Toward understanding student difficulty in upper-level mechanics problem-solving

Abstract

Over the past decade, many students have been losing their

interest in physics. One of the essential reasons why students look

away from physics is the fact that they face difficulty in solving

physics problems. Since mechanics is a fundamental subject in physics,

many researchers have studied how students learn mechanics and solve

problems related to mechanics. However, there is little research focusing

on the students' specific difficulties in the process of problem solving.

This study investigated students specific difficulties (with the degree of

difficulties) and the core sources of these difficulties. 24 university

students who majored in physics education participated in this study.

We have developed a framework, the House Model (HM), for helping

and analyzing students' problem solving. We found that students felt

greater difficulty in planning and executing steps than in visualizing,

knowing and finding steps. As the problems grew in difficulty, this

pattern became more distinct. We found the sources of the students

difficulties and tried to suggest method of helping the students who

experience difficulties in problem solving.