Investigates several aspects of undergraduate students' rules for projectile motion including general patterns; rules for questions about time, distance, solids and liquids; and changes in rules when asked to ignore air resistance. Reports approach differences by sex and high school physics experience, and that novice rules are situation…

Uses a blackboard eraser to illustrate solutions to three problems commonly posed to students. The problems are determining (1) the frictional force acting on a stationary body; (2) the maximum acceleration a truck can have without sliding a tray of eggs sitting on the truck bed; and (3) the distance a horizontally thrown object will travel. (MDH)

Solutions to quadratic equations found in solving physics problems sometimes make no sense. Investigates problems in which solutions, such as negative numbers, have significant physical meaning in the problem. Problems are chosen from the topics of kinematics, conservation of mechanical energy, inelastic and elastic collisions, electrostatics, and…

Reports on the extent to which the Principle of Relativity was employed by students when dealing with various phenomena. Concludes that the Principle of Relativity is not used as an heuristic tool in students' answers, and that the situations presented were not regarded as "problematic" by the students, who primarily used interpretive…

Bodily manipulations, such as juggling, suggest a well-synchronized physical interaction as if the person were a physics expert. The juggler uses "knowledge" that is rooted in bodily experience, to interact with the environment. Such enacted bodily knowledge is powerful, efficient, predictive, and relates to sensory perception of the dynamics of…

Iranian educational methods and our own observations of physics students led us to devise a way of improving our students' ability to solve real-life problems. We designed a guided inquiry-based course "Physics by photography" which we implemented for approximately 250 students. This revealed that this type of course could motivate…

Comparisons of expert and novice problem solving in physics have helped characterize some of the key features of expert behavior. There is considerable debate, however, as to whether these characteristics are specific to the field of expertise (physics) or exportable to other fields. While the question seems difficult to answer in general, at…

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…

Several recent studies in which subjects solved pencil/paper problems concerning the behavior of moving objects have shown that many people have incorrect beliefs about motion. The present study considered the question of whether these naive beliefs are manifested in situations where people observe and interact with moving objects. Several…

This paper discusses research on the processes by which individuals progress toward expertise in scientific domains, focusing on the activity of constructing qualitative problem representations during solution of standard mechanics problems in physics. It includes information on: (1) descriptive analyses of problem-solving performance; (2)…

Three review segments of the Self-Paced Physics Course materials are provided in this volume which is arranged to match study segments 1 through 14. Each of the three segments is composed of a set of problems and solutions, and accompanied by its own individual study guide. The problem set is designed as a back-referencing system, and the…

This report describes a study that investigated the relationship between mental imagery and problem solving in physics, specifically in kinematics. A distinction is made between visual imagery and spatial imagery used in solving physics problems. The results of this study indicate that while spatial imagery may promote problem solving success, the…

Described is an activity in which groups of students investigate engineering principles by writing a feasibility study to raise the luxury liner, Titanic. The problem statement and directions, and suggestions for problem solutions are included. (CW)

Solutions for a problem in which the time necessary for an object to fall into the sun from the average distance from the earth to the sun are presented. Both calculus- and noncalculus-based solutions are presented. A sample computer solution is included. (CW)

With the evolution of the surrounding world market, engineers have to propose innovations in products and processes. Industrial innovation frequently results from an improved understanding of basic physics. In this paper, an approach to accelerate inventive preliminary design is presented. This method combines the main advantages of CBR (Case…