written by Anna Turnbull, Leanne Doughty, Vashti Sawtelle, and Marcos D. Caballero

Vector decomposition is a skill required across physics contexts and levels. In this paper, we present our analysis of 463 student responses to an item on the Colorado Classical Mechanics/Math Methods Instrument that assesses student proficiency with vector decomposition in multiple coordinate systems. We offer separate categorizations for students' final expressions and their approaches to determining those expressions. The intersection between approaches and final expressions suggests that certain approaches are more productive. We discuss these intersections and the differences between students' responses in Cartesian and polar coordinate systems.

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Last Modified December 16, 2015

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