Investigation of Diverse Representational Modes in the Learning of Physics and Chemistry

这个项目的目标是调查不同的表征模式在物理和化学概念学习中所起的作用。我们将探索物理和化学中复杂概念的表征形式与学生学习这些概念的能力之间的关系。我们将确定学生在努力理解以不同表征形式提出的更大概念时出现的具体学习困难，并立即将我们的发现应用于改进课程材料和教学方法的开发。然后，我们将评估这些新材料和方法在使学生更好地掌握目标概念方面的有效性。我们将调查的问题包括：1)在物理和化学入门课程中，对特定概念的不同形式的表征可以识别出哪些学科特定的学习困难？2)关于不同表征模式在学习特定概念时的相对难度，可以有什么概括？3)个别学生在特定表征形式上的表现是好是差，主题类型千差万别？4)学生的相对表现与不同的表征模式和参数，如专业领域、性别、年龄、学习风格、标准教学中某些类型的表征形式的过度使用或使用不足对传统上代表性不足的群体成员是否有任何潜在的影响？测试工具由几种不同表征形式的紧密匹配的问题组成，将同时对班上所有学生进行测试。分析学生的反应将使我们能够确定学习困难是与概念有关还是与表征有关，或者两者兼而有之。我们将开发和验证许多紧密匹配的问题集，涉及导论课程中的各种基本主题。这些考试将在爱荷华州立大学和其他机构进行，学生将同时学习代数课程和微积分课程。我们还将对个别学生进行并记录大量的临床访谈，以更深入地探讨他们对多重表征的理解。随着我们发现与代表性模式相关的普遍学习困难，我们将开发和测试专门为解决和纠正这些学习障碍而设计的课程材料。

The goal of this project is to investigate the role played by diverse representational modesin the learning of physics and chemistry concepts. We will explore the relationship between theform of representation of complex concepts in physics and chemistry, and students' ability to learnthese concepts. We will determine the specific learning difficulties that arise as students struggle tomaster concepts posed in different representational forms, and we will apply our findingsimmediately to the development of improved curricular materials and instructional methods. Wewill then assess the effectiveness of these new materials and methods in bringing about greaterstudent mastery of the targeted concepts. The issues we will investigate include the following:1) What subject-specific learning difficulties may be identified with various forms ofrepresentation of particular concepts in the introductory physics and chemistry curriculum?2) What generalizations may be possible regarding the relative degree of difficulty of variousrepresentational modes when compared with each other, in learning of particular concepts?3) Do individual students do consistently well or poorly with particular forms of representation,with widely varying types of subject matter?4) Are there any consistent correlations among students' relative performance with differentrepresentational modes, and parameters such as major field, gender, age, learning style, etc.?5) Does the overuse or under-use of certain types of representationalforms in standard instruction have any potential impact on members of traditionallyunderrepresented groups? Test instruments, consisting of sets of closely matched problems presented in several different forms of representation, will be administered simultaneously to all students in a class.Analysis of students' responses will allow us to determine whether the learning difficulties areconcept-related or representation-related, or both. We will develop and validate many of theseclosely matched problem sets, dealing with a wide variety of basic topics in the introductorycurricula. These will be administered to students enrolled in both algebra-based and calculus-basedcourses, at Iowa State University and at other institutions. We will also conduct and record manyclinical interviews with individual students in order to probe in more depth their understanding ofmultiple representations. As we identify widespread learning difficulties related to representationalmode, we will develop and test curricular materials specifically designed to address and remedythese obstacles to learning.