of ChatGPT on the test of understanding graphs in kinematics

The well-known artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT-4 has become able to process image data as input in October 2023. We investigated its performance on the test of understanding graphs in kinematics to inform the physics education community of the current potential of using ChatGPT in the education process, particularly on tasks that involve graphical interpretation. We found that ChatGPT, on average, performed similarly to students taking a high-school level physics course, but with important differences in the distribution of the correctness of its responses, as well as in terms of the displayed “reasoning” and “visual” abilities. While ChatGPT was very successful at proposing productive strategies for solving the tasks on the test and expressed correct reasoning in most of its responses, it had difficulties correctly “seeing” graphs. We suggest that, based on its performance, caution and a critical approach are needed if one intends to use it in the role of a tutor, a model of a student, or a tool for assisting vision-impaired persons in the context of kinematics graphs. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

The Influence of Gender in Physics on Mastery of the Concept of Graph Representationthrough Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K) Analysis

This study aims to determine the effect of gender on the mastery of the concept of graphical representation through the analysis of Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K). This research method is a comparative study that aims to compare two or more variables, to get answers or facts whether or not there is a comparison of the object being studied. This research is a qualitative research. The number of samples in this study were 23 people consisting of 8 male students and 15 female students. The research instrument used was 5 descriptive questions referred to from TUG-K Beichner and analyzed by the CRI method. Based on the results of the study, it was found that from the number of students who knew the concept, it was known that 1 out of 8 (1:8) male students knew the concept, and 3 out of 15 (1:5) female students. From this data, it can be seen that female students master concepts more than male students.

Impact of practical work in promoting learning of kinematics graphs in Tanzanian teachers’ training colleges

This paper investigated the impact of practical work in promoting the learning of kinematics graphs in Tanzanian teachers’ training colleges. The study employed a quantitative research approach and experimental design. A total of 150 pre-service Physics teachers from two teachers’ training colleges were distributed into control and experimental groups. Pre-service teachers in the control group were taught through the usual lecture method while those in the experimental group were taught through practical work. Developed and validated physics teachers’ kinematics graphs concept inventory was used for measuring pre-service teachers’ achievement by administering tests before and after interventions. Simple descriptive (mean, minimum, standard deviations, and maximum) and inferential statistics (t-tests, effect size, p-value, and normalized score gains) were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22 and Microsoft Excel. The group of pre-service teachers in the experimental group performed better than those in the control group by achieving average normalized learning gains of 39.6% compared to normalized learning gains of 1.52% for the lecture class. There was also a statistically significant difference (p-value < 0.001) in performance when pre-service teachers were taught through practical work. The study concluded that the use of practical work in teaching and learning was a good approach because it improved pre-service teachers’ understanding of kinematics graphs significantly. Based on these findings, the study recommends using practical work in the teaching and learning process for better performance of learners in kinematics graphs and other topics of physics.

Development and Validation of a Concept Inventory for Interpreting Kinematics Graphs in the Tanzanian Context

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper discusses the development and validation of a concept inventory for interpreting kinematics graphs in the Tanzanian context. The study involved 61 participants comprising physics pre-service teachers, secondary school teachers, diploma college tutors, and a university lecturer from Tanzania. We developed 25 multiple-choice questions for interpreting kinematics graphs. The different steps in the development process used are selecting the topic, setting objectives, constructing questions, validating questions, and reliability testing. We carried out descriptive and inferential statistical analysis by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22 followed by item analysis for pre-and post-piloting. Findings revealed normal distribution scores with a mean and standard deviation of 39.28±10.893 for pre-piloting and 40.16±8.08 for post-piloting. It also revealed no significant difference between pre-and post-piloting results with a p-value of 0.414. In addition, correlation coefficients for test re-test reliability were .783 and .878 for single and average measures respectively. Moreover, item analysis in terms of difficulty index, discrimination index, and distractor efficiency agreed with the published standards. Based on these findings, the study recommends the use of developed and validated kinematics graphs concept inventory by physics educators in both research and classroom instructions in the Tanzanian context.</p>

High School Students' Comprehension of Kinematics Graphs wıth Peer Instruction Approach

The present study investigated the effects of the peer instruction approach on high school students' kinematics graphs interpretation skills and understanding of kinematics graphs. The study was conducted with 65 high school students from two groups. The first group was the experimental group and the second group was the control group. 32 students of the experimental group were taught using the peer instruction approach while 33 students of the control group were taught using the conventional teaching method. The data of the study were collected with the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics. The results of the study showed that the peer instruction approach had a more positive effect on students' kinematics graphs interpretation skills and understanding of kinematic graphs than the conventional teaching method. In addition, there was a reasonable change in students' understanding of graphs and graphical thinking processes in the experimental group The students' understanding of graphs and graphical thinking processes did not change significantly in the control group. The results of the study revealed that the peer instruction approach can be used with little effort to assess and improve high school students' academic achievement in physics classes.

DISCRETE MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURES IN THE ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF PASSIVE AND ACTIVE VIBRATION ISOLATING DEVICES

The article deals with discrete mathematical structures used for the analysis and synthesis of passive and active vibration isolation devices. It is shown that approaches of discrete mathematics in the form of kinematic graphs and their further development in the form of modified kinematic graphs make it possible to effectively model the functional interaction between the elements of such devices, describing their interaction with the corresponding finite mathematical structures. Such an approach to solving the problems of synthesis of vibration isolating devices makes it possible to effectively carry out a complete enumeration of possible options and can be the basis for the transition to the design of their industrial samples. The paper presents an analysis of existing passive and active vibration isolating devices on the basis of which, as an example, a synthesis of a fundamentally new passive vibration isolating device with elements of active systems was carried out. The basis of the synthesis is a modified kinematic graph, which is the result of the intersection of the sets of elements of the modified kinematic graphs, respectively, of passive and active vibration isolation devices. It has been established that such a modified kinematic graph has two cycles with one pole and an arc that defines an elastic connection included in both cycles. It is shown that the resulting modified kinematic graph of the synthesized device is very quickly transformed into the corresponding block diagram and can be constructively implemented as a prototype of this device. It is substantiated that the device synthesized in the presented work, according to its structural features, occupies an intermediate place in the hierarchy of vibration isolation devices between passive and active ones.

Improving online instruction with self-regulated learning: A case study of kinematics graph interpretation

The objective of this study was to determine if students’ skills interpreting kinematics graphs could be improved in an online instruction environment by using the Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) framework. The gain in skills was measured by comparing pre-test and post-test results of the objective Test for Understanding Graphs – Kinematics (TUG-K) for N=19 students. The average score of the post-test was 62% better than the average score of the pre-test. The difference between the two average scores was statistically significant (p < 0.05). In addition, an opinion survey of the students – conducted before and after the SRL intervention – showed a statistically significant (p < 0.05) improvement of 15% regarding the students’ own sense of self-efficacy, and their capacity for delayed gratification (self-control). These two intra-personal skills, in addition to metacognition, are addressed and developed by the SRL framework. SRL also develops self-instruction skills which opens further possibilities of using class time to provide feedback and to thoroughly assess student knowledge with oral exams. These initial results provide a positive outlook that the development of SRL skills contributes to improvements in online instruction.

Kinematic Graph for Motion Planning of Robotic Manipulators

We introduce a kinematic graph in this article. A kinematic graph results from structuring the data obtained from the sampling method for sampling-based motion planning algorithms in robotics with the motivation to adapt the method to the positioning problem of robotic manipulators. The term kinematic graph emphasises the fact that any path computed by sampling-based motion planning algorithms using a kinematic graph is guaranteed to correspond to a feasible motion for the positioning of the robotic manipulator. We propose methods to combine the information from the configuration and task spaces of the robotic manipulators to cluster the samples. The kinematic graph is the result of this systematic clustering and a tremendous reduction in the size of the problem. Hence, using a kinematic graph, it is possible to effectively employ sampling-based motion planning algorithms for robotic manipulators, where the problem is defined in higher dimensions than those for which these algorithms were developed. Other barriers that hindered adequate utilisation of such algorithms for robotic manipulators with articulated arms, such as the non-injective surjection of the forward kinematic function, are also addressed in the structure of the kinematic graph.

Quantitative Gait Analysis of Patients with Severe Symptomatic Spinal Stenosis Utilizing the Gait Profile Score: An Observational Clinical Study.

Lumbar spine stenosis (LSS) typically manifests with neurogenic claudication, altering patients’ gait. The use of optoelectronic systems has allowed clinicians to perform 3D quantitative gait analysis to quantify and understand these alterations. Although several authors have presented analysis of spatiotemporal gait parameters, data concerning kinematic parameters is lacking. Fifteen patients with LSS were matched with 15 healthy controls. Quantitative gait analysis utilizing optoelectronic techniques was performed for each pair of subjects in a specialized laboratory. Statistical comparison of patients and controls was performed to determine differences in spatiotemporal parameters and the Gait Profile Score (GPS). Statistically significant differences were found between patient and control groups for all spatiotemporal parameters. Patients had significantly different overall GPS (p = 0.004) and had limited internal/external pelvic rotation (p < 0.001) and cranial/caudal movement (p = 0.034), limited hip extension (p = 0.012) and abduction/adduction (p = 0.012) and limited ankle plantar flexion (p < 0.001). In conclusion, patients with LSS have significantly altered gait patterns in three regions (pelvis, hip and ankle) compared to healthy controls. Analysis of kinematic graphs has given insight into gait pathophysiology of patients with LSS and the use of GPS will allow us to quantify surgical results in the future.

Interpreting the slope of a straight line in kinematics graphs with school students

The interdisciplinary nature of knowledge is one of the objectives promoted in Colombia, fostering in students the ability to recognize that the curriculum does not work in isolation; if knowledge is complementary, its joint development leads to better academic performance. This research is oriented towards showing an application of the mathematical concept of the slope of the straight line in physics applications, favoring the understanding of the relationships between variables, as occurs with the graphs of kinematics. A group of eleventh grade students from a private educational institution filled in a questionnaire for data collection, based on three situations proposed to answer three open questions in which a reasonably justified answer was required. A part of the group correctly interpreted the graphs by describing the characteristics of the movement in each time interval, but only a few were able to associate the slope of the line as the velocity or acceleration as a function of the variables mentioned in the graph, although their argumentation was based on the angle of elevation of the line.

Difficulties in the interpretation of kinematics graphs in secondary basic education students

This research reports the findings derived from the identification of the difficulties exhibited by a group of 76 students from different grades of basic secondary education in a private educational institution with an emphasis on science education. The students were given a questionnaire presenting five situations based on the Position-Time graph associated with uniform rectilinear motion of particles. The research approach is of a quantitative nature at a descriptive level with a field design, since it was the students who filled in the instrument. It is highlighted as a finding in the opinion of the students that the subject has been seen in class, but due to the teacher’s methodology it is not fully understood by them. The results show that the students have a long list of difficulties mainly due to the lack of articulation of mathematical concepts in physical contexts, a situation that prevents them from analyzing the proposed statements, reasoning about the approaches, and improving in the process of searching for alternative solutions with clear arguments.

Graphical analysis of the movements of a line-following robot

The difficulties in the interpretation of graphs in kinematics have been studied since the 1980s. To try to reduce students’ learning problems, the researchers point to the need for different didactic strategies, some with the use of new technologies. In this context, we present an experimental proposal that uses a line-following robot based on Arduino to teach graph interpretation in movements with constant velocity.

A kinematics-aware part clustering approach for part integration using additive manufacturing

Part integration is to integrate parts to be a fabrication and assembly unit. It can effectively reduce the fabrication and assembly unit quantity of a product and has been deemed as an effective way to promote the productivity of manufacturing. Although additive manufacturing (AM) has great potential to further promote the part integration for any product (assembly) model, part integration works using AM at present are often ad hoc, human-dependent and time-consuming. One main cause for this problem is that determining which parts in an assembly model can be integrated to be a fabrication and assembly unit automatically is still very difficult, especially when the model has kinematics (inner relative motions embodied by kinematic joints). In this paper, a novel part clustering approach is proposed, based on which, an input assembly model can smartly cluster all its parts to fewer sub-assembly models (each of them fits being integrated to be a fabrication and assembly unit in AM) according to its kinematics. To ensure that the input model after part integration can effectively realize its kinematics using AM, the criteria for part clustering are first defined. Accompanying with the criteria, the methods to determine the kinematics-related fabrication orientation for each part are proposed based on heuristic rules. Then, to make an accurate and efficient part clustering, an attributed part kinematic graph is put forward according to the above criteria. After that, by breaking through the detection automation challenges in sealing support structure and assembly feasibility, an efficient optimization objective function is defined based on the above criteria and graph. Finally, integrating a new adaptive perturbation strategy into the particle swarm optimization algorithm to avoid premature convergence, a novel graph-based part clustering optimization method is designed to cluster all the parts of the input model to be a high-quality (optimized) set of the above-mentioned sub-assembly models. Experiments and analyses are presented to verify the advantages of the proposed approach. Besides, complying with the general guidelines in AM, the proposed approach provides great potential to maximize part integration using AM in a wider application.

Didactic Engineering as a research method in physics teaching

Several mathematical concepts have application in physics; this paper reports the results of a pedagogical investigation based on the methodology known as didactic engineering, which has been proposed with the aim of improving the skills exhibited by a group of eleventh grade students from a private institution in the interpretation of kinematic graphs. The concept of the slope of the straight line and how this mathematical concept can represent velocity or acceleration according to the variables considered in the kinematics graph provided was enhanced in the pedagogical intervention. This methodology offers a process of internal validation, after comparing the results obtained in a knowledge test at two different points in time (pre-test and post-test). The results allowed us to identify improvements in all students in terms of basic kinematics graph interpretation skills, and a group of students stood out by advancing in more complex reasoning and interpretation processes. These results contribute to the improvement of the pedagogical practices of Physics teachers at secondary and middle school levels, making them more competent when they enter higher education.

DEVELOPING PHYSICS GRAPH LEARNING MEDIA IN THE CONCEPT OF KINEMATICS AND ITS ASSESSMENT USING TUG-K (TEST OF UNDERSTANDING GRAPHS IN KINEMATICS)

Background: Assessment to determine the ability to master GLB and GLBB charts, namely the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K). Through TUG-K which is adjusted to basic competencies, teachers can formulate indicators of competency achievement. Aim : This study aimed to develop Physics Graph learning media (GraFIS) on the kinematics concept describe the effectiveness of learning after using GraFIS media and describe students' perceptions of learning using GraFIS media and assessing using TUG-K. Methods: This research is an R and D research. The developed applications used HTML5 technology that can be published on the web app. and mobile app. The application was applied to 143 respondents in grade X MIPA of SMA Negeri 3 Purworejo. Data collection was conducted by giving validation sheets to material experts, media experts, students' questionnaire responses, to provide input on the products developed. Result and Discussion: The results of the research were in the form of graFIS application as a suitable medium for use. The results of implementation in teaching and learning activities through lesson plans that had been prepared showed that the effectiveness of learning using the GraFIS application was still in the low category with a normalized score gain of 0.03, which meant that it still needed revision and improvement. The analysis results of differences in pretest and posttest scores using Shapiro-Wilk obtained data that were not normally distributed, with Sig. 0.015 &lt;0.05. Therefore, testing continued using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. It was obtained the values of Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) &lt;0.05, which interpreted that there was a significant difference between the results of the pretest and posttest. Conclusions: The conclusion is improvements and revisions are still needed. Based on students' perceptions, the GraFIS application met usability and mobile quality standards.

Numbering method for the kinematic chain isomorphism recognition of a planar mechanism

The kinematic chain isomorphism identification of a planar mechanism is an important part of the innovative design of kinematic chain regeneration. Based on the structural characteristics of the kinematic chain of a planar mechanism, a new method, i.e. the numbering method, is proposed for isomorphism identification. Firstly, the links of a kinematic chain are numbered according to certain rules, and they are normalized. Then, the normalized contracted link adjacency matrix is used to represent the connection of the kinematic chain graph. Based on whether the contracted link adjacency matrix of two kinematic chains is the same, we can judge whether the two links are similar.