written by John B. Buncher

A recent study in a calculus-based introductory physics course found that students performed significantly better on vector addition and subtraction tasks when questions were given in the ijk representation instead of an ``arrows-on-a-grid'' representation.  This study also presented evidence that working knowledge of the ijk format was necessary to correctly perform vector operations in the arrow format, which has instructional implications for algebra-based introductory physics, as many associated courses and texts extensively use the arrow format and neglect the ijk format.  We conducted a study of students in an algebra-based introductory physics course where students were given no explicit instruction on the ijk format, but had received instruction on the arrow format.  We find that at the end of the semester algebra-based introductory physics students perform significantly higher in the ijk representation than in the arrow representation on both one- and two-dimensional problems.  Our findings imply that these students may also benefit from the use of ijk in class or as part of instruction.

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Last Modified December 16, 2015

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