written by Danielle Buggé and Eugenia Etkina

Most of the research surrounding development of scientific abilities among introductory physics students has been conducted at the college level. A shift in the high school science culture encouraged by NGSS has changed the focus of K-12 physics education making similar work necessary at the K-12 level. This paper describes how high school students in a first-year physics course developed assumption-associated abilities during the six months they studied mechanics. Using their written laboratory reports, we found that repeated exposure helped students gain competence identifying and evaluating assumptions. While it took high school students longer to demonstrate proficiency than college students, by the end of the mechanics portion of the curriculum, 90-95% of students achieved proficiency or partial proficiency.

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Last Modified December 26, 2016

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