Student understanding of energy: Difficulties related to systems

Beth A. Lindsey; Paula R L Heron; Peter S. Shaffer

doi:10.1119/1.3660661

Student understanding of energy: Difficulties related to systems

Beth A. Lindsey, Paula R L Heron, Peter S. Shaffer

Penn State Greater Allegheny

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44 Scopus citations

Abstract

Choosing a system of interest and identifying the interactions of the system with its environment are crucial steps in applying the relation between work and energy. Responses to problems that we administered in introductory calculus-based physics courses show that many students fail to recognize the implications of a particular choice of system. In some cases, students do not believe that particular groupings of objects can even be considered to be a system. Some errors are more prevalent in situations involving gravitational potential energy than elastic potential energy. The difficulties are manifested in both qualitative and quantitative reasoning.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	154-163
Number of pages	10
Journal	American Journal of Physics
Volume	80
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3660661
State	Published - Jan 20 2012

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

General Physics and Astronomy

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10.1119/1.3660661

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Student understanding of energy: Difficulties related to systems

Abstract

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