Physics learning studies demonstrate that students' pre-instructional world knowledge is often logically antagonistic to the principles of Newtonian mechanics taught in introductory physics courses. Under these conditions psychological theory predicts that learning will be inhibited, a prediction consistent with both the experiences of physics…

One approach to the study of cognitive processes highlights the distinctions between expert and novice problem solvers. This approach attempts to discover how experts and novices differ in the way they organize, retain and use domain related knowledge. It appears to some that what is learned from expert-novice research can help teachers to teach…

This investigation examined the relationship between problem solving ability and the criteria used to decide whether two classical mechanics problems could be solved similarly. The investigators began by comparing experts and novices on a similarity judgment task and found that experts predominantly relied on the problems' deep structure in…

Most physics problem-solving studies provide data that indicate problem representation is different between experts and novices. This paper presents "cognitive aids" guiding the process of elaboration of a problem representation through intermediate representations. Intermediate means that the representation is situated somewhere between…

This study investigated problem solving skills in mechanics problems that required the use of diagrams. These skills were examined in two ways. First, the study examined student problem solving skills using solution scripts from the Western Australian Tertiary Admission Examination in physics. Solution attempts by students in the 1978 and 1979…

Several empirical and theoretical analyses related to scientific problem-solving are reviewed, including: detailed studies of individuals at different levels of expertise, and computer models simulating some aspects of human information processing during problem solving. Analysis of these studies has revealed many facets about the nature of the…

The broad focus of this study was on the role students' existing conceptions play in the process of constructing and understanding mechanics concepts. The study was a naturalistic one, conducted over a number of years, at all grade levels, in one all-boys secondary school in Australia. In particular it was concerned with identifying and…

One of the clear findings of recent research on the learning of science has been that students who have completed science courses commonly use conceptions held before instruction to interpret natural phenomena. This paper reports on a study of conceptual change in mechanics with particular concern with the nature of student awareness of any…

The idea that cognitive science can provide useful guidance to the teaching of physics has been met by some with skepticism. One argument is that the current understanding of cognition is too crude to be helpful; another, that any scientific approach to education stifles the art of teaching. Some feel that art and science need not be incompatible.…

The research described in this paper leads to an instructional design approach which is an alternative to the consideration of such issues as mathematical skills or level of cognitive development. The approach uses an analysis of traditional instructional tasks to specify the underlying cognitive processes and structures necessary for the…

Determined if providing feedback to students had any impact on the correlation between performance in physics and a test of simple, mechanistic mathematics skills. Also determined if students who drop out of the physics course demonstrated any identifiable difference in performance on tests involving a variety of reasoning and problem-solving…

Discussed is one "quite general" attribute that can differentiate problem representations: the kinds of entities that are included -- the cognitive objects that the system can reason about in a relatively direct way, and that are included continuously in the representation. The ontology of a domain is significant for four reasons. First,…

Using a paper-and-pencil test consisting of multiple-choice situational questions which also require reasoning for the choices made, common misconceptions in light were identified. It was found that most of the students understand the basic properties of light at a knowledge level but had difficulty applying these concepts in novel situations.…

This final report summarizes work done to formulate and test some cognitively-based principles useful for designing instruction in scientific or engineering fields. These principles stress the coherence and interpretability of the knowledge acquired by students. The principles were specifically applied to: (1) analyze the underlying knowledge and…

French tenth grade physics classes were observed as they studied electric circuits over a one-year period. An analysis is presented of tests taken during the year. The main point separating "average" students from "good" ones is their performances in "implicitly difficult exercises," that is, in what appears…