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We describe a study on the conceptual difficulties faced by college students in understanding hydrodynamics of ideal fluids. This study was based on responses obtained in hundreds of written exams and oral interviews, which were held with first-year Engineering and Science university students. Their responses allowed us to identify a series of misconceptions unreported in the literature so far. The study findings demonstrate that the most important difficulties arise from the students inability to establish a link between the kinematics and dynamics of moving fluids, and from a lack of understanding regarding how different regions of a system interact.
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A bicycle wheel that was initially spinning freely was placed in contact with a rough surface and a digital film was made of its motion. Using Tracker software for video analysis, we obtained the velocity vectors for several points on the wheel, in the frame of reference of the laboratory as well as in a relative frame of reference having as its origin the wheel`s center of mass. The velocity of the wheel`s point of contact with the floor was also determined obtaining then a complete picture of the kinematic state of the wheel in both frames of reference. An empirical approach of this sort to problems in mechanics can contribute to overcoming the considerable difficulties they entail.
We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduates thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students in these courses do not clearly articulate the connection between the Carnot cycle and the Second Law after lecture instruction. This result is consistent both within and across student populations. Observation data provide evidence for myriad difficulties related to entropy and heat engines, including students struggles in reasoning about situations that are physically impossible and failures to differentiate between differential and net changes of state properties of a system. Results herein may be seen as the application of previously documented difficulties in the context of heat engines, but others are novel and emphasize the subtle and complex nature of cyclic processes and heat engines, which are central to the teaching and learning of thermodynamics and its applications. Moreover, the sophistication of these difficulties is indicative of the more advanced thinking required of students at the upper division, whose developing knowledge and understanding give rise to questions and struggles that are inaccessible to novices.
Immersive virtual reality (VR) has enormous potential for education, but classroom resources are limited. Thus, it is important to identify whether and when VR provides sufficient advantages over other modes of learning to justify its deployment. In a between-subjects experiment, we compared three methods of teaching Moon phases (a hands-on activity, VR, and a desktop simulation) and measured student improvement on existing learning and attitudinal measures. While a substantial majority of students preferred the VR experience, we found no significant differences in learning between conditions. However, we found differences between conditions based on gender, which was highly correlated with experience with video games. These differences may indicate certain groups have an advantage in the VR setting.
Research in student knowledge and learning of science has typically focused on explaining conceptual change. Recent research, however, documents the great degree to which student thinking is dynamic and context-sensitive, implicitly calling for explanations not only of change but also of stability. In other words: When a pattern of student reasoning is sustained in specific moments and settings, what mechanisms contribute to sustaining it? We characterize student understanding and behavior in terms of multiple local coherences in that they may be variable yet still exhibit local stabilities. We attribute stability in local conceptual coherences to real-time activities that sustain these coherences. For example, particular conceptual understandings may be stabilized by the linguistic features of a worksheet question, or by feedback from the students spatial arrangement and orientation. We document a group of university students who engage in multiple local conceptual coherences while thinking about motion during a collaborative learning activity. As the students shift their thinking several times, we describe mechanisms that may contribute to local stability of their reasoning and behavior.
Traditional methods of reporting changes in student responses have focused on class-wide averages. Such models hide information about the switches in responses by individual students over the course of a semester. We extend unpublished work by Steven Kanim on escalator diagrams which show changes in student responses from correct to incorrect (and vice versa) while representing pre- and post-instruction results on questions. Our extension consists of consistency plots in which we represent three forms of data: method of solution and correctness of solution both before and after instruction. Our data are from an intermediate mechanics class, and come from (nearly) identical midterm and final examination questions.
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