written by Xueli Zou

In the past three decades, physics education research has primarily focused on student conceptual understanding; little work has been conducted to investigate student difficulties in problem solving. In cognitive science and psychology, however, extensive studies have explored the differences in problem solving between experts and naive students. A major finding indicates that experts often apply qualitative representations in problem solving, but that novices use an equation-centered method. This dissertation describes investigations into the use of multiple representations and visualizations in
student understanding and problem solving with the concepts of work and energy.

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Published August 1, 2000
Last Modified June 16, 2006

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