Speirs Ferm Stetzer Lindsey on reasoning chains

J. Caleb Speirs, William N. Ferm Jr., MacKenzie R. Stetzer, and Beth A. Lindsey

Probing Student Ability to Construct Reasoning Chains: A New Methodology

Students are often asked to construct qualitative reasoning chains during scaffolded, research-based physics instruction. As part of a multi-institutional effort to investigate and assess the development of student reasoning skills in physics, we have been designing tasks that probe the extent to which students can create and evaluate reasoning chains. In one task, students are provided with correct reasoning elements (i.e., true statements about the physical situation as well as correct concepts and mathematical relationships) and are asked to assemble them into an argument that they can use to answer a specified physics problem. In this paper, the task is described in detail and preliminary results are presented.

J. C. Speirs, W. N. F. Jr., M. R. Stetzer, and B. A. Lindsey, Probing Student Ability to Construct Reasoning Chains: A New Methodology, 2016 PERC Proceedings [Sacramento, CA, July 20-21, 2016], edited by D. L. Jones, L. Ding, and A. Traxler, doi:10.1119/perc.2016.pr.077.