Interactive Video Tutorials for Enhancing Problem Solving, Reasoning and Meta-cognitive Skills of Introductory Physics Students

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Intellectual Merit: The project is developing and assessing a set of twenty interactive video tutorial-based problems to help introductory physics students in calculus- and algebra-based courses learn effective problem-solving techniques. Effective problem solving begins with a qualitative analysis, followed by decision making, implementation, assessment, and reflection phases. Most introductory students do not acquire these techniques automatically and need help with them. Students are learning problem solving skills using concrete examples in an interactive environment. They are required to solve sub-problems (research-guided multiple-choice questions) to show their level of understanding at every stage of problem solving. The alternative choices in the multiple-choice questions elicit difficulties students commonly have with relevant concepts. Broader Impact: The self-paced nature of the web-accessible tutorials and the problem-solving approach illustrated in them are flexible and adaptable enough to meet the needs of a diverse variety of students including those who are at risk and need extra help. Underrepresented minorities, students with learning disabilities and women who are typically more hesitant or intimidated about asking for help from instructors particularly may benefit from these tutorials. The tutorials can be used both as aids to problem solving in homework assignments and as a self-study tool by students. They can be an asset to the graduate teaching assistants and faculty as well as high-school teachers and students. A longer term goal is to integrate the videos with an introductory physics sequence and textbook. Assessment of the project comes from in-class and out-of-class control studies, which complement each other. The out-of-class study compares the performance of "matched" students using tutorials with the video, audio and text options with each other and against those who receive identical content from non-tutorial means. Evidence for the development of the meta-cognitive ability can be tracked by analyzing students' think-aloud protocol during the interviews. The in-class study compares the performance of students who use tutorials with those who do not use them in similar classes in the natural classroom setting. The evaluation of the project is useful for educators who are interested in developing distance education tools.