Students Views about Physics Representations Judyanto Sirait (a*), Janet Ainley (a), Martin Barstow (b)
a) School of Education, University of Leicester, UK
* judyantosirait[at]gmail.com
b) Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, UK
Abstract
The ability to represent physics concepts in various forms is a very important skill in physics learning. Therefore, instructors have developed creative approaches by involving representations in the teaching process as a means of enhancing students understanding. Most previous studies focused on drawing and using representations to help students learning physics concepts and solving problems. This paper presents a study (qualitative survey) concerning pre-service physics teachers views about physics representations during problem solving processes. Interviews have also been conducted to investigate pre-service physics teachers views about representations in more detail. Semi-structure interviews were used to explore deeply students motivation to draw or not to draw representation such as free body diagrams (FBDs) while solving physics problems. We found that most students agree that drawing representations such as picture or sketch, graphs, diagrams aids them to understand physics concepts, physics problems and to find the best solution.
Keywords: Views; Physics Representations; Free Body Diagrams
