Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics

This case study was conducted with first year students who were enrolled in non-major Physics units in a university in Australia. Two questionnaires on the topic of Thermal Physics and Optics, respectively, were designed for assessing students' conceptual understanding of the way in which multi...

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Main Authors: Kuo, Yen-ruey, Treagust, David, Zadnik, Marjan, Siddiqu, Salim
Other Authors: WenHua Change
Format: Conference Paper
Published: National Taiwan Normal University 2011
Online Access:https://smec.curtin.edu.au/conferences.cfm
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13799
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author Kuo, Yen-ruey
Treagust, David
Zadnik, Marjan
Siddiqu, Salim
author2 WenHua Change
author_facet WenHua Change
Kuo, Yen-ruey
Treagust, David
Zadnik, Marjan
Siddiqu, Salim
author_sort Kuo, Yen-ruey
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This case study was conducted with first year students who were enrolled in non-major Physics units in a university in Australia. Two questionnaires on the topic of Thermal Physics and Optics, respectively, were designed for assessing students' conceptual understanding of the way in which multiple representations (description using words, diagrams, formulas and coordinate graphs) were used to explain the concepts. Students also responded to a Physics Expectation Survey, a Physics Experience Survey and a Physics Motivation Survey to gain an understanding of their attitude toward studying Physics. The Physics Expectation Survey and the Physics Experience Survey, which are pre and post-test respectively, showed there was no significant difference between students' expectations and actual experience. The two surveys also showed students' expectations and experience were in upper-intermediate level. As for the Physics Motivation Survey, it revealed that on average students had a positive attitude towards learning Physics. Besides, the questionnaires that assessed students' conceptual understanding of multiple representations in Physics showed that there was a significant increase in the number of students' different representations after changing the format of the questions. However, a large number of students were unable to solve the questions effectively on the questionnaires no matter the format of the questions had been changed or not.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T07:05:07Z
publishDate 2011
publisher National Taiwan Normal University
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-137992023-01-27T05:26:30Z Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics Kuo, Yen-ruey Treagust, David Zadnik, Marjan Siddiqu, Salim WenHua Change Darrell Fisher Chen-Yung Lin Rekha Koul This case study was conducted with first year students who were enrolled in non-major Physics units in a university in Australia. Two questionnaires on the topic of Thermal Physics and Optics, respectively, were designed for assessing students' conceptual understanding of the way in which multiple representations (description using words, diagrams, formulas and coordinate graphs) were used to explain the concepts. Students also responded to a Physics Expectation Survey, a Physics Experience Survey and a Physics Motivation Survey to gain an understanding of their attitude toward studying Physics. The Physics Expectation Survey and the Physics Experience Survey, which are pre and post-test respectively, showed there was no significant difference between students' expectations and actual experience. The two surveys also showed students' expectations and experience were in upper-intermediate level. As for the Physics Motivation Survey, it revealed that on average students had a positive attitude towards learning Physics. Besides, the questionnaires that assessed students' conceptual understanding of multiple representations in Physics showed that there was a significant increase in the number of students' different representations after changing the format of the questions. However, a large number of students were unable to solve the questions effectively on the questionnaires no matter the format of the questions had been changed or not. 2011 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13799 https://smec.curtin.edu.au/conferences.cfm National Taiwan Normal University fulltext
spellingShingle Kuo, Yen-ruey
Treagust, David
Zadnik, Marjan
Siddiqu, Salim
Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics
title Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics
title_full Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics
title_fullStr Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics
title_full_unstemmed Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics
title_short Students' Multiple Representations and Attitude toward Learning University Physics
title_sort students' multiple representations and attitude toward learning university physics
url https://smec.curtin.edu.au/conferences.cfm
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13799