Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Sergio Flores
a)
and Stephen E. Kanim
b)
Department of Physics, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003
Christian H. Kautz
c)
Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244
Received 7 September 2003; accepted 23 December 2003
Most students initial exposure to physics is in the context of kinematics and dynamics. An
understanding of how these topics relate to each other requires the ability to reason about vectors
that represent forces and kinematic quantities. We present data that suggest that after traditional
instruction in mechanics many students lack this ability. Modications to instruction can
signicantly improve student performance on questions about vector addition and subtraction and
increase the likelihood that students employ vectors in their attempt to solve mechanics problems.
However, an increased emphasis on these topics has so far been only moderately successful in
promoting the level of prociency required to understand the connection between force and
acceleration as vector quantities. We describe some of the procedural and reasoning difculties we
have observed in students use of vectors. 2004 American Association of Physics Teachers.
DOI: 10.1119/1.1648686
I. INTRODUCTION
In most introductory physics courses, considerable empha-
sis is placed on the application of Newtons second law. An
understanding of this law as applied to motion in two dimen-
sions is assumed when subsequent topics are presented in the
introductory course and in more advanced physics and engi-
neering courses. The importance of Newtons second law in
the teaching of introductory physics prompted us to investi-
gate the extent to which students recognize that this law is a
relationship between vectors.
We believe that a solid understanding of Newtons second
law as a vector equation is important for students to appre-
ciate the coherence of the material that they are taught in
their rst-semester physics course. For most students, kine-
matics and dynamics are the rst topics encountered in phys-
ics. As such, the manner in which these topics are presented
serves to inform students about the goals and outcomes of
the course as well as what physicists view as important about
their subject. For many instructors, Newtons second law
serves as a unifying theme, connecting many of the ideas of
introductory mechanics. In contrast, many students view
physics as a sequence of specic situations for which they
must memorize applicable equations without recognizing the
connections between these situations. For example, we have
observed that students failure to understand the denition of
acceleration as a vector quantity can lead them to interpret
the term mv
2
/r as a special type of interaction that is present
only in circular motion rather than as another instance of the
term ma on the right-hand side of Newtons second law. We
hope that an investigation of student understanding of the
vector nature of the relation between kinematic quantities
and forces can provide guidance toward the design of course
modications that strengthen students view of physics as a
coherent eld of study rather than a collection of individual
facts.
In this paper, we describe results from our preliminary
investigation of student understanding of Newtons second
law as a vector equation. The questions we hope to answer
with this investigation are 1 whether students recognize
that the second law relates the directions of net force and
acceleration as well as the magnitudes of these quantities; 2
whether they understand the procedures for vector addition
and subtraction that are necessary to nd net force and ac-
celeration, respectively; and 3 whether they can reason
qualitatively about force and acceleration as vector quanti-
ties.
In addition to results from traditional courses taught with-
out signicant modication, we present data from courses
where to varying extents the emphasis and sequence of the
curriculum have been modied in order to focus on improv-
ing student understanding of vectors and to promote a stron-
ger sense of the coherence of mechanics. In comparing the
performance of students from these courses, we have seen
that the modications we have made have resulted in an
increase in students spontaneous use of vectors in solving
various problems. However, we also emphasize that improv-
ing student understanding of vectors remains a challenge.
II. PREVIOUS RELATED RESEARCH
There is an extensive body of research on student under-
standing of mechanics topics.
1
In particular, student difcul-
ties with the relationship between acceleration and velocity
have been noted in a variety of studies.
2
Students ideas
about the relationship between force and motion have also
been documented.
3
Although most of this research has been
conducted in the context of one-dimensional motion, there
have been some studies of student understanding of the vec-
tor nature of acceleration. Reif and Allen
4
asked students in
an introductory course and physics faculty members to de-
scribe the direction of acceleration for the motion of objects
along various paths. They found that both novices and ex-
perts had difculty with qualitative questions about the vec-
tor nature of acceleration. Although they generally answered
the questions correctly, there was an initial tendency by the
experts in the study to reason inappropriately on the basis of
forces rather than answering purely on the basis of kinemat-
ics. Shaffer
5
asked rst-year and advanced physics graduate
students to show the direction of acceleration for a child on a
swing at various positions during a half-period of the motion.
Only 6 of 48 graduate students were able to show the ap-
460 460 Am. J. Phys. 72 4, April 2004 http://aapt.org/ajp 2004 American Association of Physics Teachers
proximate direction of the acceleration for all positions. The
most common incorrect responses were to include only the
radial or only the tangential components of the acceleration.
There also has been some research on student understand-
ing of vectors. Knight
6
conducted a survey of student knowl-
edge of vectors at the beginning of an introductory mechan-
ics course and found that about half of the students in a
calculus-based introductory course enter with no knowledge
of vectors and only about one-third have sufcient vector
knowledge to proceed with mechanics. Recently, Nguyen
and Meltzer
7
described pre- and post-tests of student knowl-
edge of vector properties and vector addition for students in
introductory mechanics courses. They concluded that over
one-quarter of the students completing a calculus-based me-
chanics course and one-half completing the algebra-based
course were unable to add vectors in two dimensions. In a
previous investigation of student understanding of vectors in
electrostatics,
8
one of us SEK found that many students
have difculty in reasoning about net electric forces and
elds from collections of point sources, and that additional
difculties are introduced when trying to reason about eld
and force vectors from continuous charge distributions.
We also can infer from results from nationally adminis-
tered tests that questions involving force or acceleration as
vector quantities are difcult for many students. For ex-
ample, on the Mechanics Baseline Test,
9
one question re-
quires students to compare the magnitudes of four force vec-
tors acting on an object that is moving at constant speed.
Another question asks students for the direction of accelera-
tion for a block when it is at the lowest point on a curved
ramp. Students performed poorly on these questions after
standard instruction. About 36% could answer the force
question correctly, and only 18% answered the acceleration
question correctly. The Force Concept Inventory
10
does not
test for understanding of vectors: The only question that re-
quired an understanding of vectors was removed when the
test was revised.
These investigations suggest that a conceptual understand-
ing of Newtons second law as a vector equation is not a
typical outcome of the introductory course. Indeed, even ad-
ditional coursework in mechanics does not promote this un-
derstanding for many who go on in physics.
III. CONTEXT FOR RESEARCH
We present data from interviews of students conducted at
New Mexico State University. In addition, we describe re-
sults from questions asked on examinations given in intro-
ductory calculus-based physics courses at the University of
Washington, Syracuse University, and at New Mexico State
University.
We would characterize the instruction in some sections at
New Mexico State as traditional. In these courses, there have
been no attempts to modify the content of the course to ad-
dress conceptual issues specic to vectors. In contrast, the
instruction at the University of Washington, Syracuse, and
other sections at New Mexico State has been modied. In
these modied courses, changes have been made to the cur-
riculum and instruction to strengthen conceptual understand-
ing in general; at New Mexico State a specic focus on stu-
dent understanding of the use of vectors has been
incorporated. We will briey describe the calculus-based me-
chanics course at these institutions, and outline the course
modications intended to promote conceptual knowledge of
vectors as it applies to Newtons laws and kinematics.
New Mexico State Universitytraditional. The introduc-
tory sequence at New Mexico State consists of 150 min of
lecture per week. There is no recitation section. Homework
is assigned from the course textbook or online using
WebAssign.
11
Some majors that require this mechanics
course also require the associated laboratory while others do
not. About half of the students enrolled in the course take the
laboratory course. The lecture section and the laboratory are
graded separately.
Syracuse University and the University of Washington
modied. Courses taught at Syracuse and the University of
Washington include 150 min per week of lecture and a re-
quired 3-h lab. At both universities, there is an additional
required 1-h meeting where students work through exercises
from Tutorials in Introductory Physics.
12
The tutorials take
the place of more traditional recitation sections. In the tuto-
rials, however, students work in small groups through
research-based exercises designed to address common stu-
dent difculties. The emphasis of the tutorials is on concep-
tual understanding rather than on the traditional problem
solving that characterizes many recitation sections. In addi-
tion, instruction at Syracuse includes a 1-h problem-solving
workshop. The tutorials have been effective at promoting
student conceptual understanding of a wide variety of phys-
ics topics.
13
A more detailed description of the tutorials and
their implementation can be found in Ref. 14.
As part of the tutorials, students are asked explicitly to
construct change-in-velocity vectors and to reason about ac-
celeration based on this construction in both one- and two-
dimensional kinematics. In subsequent tutorials, the system-
atic construction of free-body diagrams is stressed, and
students are asked to reason about the relation between an
objects motion and the forces exerted on it.
Lecture instruction at Syracuse was modied to include
time for students to work on qualitative questions and to
discuss their reasoning about these questions with other stu-
dents. These lectures closely followed the model described in
Ref. 15.
New Mexico State Universitymodied. In courses taught
by one of the authors at New Mexico State, many modica-
tions were made to improve student use and understanding of
vectors. The course sequence was modied so that forces
were introduced rst in constant-velocity including v0)
situations. Vectors and vector addition were introduced in
this context. Kinematics was introduced subsequently, and
vector subtraction was taught when velocity and acceleration
were discussed. Although this forces-rst sequence of the
course resembles the one found in a recently published
textbook,
16
a standard-sequence text was used.
There was an increased emphasis on conceptual under-
standing in the lecture and on homework assignments. Many
homework assignments, particularly the earlier ones, were
composed primarily of conceptual exercises. For example,
one assignment asked students only to draw free-body dia-
grams for a variety of situations. As the semester progressed,
the assignments became gradually more traditional, requiring
the use of equations to obtain a numerical result. Frequently,
lectures included time for students to do in-class exercises.
Reasoning about dynamics and kinematic quantities based on
graphical vector construction was stressed on homework, in
lecture, and on examinations.
In summary, we have analyzed student responses to ques-
461 461 Am. J. Phys., Vol. 72, No. 4, April 2004 Flores, Kanim, and Kautz
tions asked after three different modes of instruction: 1
instruction without modications that are likely to inuence
student performance on vector questions in mechanics, 2
instruction that includes tutorials but no other modications
that specically emphasize student use and understanding of
vectors, and 3 instruction that incorporates substantial
modications designed to improve student understanding of
vectors.
IV. STUDENT UNDERSTANDING OF VECTORS IN
MECHANICS AFTER INSTRUCTION
We asked a variety of questions to probe student under-
standing of vectors in the context of mechanics. The ques-
tions can be categorized roughly into four types that are dis-
cussed separately below: questions that assess student ability
to add or subtract vectors in the absence of any physics con-
text Sec. IVA, questions that probe student understanding
of the vector nature of forces Sec. IVB and of kinematic
quantities Sec. IVC, and questions that test student ability
to relate force and acceleration as given by Newtons second
law Sec. IVD. In all cases, students were asked to explain
the reasoning they used to arrive at their answer.
A. Assessment of vector skills
We describe two tasks given to probe student familiarity
with simple vector operations. These tasks were designed to
help distinguish a general lack of skills in manipulating vec-
tors from difculties that are more specic to the context of
Newtons laws. Both tasks refer to Fig. 1, which shows two
equal-length vectors that make an angle of slightly less than
180 with each other. Students were asked to state whether
the magnitudes of i the vector sum A
and B
. One
of the following questions asks students to nd the direction
of this difference; the other asks for an approximate direction
of the acceleration.
1. Moon question
The moon question, shown in Fig. 6a, includes a draw-
ing of the orbit of the moon around the earth, with two lunar
positions marked at 90 from each other. Velocity vectors are
shown for the two positions. Students were asked to identify
the correct change-in-velocity vector v