The purpose of this study was the assessment of physics reasoning on the basis of students' understanding of motion on an inclined plane. Subjects were presented with a video tape showing a motion experiment in steps and were asked to formulate hypotheses and design an experiment to test these. Subjects thought aloud while specifying the designs and goals of an experiment. Protocols were analyzed by an original method using schema representation techniques. Adequancy of subjects' reasoning was evaluated by comparison to a composite model built from physics domain principles. As more information was presented to subjects, processing differences were observed. Using a hierarchy of processes from recognition to generation, five groups of subjects were defined. Subjects differed in recognition and inclusion processes, use of incoming information, ability to generate experimental designs, and responses to falsification. Concepts of average velocity and differences in directionality of reasoning were analyzed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.70250 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Leesinsky, Peter |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001270834, proquestno: AAINN74460, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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