Representation use and Strategy choice in physics problem solving

By Mieke De Cock. 2012

159 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Being skilled in using different representations and in coordinating multiple representations is highly valued in physics, both as a tool for understanding concepts (Kozma, 2003; McDermott, 2004) and as a means to facilitate problem solving (Dufresne, Gerace, & Leonard, 1997; Heller, Keith, & Anderson, 1992; Larkin, 1983; Reif, 1995; Van Heuvelen, 1995; Van Heuvelen, & Zou, 2001). Expert physics problem solvers are fluent in their use of different representations, can easily translate between them and can assess the usefulness of a particular representation in different situations. As it is a principal goal of most physics courses to produce adept problem solvers, a possible instructional aim might be to develop this representational fluency in physics students in order to benefit from using multiple representations.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ddacbf5547d640f5366c52f0fbe3734c2b4e5620