written by Edgar D. Corpuz and N. Sanjay Rebello

We investigated introductory college physics students' explanations of friction and lubrication through semi-structured clinical interviews. Although students were able to construct explanations at the atomic scale, they tended to explain phenomena by using attributes of macroscopic objects. For instance, when they described atoms as balls, they tended to associate attributes of real balls to the attributes of the atoms. In the future our results will guide the design of teaching materials to enable students to construct scientifically correct microscopic models of friction and lubrication.

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Published September 1, 2005
Last Modified July 8, 2013

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