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Assessing The Impact Of Representational And Contextual Problem Features On Student Use Of Right-Hand Rules, Mary Bridget Kustusch
Assessing The Impact Of Representational And Contextual Problem Features On Student Use Of Right-Hand Rules, Mary Bridget Kustusch
Mary Bridget Kustusch
Students in introductory physics struggle with vector algebra and these challenges are often associated
with contextual and representational features of the problems. Performance on problems about cross product
direction is particularly poor and some research suggests that this may be primarily due to misapplied right-
hand rules. However, few studies have had the resolution to explore student use of right-hand rules in detail.
This study reviews literature in several disciplines, including spatial cognition, to identify ten contextual and
representational problem features that are most likely to influence performance on problems requiring a
right-hand rule. Two quantitative measures of performance (correctness …