Students often hold intuitive misconceptions that coexist with scientifically normative understanding. A growing body of research suggests that inhibitory control plays an important role in resolving such interference by suppressing misconception-based responses. In science learning, however, the same underlying concept is often encountered through multiple external representations, which may repeatedly activate similar misconceptions. It therefore remains unclear whether inhibitory control is also involved when the same concept is expressed in different but closely related representation formats. Extending prior findings on inhibitory control in stroboscopic representation involving the position-velocity indiscrimination (PVI) misconception, the present research examined whether similar demands on inhibitory control arise in position-time graph representations. To address this question, we conducted two studies using a negative priming (NP) paradigm, with eye tracking added in Study 2. Study 1 involved 45 high school students and tested whether inhibitory control was involved in overcoming the PVI misconception in position-time graphs. Study 2 involved 37 physics major undergraduates and further examined how attentional allocation unfolded during this process. In both studies, congruent probes following incongruent primes elicited slower responses than congruent probes following neutral primes, indicating a reliable NP effect. In Study 1, probe accuracy was also lower after incongruent primes. Eye tracking in Study 2 further showed that, during incongruent primes, participants oriented earlier to graph regions in which the two objects occupied the same position, whereas access to the graph region indicating equal velocity, defined by equal slope, was delayed relative to neutral primes. In the probe stage, congruent probes following incongruent primes elicited later entry into, and greater attentional investment on, the graph region that contained the scientifically relevant cue for making the correct velocity judgment. Taken together, these findings suggest that the PVI misconception is activated early, competes for attentional resources, and requires inhibitory control together with attentional reallocation toward scientifically relevant information. More broadly, considered alongside prior evidence from stroboscopic representations, the present results provide initial evidence that the inhibitory demands associated with overcoming the PVI misconception may generalize across closely related visual representations of the same kinematic concept. This study advances understanding of the cognitive processes underlying physics learning and offers implications for instruction aimed at mitigating persistent misconceptions.
Scientific knowledge does not necessarily replace intuitive misconceptions; successful physics reasoning may therefore require learners to control responses that remain cognitively available. However, inhibitory-control accounts have yet to explain whether the same conceptual conflict elicits a stable amount of control across representational contexts or whether control mobilization varies with contextual typicality and physics training. This study addressed this issue using a negative-priming (NP) paradigm in the domain of static friction. High-school students and undergraduate physics majors made static-friction judgments in a prototypical context and a nonprototypical context. Within the inhibitory account adopted here, NP magnitude was interpreted as a behavioral index of the control mobilized during the preceding incongruent prime. Probe-phase reaction times were analyzed on the log scale using a linear mixed-effects model with Group, Context, and Prime Type and their interactions. The analysis revealed a context-dependent pattern of NP, with the magnitude of this contextual modulation differing between the two groups. Specifically, NP was negligible in the prototypical context for both high-school students and physics majors. By contrast, reliable NP emerged in the nonprototypical context. This increase was substantially larger among high-school students than among physics majors. When translated back to the original reaction-time scale, NP in the nonprototypical context corresponded to an approximately 20.77% increase for high-school students, compared with a 5.65% increase for physics majors. Taken together, these findings show that the inhibitory control mobilized by the same conceptual conflict is not fixed across representations. The nonprototypical representation amplified inhibitory-control demand, whereas physics training attenuated this amplification. The training-related advantage is therefore better characterized as reduced contextual sensitivity of inhibitory mobilization than as a context-invariant absence of conceptual conflict. The results advance process-based accounts of conceptual change by linking problem representation, domain knowledge, and task-evoked inhibitory control.
Physics problem-solving assessments often prioritize accuracy over presentation. However, the presentation quality of a student’s written solution—such as its handwriting clarity and layout—may play an important role both as an indicator and facilitator of student problem-solving and achievement. In this study, we investigated the relationships between show-work presentation (SWP), conscientiousness, and student performance in a large-enrollment introductory calculus-based physics course. Using an emergent coding process, we first iteratively developed a reliable rubric for quantifying several presentation qualities of student solutions to two introductory mechanics final exam show-work questions. We found that the coding produced scores for 2 orthogonal factors, which we label as Form, measuring layout and legibility, and Annotation, measuring student notation of their work. Statistical analyses showed that Form was a moderate-to-weak positive predictor of various course performance measures (r∼0.3), including show-work score, exam score, nonexam scores, and course grade. Even when controlling for ACT Math and conscientiousness scores, Form still accounted for 4%–5% of the variance of these course performance scores. In contrast, Annotation was at best very weakly and inconsistently (in sign) correlated with these performance scores. Sex differences were also observed, with female students’ mean scores for both Form and Annotation typically about one-half standard deviation higher than male students’ scores. Simultaneous mediation models of the relation between sex and course outcomes included the mediators of ACT score, conscientiousness, and Form. Results indicate that Form partially mediated the relation between sex and course grade, show-work score, multiple-choice score, and nonexam score. Specifically, women tended to score higher on Form, and this effect in turn led to a positive effect on scores on all of these outcomes, typically compensating for other negative effects. The (simultaneous) mediations of ACT score and conscientiousness were much weaker, consistent with being vanishingly small. It is important to note that these are correlational results only, and control-treatment designs are called for to investigate potential causal links between Form and performance. Overall, by developing and implementing a validated rubric measuring show-work presentation quality, we find evidence that presentation quality may play a relatively small but reliable role in student performance on show-work problems and is a weak but reliable predictor of most components of course performance. These results suggest that show-work presentation may be an important factor to consider in physics instruction.
Evidence from physics education research suggests that the introduction of mathematical formalism in quantum physics instruction can support the development of students’ conceptual understanding, particularly by promoting functional ways of reasoning about quantum phenomena. However, empirical findings on the effectiveness of such approaches at the secondary school level remain inconclusive, and little is known about the extent to which learning outcomes are shaped by instructional design as opposed to learners’ affective and cognitive characteristics. This study addresses this gap by investigating the relative influence of instructional approach on students’ understanding of single-photon states, while controlling for prior knowledge, cognitive load, situational interest, and physics self-concept. A quasiexperimental pre-post design was implemented with N=172 upper secondary students, comparing a qualitative instructional condition with an approach supplemented by a reduced Dirac formalism. Learning outcomes were assessed using the framework of Functional Fidelity and Fidelity of Gestalt. A multivariate analysis of covariance, followed by univariate analyses of covariance, was conducted to examine the contributions of instructional and learner-related variables. The findings indicate that affective variables emerge as strong predictors of functional understanding and suggest that learning in quantum physics is driven less by instructional format than by learners’ affective and cognitive prerequisites. In particular, fostering interest appears to be a key mechanism for supporting the development of functional understanding. The results highlight the importance of integrating affective dimensions into instructional design and provide a basis for future research on the interaction between instructional approaches and learner characteristics in quantum physics education.
