文章基本信息

标题：Do students use and understand free-body diagrams?
其他标题：Do students use and understand free-body diagrams?
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作者：David Rosengrant ; Alan Van Heuvelen ; Eugenia Etkina 等
期刊名称：Physical Review ST Physics Education Research
电子版ISSN：1554-9178
出版年度：2009
卷号：5
期号：1
页码：10108
DOI：10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.5.010108
出版社：American Physical Society
摘要：Physics education literature recommends using multiple representations to help students understand concepts and solve problems. However, there is little research concerning why students use the representations and whether those who use them are more successful. This study addresses these questions using free-body diagrams (diagrammatic representations used in problems involving forces) as a type of representation. We conducted a two-year quantitative and qualitative study of students’ use of free-body diagrams while solving physics problems. We found that when students are in a course that consistently emphasizes the use of free-body diagrams, the majority of them do use diagrams on their own to help solve exam problems even when they receive no credit for drawing the diagrams. We also found that students who draw diagrams correctly are significantly more successful in obtaining the right answer for the problem. Lastly, we interviewed students to uncover their reasons for using free-body diagrams. We found that high achieving students used the diagrams to help solve the problems and as a tool to evaluate their work while low achieving students only used representations as aids in the problem-solving process.