Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics

dc.creator	Chandralekha Singh
dc.date	2008-03-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:32:48Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:32:48Z
dc.identifier	1554-9178
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/abf6743e8ab5408bae51de74c0611718
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/22584
dc.description	Investigations related to expertise in problem solving and ability to transfer learning from one context to another are important for developing strategies to help students perform more expertlike tasks. Here we analyze written responses to a pair of nonintuitive isomorphic problems given to introductory physics students and discussions with a subset of students about them. Students were asked to explain their reasoning for their written responses. We call the paired problems isomorphic because they require the same physics principle to solve them. However, the initial conditions are different, and the frictional force is responsible for increasing the linear speed of an object in one of the problems while it is responsible for decreasing the linear speed in the other problem. We categorize student responses and evaluate student performance within the context of their evolving expertise. We compare and contrast the patterns of student categorization for the two isomorphic problems. We discuss why certain incorrect responses were better than others and shed light on the evolution of students’ expertise. We compare the performance of students who worked on both isomorphic problems with those who worked only on one of the problems to understand whether students recognized their underlying similarity and whether isomorphic pairs gave students additional insight into solving each problem.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	American Physical Society
dc.relation	http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRSTPER/v4/e010104
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1554-9178
dc.source	Physical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research, Vol 4, Iss 1 (2008)
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.title	Assessing student expertise in introductory physics with isomorphic problems. I. Performance on nonintuitive problem pair from introductory physics
dc.type	article