Center Colloquium – Monday, April 19 – John R. Thompson
Center for Science and Mathematics Education Research
Colloquia & Seminar Series
Presents
John R. Thompson,
Associate Professor of Physics
University of Maine
Date: Monday, April 19, 2010
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: Hill Auditorium
“Thinking about the “function” in “state function”: Investigating student understanding of the math behind the physics of state functions”
In our work looking at student understanding of concepts in advanced thermal physics, we have been investigating student understanding of mathematics underlying physics concepts. One area in which we have done this is with integration in the context of thermodynamic (P-V) work and changes in internal energy. We administered paired questions, one in a
physics context and the other an analogous question stripped of physical context, to investigate whether some of the difficulties identified as physics conceptual difficulties could have origins in the mathematics.
With PV work, where the mathematical analogy, a simple integral, is more straightforward, we see that this is in fact the case. With internal energy, however, where the math is more sophisticated, we find the opposite: most students provide correct responses to the physics
question – with acceptable physics reasoning, invoking state functions – but far fewer give correct responses to the mathematics question. Results from the math questions administered to multivariable calculus
students corroborate those from our physics students. This has led us to reconsider our interpretation of the results, and think more about the relationship between the math and the physics in this area.
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