Designing, implementing and assessing guided-inquiry based tutorials in introductory physics
Doughty, Leanne
(2013)
Designing, implementing and assessing guided-inquiry based tutorials in introductory physics.
PhD thesis, Dublin City University.
This work concerns the development of instruction to address identified difficulties students have in introductory physics courses. Tests were designed to investigate students' conceptual understanding and use of mathematical tools in an electromagnetism context, and students understanding of the relationship between position, velocity, and acceleration, and the graphing of these quantities with time in the context of simple harmonic motion. The resulting instruction specifically tackles difficulties discovered after initial testing, and takes the form of structured worksheets which students complete in small groups, with tutors acting as facilitators. Through the comparison of students answers to pretest and post test questions the effectiveness of the developed instruction has been assessed.