Students should develop self-reflection skills and appropriate views about knowledge and learning, both for their own sake and because these skills and views may be related to improvements in conceptual understanding. We explored the latter issue in the context of an introductory physics course for first-year engineering honors students. As part of the course, students submitted weekly reports, in which they reflected on how they learned specific physics content. The reports by 12 students were analyzed for the quality of reflection and some of the epistemological beliefs they exhibited. Students’ conceptual learning gains were measured with standard survey instruments. We found that students with high conceptual gains tend to show reflection on learning that is more articulate and epistemologically sophisticated than students with lower conceptual gains. Some implications for instruction are suggested.
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December 2002
PHYSICS EDUCATION RESEARCH SECTION|
December 01 2002
College physics students’ epistemological self-reflection and its relationship to conceptual learning
David B. May;
David B. May
Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210
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Eugenia Etkina
Eugenia Etkina
Graduate School of Education, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-1183
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Am. J. Phys. 70, 1249–1258 (2002)
Article history
Received:
April 22 2002
Accepted:
July 05 2002
Citation
David B. May, Eugenia Etkina; College physics students’ epistemological self-reflection and its relationship to conceptual learning. Am. J. Phys. 1 December 2002; 70 (12): 1249–1258. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1503377
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