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Conceptual Representation Of The Newtonian Model Of Motion In University Physics Students, Yannis Hadzigeorgiou

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to investigate how undergraduate students at the University of Northern Iowa who had taken prior coursework on non-calculus general physics with a unit on mechanics understand the Newtonian model of motion. In general, the study was concerned with reasoning strategies, the preconceptions that give rise to these strategies, and the schema that might be inferred from the preconceptions. In particular, the study focused on the three fundamental notions of the Newtonian model of motion: {a) that uniform straight line motion is equivalent to rest, {b) that motion is relative to an inertial frame of …