Understanding and affecting student reasoning about sound waves

Abstract

Student learning of sound waves can be helped through the creation of group-learning classroom materials whose development and design rely on explicit investigations into student understanding. We describe reasoning in terms of sets of resources, i.e. grouped building blocks of thinking that are commonly used in many different settings. Students in our university physics classes often used sets of resources that were different from the ones we wish them to use. By designing curriculum materials that ask students to think about the physics from a different view, we bring about improvement in student understanding of sound waves. Our curriculum modifications are specific to our own classes, but our description of student learning is more generally useful for teachers. We describe how students can use multiple sets of resources in their thinking, and raise questions that should be considered by both instructors and researchers.

Using the resources framework to design, assess, and refine interventions on pressure in fluids

“…Our work on pressure in fluids confirms the value of the resources framework described in the literature [5][6][7]12,48]. While the details of the resources primed and refined will vary with physics context, the habits of looking for those resources in the literature and student talk, being open to the need for a wide variety of resources and different resources in each context, and focusing on productivity instead of text book correctness are all useful pedagogical tools.…”

“…We have seen in our own data that students have the resources to reason about pressure in fluids. In addition, student conceptual resources have been identified in several challenging topics within physics and mathematics: entropy [70], sound waves [12], energy [8,46,71], electric fields [72], gravity [73], differentials [74], and connecting meaning and mathematics [11].…”

“…Redish and Kuo [11] and Redish [6] detail student thinking in several case studies and show how their responses are influenced by conceptual and epistemological resources, framing, and affect. Wittmann et al [12] describe how they worked within the resources framework to design a tutorial on sound waves. Their goal was to prime students' existing resources related to events (rather than objects) in order to accurately describe sound waves, and also to promote the resources framework as a valuable pedagogical perspective.…”

“…It also prevents us from interfering too early in a rush for students to "get it right." Previous work has described the application of the resources framework to curriculum design [5,[10][11][12]. We add to the existing resources framework literature by describing in detail how the resources perspective was used in every phase of designing, assessing, and refining interventions in the context of moving fluids, as these details may be of value to other curriculum developers.…”

Misconceptions About Sound Among Engineering Students

“…This must be taken into account when one is planning and implementing learning activities aimed at the acquisition of scientifically accepted knowledge. Indeed, many cognitive psychologists and constructivists have stated that people construct new knowledge based on what they already know and believe, even if parts of this knowledge and understanding, which we shall call 'prior ideas' or 'misconceptions', are not consistent with scientific conceptions Chang et al 2007;Eshach and Schwartz 2006;Wittmann et al 2003).…”