Search Results (5 total)

Previously, we proposed a model of student reasoning which combines the roles of representation, analogy, and layering of meaning—analogical scaffolding [Podolefsky and Finkelstein, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 3, 010109 (2007)]. The present empirical studies build on this model to examine its utility and demonstrate the vital intertwining of representation, analogy, and conceptual learning in physics. In two studies of student reasoning using analogy, we show that representations couple to students’ existing prior knowledge and also lead to the dynamic formation of new knowledge. Students presented with abstract, concrete, or blended (both abstract and concrete) representations produced markedly different response patterns. In the first study, using analogies to scaffold understanding of electromagnetic (EM) waves, students in the blend group were more likely to reason productively about EM waves than students in the abstract group by as much as a factor of 3 (73% vs 24% correct, p=0.002). In the second study, examining representation use within one domain (sound waves), the blend group was more likely to reason productively about sound waves than the abstract group by as much as a factor of 2 (48% vs 23% correct, p=0.002). Using the analogical scaffolding model we examine when and why students succeed and fail to use analogies and interpret representations appropriately.

This paper describes a model of analogy, analogical scaffolding, which explains present and prior results of student learning with analogies. We build on prior models of representation, blending, and layering of ideas. Extending this model’s explanatory power, we propose ways in which the model can be applied to design a curriculum directed at teaching abstract ideas in physics using multiple, layered analogies. We report on a recent empirical study that motivates this model. Students taught about electromagnetic waves in a curriculum that builds on the model of analogical scaffolding posted substantially greater gains pre- to postinstruction than students taught using a more traditional (non-analogy-based) tutorial (21% vs 7%).

Previous studies have demonstrated that analogies can promote student learning in physics and can be productively taught to students to support their learning, under certain conditions. We build on these studies to explore the use of analogy by students in a large introductory college physics course. In the first large-scale study of its kind, we demonstrate that different analogies can lead to varied student reasoning. When different analogies were used to teach electromagnetic (EM) waves, we found that students explicitly mapped characteristics either of waves on strings or sound waves to EM waves, depending upon which analogy students were taught. We extend these results by investigating how students use analogies. Our findings suggest that representational format plays a key role in the use of analogy.

The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) is a new instrument designed to measure student beliefs about physics and about learning physics. This instrument extends previous work by probing additional aspects of student beliefs and by using wording suitable for students in a wide variety of physics courses. The CLASS has been validated using interviews, reliability studies, and extensive statistical analyses of responses from over 5000 students. In addition, a new methodology for determining useful and statistically robust categories of student beliefs has been developed. This paper serves as the foundation for an extensive study of how student beliefs impact and are impacted by their educational experiences. For example, this survey measures the following: that most teaching practices cause substantial drops in student scores; that a student’s likelihood of becoming a physics major correlates with their “Personal Interest” score; and that, for a majority of student populations, women’s scores in some categories, including “Personal Interest” and “Real World Connections,” are significantly different from men’s scores.

This paper examines the effects of substituting a computer simulation for real laboratory equipment in the second semester of a large-scale introductory physics course. The direct current circuit laboratory was modified to compare the effects of using computer simulations with the effects of using real light bulbs, meters, and wires. Two groups of students, those who used real equipment and those who used a computer simulation that explicitly modeled electron flow, were compared in terms of their mastery of physics concepts and skills with real equipment. Students who used the simulated equipment outperformed their counterparts both on a conceptual survey of the domain and in the coordinated tasks of assembling a real circuit and describing how it worked.