Physics Commons^™

Comparing Experts And Novices In Solving Electrical Circuit Problems With The Help Of Eye-Tracking, David Rosengrant, Colin Thomson, Taha Mzoughi

David Rosengrant

In order to help introductory physics students understand and learn to solve problems with circuits, we must first understand how they differ from experts. This preliminary study focuses on problem-solving dealing with electrical circuits. We investigate difficulties novices have with circuits and compare their work with those of experts. We incorporate the use of an eye-tracker to investigate any possible differences or similarities on how experts and novices solve electrical circuit problems. Our results show similarities in gaze patterns among all subjects on the components of the circuit. We further found that experts would look back at the circuit while …