University student conceptual resources for understanding forces

home » Journal Article Detail Page

Detail Page

Physical Review Physics Education Research

written by Amy D. Robertson, Lisa M. Goodhew, Rachel E. Scherr, and Paula R. L. Heron

Existing research identifying common student ideas about forces focuses on students' misunderstandings, misconceptions, and difficulties. In this paper, we characterize student thinking in terms of resources, framing student thinking as continuous with formal physics. Based on our analysis of 2048 written responses to conceptual questions, we identify six common conceptual resources for understanding forces. We document context-sensitive patterns in resource activation, and we discuss limitations of our research based on the demographics of our sample.

Physical Review Physics Education Research: Volume 17, Issue 1, Pages 010121

https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121

Subjects	Levels	Resource Types
Classical Mechanics - General Education Foundations - Alternative Conceptions - Assessment = Conceptual Assessment - Problem Solving = Expert-Novice Comparisons - Sample Population = Background: Economic = Ethnicity or Race - Student Characteristics = Ability = Skills	- Lower Undergraduate - High School	- Reference Material = Research study

Intended Users	Formats	Ratings
- Educators - Professional/Practitioners - Administrators - Researchers	- application/pdf - text/html	Currently 0.0/5 Want to rate this material? Login here!

Access Rights:: Free access
License:: This material is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Rights Holder:: American Physical Society
DOI:: 10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.010121
NSF Numbers:: DGE-1256082; DUE-1608510; DUE-1914603; DUE-1914572
Keywords:: Epistemology, Resources Theory, force concepts, knowledge construction
Record Creator:: Metadata instance created May 17, 2023 by Sam McKagan
Record Updated:: May 18, 2023 by Caroline Hall
Last Update when Cataloged:: March 30, 2021
Other Collections:: The PER-Central

Post a new comment on this item

ComPADRE is beta testing Citation Styles!

Record Link

<a href="https://www.compadre.org/portal/items/detail.cfm?ID=16461">Robertson, A, L. Goodhew, R. Scherr, and P. Heron. "University student conceptual resources for understanding forces." Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 17, no. 1, (March 30, 2021): 010121.</a>

AIP Format

A. Robertson, L. Goodhew, R. Scherr, and P. Heron, , Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 17 (1), 010121 (2021), WWW Document, (https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121).

AJP/PRST-PER

A. Robertson, L. Goodhew, R. Scherr, and P. Heron, University student conceptual resources for understanding forces, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 17 (1), 010121 (2021), <https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121>.

APA Format

Robertson, A., Goodhew, L., Scherr, R., & Heron, P. (2021, March 30). University student conceptual resources for understanding forces. Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res., 17(1), 010121. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121

Chicago Format

Robertson, A, L. Goodhew, R. Scherr, and P. Heron. "University student conceptual resources for understanding forces." Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 17, no. 1, (March 30, 2021): 010121, https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121 (accessed 17 May 2024).

MLA Format

Robertson, Amy, Lisa M. Goodhew, Rachel Scherr, and Paula R. L. Heron. "University student conceptual resources for understanding forces." Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 17.1 (2021): 010121. 17 May 2024 <https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121>.

BibTeX Export Format

@article{ Author = "Amy Robertson and Lisa M. Goodhew and Rachel Scherr and Paula R. L. Heron", Title = {University student conceptual resources for understanding forces}, Journal = {Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.}, Volume = {17}, Number = {1}, Pages = {010121}, Month = {March}, Year = {2021} }

Refer Export Format

%A Amy Robertson %A Lisa M. Goodhew %A Rachel Scherr %A Paula R. L. Heron %T University student conceptual resources for understanding forces %J Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. %V 17 %N 1 %D March 30, 2021 %P 010121 %U https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121 %O application/pdf

EndNote Export Format

%0 Journal Article %A Robertson, Amy %A Goodhew, Lisa M. %A Scherr, Rachel %A Heron, Paula R. L. %D March 30, 2021 %T University student conceptual resources for understanding forces %J Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. %V 17 %N 1 %P 010121 %8 March 30, 2021 %U https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010121

Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications.

Citation Source Information

The AIP Style presented is based on information from the AIP Style Manual.

The APA Style presented is based on information from APA Style.org: Electronic References.

The Chicago Style presented is based on information from Examples of Chicago-Style Documentation.

The MLA Style presented is based on information from the MLA FAQ.

University student conceptual resources for understanding forces:

Is Associated With University Student Conceptual Resources for Understanding Forces

A link to a companion article in the 2017 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings, in which the same authors present preliminary findings of this study.

relation by Caroline Hall

See details...

Know of another related resource? Login to relate this resource to it.