Sanmukhiya, Yogesswarnath;
(2017)
An Investigation of Student Learning of Motion of Connected Particles in an Interactive Physics Environment.
Doctoral thesis (phD), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This research explores how sixth form students learn about motion of connected particles (mcp) with Interactive Physics (IP). In particular, our interest focuses on students’ use of intuitive knowledge and its relationship to the development of new knowledge. This research involved the construction of a microworld, consisting of a sequence of carefully crafted tasks based on IP. The aim is to foster students’ insights into several ideas related to mcp, as well as offering the researcher a ‘window’ into the students’ thinking about mcp. The theoretical approach is adapted from diSessa’s knowledge-in-pieces (k-i-p), an approach which emerges as the most appropriate for illuminating students’ evolving ideas. The corpus of data is based on case studies of 10 sixth form students, aged between 17 and 19, working individually with the microworld. These students were engaged in think-aloud, task-based interviews, which were structured according to a “Predict-Interact-Reflect” strategy. In the Prediction Phase, the students made predictions about a particular system and were encouraged to explain the rationales for their predictions. In the Interaction Phase, the students were asked to observe any discrepancies, if any, between their predictions and the simulations. Finally, in the Reflection Phase the students were asked to explain these discrepancies. From these case studies, episodes were identified which then served as the basis for analysis and discussion. The findings validate the k-i-p approach in relation to the intuitive ideas that students brought to the tasks, how students constructed new pieces of knowledge and how IP shaped these pieces. They also indicate that the generation of new knowledge, a non-linear and time-consuming process, occurred when students extracted relevant information from the crucial region of the simulation at the appropriate time, made sense of it and integrated it into their mental models.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | phD |
| Title: | An Investigation of Student Learning of Motion of Connected Particles in an Interactive Physics Environment |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1546345 |
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