Elements of a Cognitive Model of Physics Problem Solving: Epistemic Games.

By Jonathan Tuminaro, Edward F. Redish. 2007

312 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although much is known about the differences between expert and novice problem solvers, knowledge of those differences typically does not provide enough detail to help instructors understand why some students seem to learn physics while solving problems and others do not. A critical issue is how students access the knowledge they have in the context of solving a particular problem. In this paper, we discuss our observations of students solving physics problems in authentic situations in an algebra-based physics class at the University of Maryland. We find that when these students are working together and interacting effectively, they often use a limited set of locally coherent resources for blocks of time of a few minutes or more. This coherence appears to provide the student with guidance as to what knowledge and procedures to access and what to ignore. Often, this leads to the students failing to apply relevant knowledge they later show they possess. In this paper, we outline a theoretical phenomenology for describing these local coherences and identify six organizational structures that we refer to as epistemic games. The hypothesis that students tend to function within the narrow confines of a fairly limited set of games provides a good description of our observations. We demonstrate how students use these games in two case studies and discuss the implications for instruction.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/193c2225bcd3e538301bd67cefbefe96d0f71dc3

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Synthesis of Discipline-Based Education Research in Physics. (2014, background): “In contrast to mathematical expressions, equations used in physics have conceptual meaning associated with symbols and the relationships among physical quantities [106,136].”
Looking Beyond Content: Skill Development for Engineers (2008, methodology): “In one example ( Tuminaro and Redish, 2007 ), a student was seen to play a game that is sometimes effective: recursive-plug and chug.”
Language of Physics, Language of Math: Disciplinary Culture and Dynamic Epistemology (2014, background): “We draw heavily on the work of Lakoff & Johnson (1980), Lakoff & Nunez (2001), Langacker (1987), Fauconnier (1985, 1997), Turner (1991), Fauconnier & Turner (2003), Evans (2006), and the overview of Evans & Green (2006).”
How students blend conceptual and formal mathematical reasoning in solving physics problems (2011, background): “Other research has also supported the explanatory power of symbolic forms in models of how students translate physical understandings into mathematical equations (Hestenes, 2010; Izsák, 2004; Tuminaro & Redish, 2007).”
Conceptual problem solving in high school physics (2015, background): “Physics teaching in both high school and college places an emphasis on problem solving [1–8], and although students demonstrate reasonable competence in traditional assessments of problem solving skills, there is evidence that understanding of fairly fundamental concepts is weak or lacking following”