Welcome to the Student Difficulties in Physics Information Center

 

This website is for use as an information center and diagnostic tool. The authors of this website have read through Physics Education Research literature and compiled a list of documented student misconceptions and difficulties, along with questions that you can use in your classroom to discover if your students have these misconceptions and/or difficulties. This website will not tell you how to remedy any particular misconceptions/difficulties; we feel that each individual instructor is better suited to meet the needs of their classrooms once they know that a problem exists. Finding out that there is a problem is more than half the battle.

 

Common student difficulties and/or misconceptions have been separated into the following categories: 

Position

Velocity

Acceleration

Forces

Graphs

Problem Solving

 

 

 

 


This website was written by Tom Brown and Jeff Crowder.  Please let us know if you encounter any difficulties in accessing the site, or if you have any suggestions on how we may improve it.