Physics and Astronomy Calendar

One important aspect of physics instruction is helping
students develop better problem solving expertise. Besides enhancing the content knowledge, problems help students develop different cognitive abilities and skills. My research focuses on ill-structured or multiple-possibility problems. These problems are different from traditional "end of chapter" well-structured problems. They do not have one right answer and thus the student has to examine different possibilities, assumptions and evaluate the outcomes. To solve such problems one has to engage in a cognitive monitoring called epistemic cognition. Physicists routinely use epistemic cognition when they solve problems. I will discuss the results of two studies. Study one is a semi-qualitative study of expert-novice epistemic cognition level comparison based on the analysis of videotapes of experts and novices solving ill-structured problems. Study two is an intervention study investigating the implications of using ill-structured problems in recitations in an algebra-based physics course on students' epistemic cognition and physics content knowledge.