Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding

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written by Tara Bartiromo

There is a strong emphasis in physics education research on the use of multiple representations to help students explain physical phenomena and to solve physics problems. In this paper, we report on students' use of multiple representations in the analysis of kinematics problems. The students learned kinematics using the Physics Union Mathematics curriculum. When we examined pairs of representations in student work (motion diagrams and graphs), we found that students were often consistent but not necessarily correct. Based on the patterns in the data we argue that to fully assess student understanding we need to provide students with problems that require them to use at least two different representations to explain their answer.

Physics Education Research Conference 2010
Part of the PER Conference series
Portland, Oregon: July 21-22, 2010
Volume 1289, Pages 81-84

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Published: August 24, 2010

Subjects	Levels	Resource Types
Education Foundations - Assessment Education Practices - Active Learning = Problem Solving	- Lower Undergraduate - Upper Undergraduate	- Reference Material = Report = Research study

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Mirror:: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3515254
Access Rights:: Limited free access and
Available for purchase; A preprint of the work is available. A hard copy of the PERC 2010 proceedings is available for purchase from the AIP.
Restriction:: © 2010 American Institute of Physics
DOI:: 10.1063/1.3515254
NSF Number:: 0733140
PACSs:: 01.40.Fk; 01.40.ek, 01.40.G-
Keywords:: PERC 2010, assessment, multiple representations, problem solving, reasoning
Record Cloner:: Metadata instance created October 8, 2010 by Alea Smith
Record Updated:: June 14, 2011 by Lyle Barbato
Last Update when Cataloged:: August 24, 2010
Other Collections:: The PER-Central

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Record Link

<a href="https://www.compadre.org/portal/items/detail.cfm?ID=10390">Bartiromo, Tara. "Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2010, Portland, Oregon, July 21-22, 2010.</a>

AIP Format

T. Bartiromo, , presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2010, Portland, Oregon, 2010, WWW Document, (https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862).

AJP/PRST-PER

T. Bartiromo, Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2010, Portland, Oregon, 2010, <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862>.

APA Format

Bartiromo, T. (2010, July 21-22). Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2010, Portland, Oregon. Retrieved May 1, 2025, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862

Chicago Format

Bartiromo, Tara. "Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2010, Portland, Oregon, July 21-22, 2010. https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862 (accessed 1 May 2025).

MLA Format

Bartiromo, Tara. "Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding." Physics Education Research Conference 2010. Portland, Oregon: 2010. 81-84 Vol. 1289 of PER Conference. 1 May 2025 <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862>.

BibTeX Export Format

@inproceedings{ Author = "Tara Bartiromo", Title = {Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding}, BookTitle = {Physics Education Research Conference 2010}, Pages = {81-84}, Address = {Portland, Oregon}, Series = {PER Conference}, Volume = {1289}, Month = {July 21-22}, Year = {2010} }

Refer Export Format

%A Tara Bartiromo %T Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding %S PER Conference %V 1289 %D July 21-22 2010 %P 81-84 %C Portland, Oregon %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862 %O Physics Education Research Conference 2010 %O July 21-22 %O application/pdf

EndNote Export Format

%0 Conference Proceedings %A Bartiromo, Tara %D July 21-22 2010 %T Searching for Evidence of Student Understanding %B Physics Education Research Conference 2010 %C Portland, Oregon %V 1289 %P 81-84 %S PER Conference %8 July 21-22 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10390&DocID=1862

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