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.

1.
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2.
For example, there were six talks related to epistemological issues given at the 2001 Winter Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers, 8 at the 2001 Summer Meeting, and 17 at the 2002 Winter Meeting; note that these figures do not include talks given at the Physics Education Research Conference that followed the summer meeting.
3.
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,”
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,
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(
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). David Mills suggested additional modifications to the reports.
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5.
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,”
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,”
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(
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,”
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,”
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,”
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14.
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20.
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21.
L.
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,
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,
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, and
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,”
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,”
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28
,
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(
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,”
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).
23.
These are described in more detail by Alan Van Heuvelen and Kathleen M. Andre, “Calculus-based physics and the engineering ABET 2000 criteria,” APS Forum on Education newsletter, Spring/Summer 2000, pp. 5–6.
24.
E. Etkina, “Can we use the processes of physics to guide physics instruction?” published online at http://www.gse.rutgers.edu/people/ee.htm, 2001.
25.
Here we mean the selection of one or more observational experiments (really demonstrations) in which most students are able to see a clear pattern. For example, in a lecture where students construct the idea that for an object to move in circle with constant speed, there must be a net force pointed towards the center, students first observe the instructor rolling a bowling ball along a long table (the ball moves with constant velocity) and then tapping it in the direction of motion (the ball speeds up). Then the instructor repeats the experiment tapping the ball in the direction perpendicular to the original direction of motion (the ball follows a parabolic path). The third time, the instructor taps the ball in the direction perpendicular to the direction of motion at every point. Students are asked to construct free body diagrams for each situation and explain the motion of the ball.
26.
In these ways, this cycle is different from science learning cycles suggested by R. Karplus and C. Lavatelli, The Developmental Theory of Piaget: Conservation (Davidson Film Producers, San Francisco, 1969) or by
A. E. Lawson, M. R. Abraham, and J. W. Renner, A Theory of Instruction: Using the Learning Cycle to Teach Science Concepts and Thinking Skills (NARST, Cincinnati, OH, 1989). The Lawson et al. cycle begins with a question, rather than with an observation that generates questions. In Karplus and Lavatelli’s cycle, explanation construction is followed by application rather than testing.
27.
D.
Hestenes
,
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, and
G.
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,”
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,
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(
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D.
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and
M.
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,”
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,
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(
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).
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D.
Maloney
,
T.
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,
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, and
A.
Van Heuvelen
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,”
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R. R.
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,”
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,
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(
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31.
In this class, the instructor made a special effort to avoid “content delivery” and to engage students in the construction of concepts (from observations or relationships to other concepts) and then by testing the concepts experimentally. Physical notions were not defined before students constructed their meaning. Mathematical relationships were either discovered as patterns in data or derived from previous relationships. All relationships were tested experimentally.
32.
Alan Van Heuvelen, ActivPhysics 1 (Addison Wesley Interactive, New York, 1997).
33.
See, for example, the ABET 2000 criteria, http://www.abet.org/eac/2000.htm; What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report for America 2000 (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, DC, 1991);
D. Rosdil, What are Masters Doing? (AIP Statistics Div., College Park, MD, 1996), Publication No. R-398.1.
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