Disadvantages of Traditional Physics Teaching and a New Way to Teach Problem Solving for Conceptual Understanding

摘要: MethodsThe study was conducted over two terms and involved more than 700 university students.The 552 participating students in the winter term came from the six sections of an algebra-based first-year physics course, and the 160 students in the fall term came from the two sections of a calculus-based first-year physics course. The two courses covered the same topics, including kinematics, dynamics and heat, but the calculus-based course was more challenging. This study employed multiple methods, including tests, surveys, observations, interviews and consultations. I administered a conceptual test to all the students at the end of each course. The test instrument, FCI-Plus, was a combination of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI)(Mazur 1997) and three conceptual questions taken from the literature (Berg and Brouwer 1991; Whitaker 1983). The FCI contains 30 conceptual questions and has been widely used for testing the effectiveness of physics courses (Hake 1998; Redish, Saul and Steinberg 1997; Redish and Steinberg 1999). I also surveyed all the students at the beginning and the end of each course to collect information about their attitudes toward physics and physics instruction. The survey included Likert-scale questions asking students to re-