Sanjay Rebello

KSUPER Seminar

Monday, February 14, 2011

2:30 p.m.

Cardwell 119

Student Difficulties with Integration during Problem Solving in Physics 

Students in calculus-based physics courses are expected to have the necessary mathematical knowledge and skills to be applied to physics problems.  Yet research indicates that students’ have difficulties in transferring their mathematics knowledge and skills to physics problems.  Our research has investigated the common difficulties that students in introductory physics experience when solving problems involving integration. We found that although most students recognize the need for an integral in solving the problem, they often fail to set up the desired integral.  Students’ difficulties originate from their inability to understand the infinitesimal term in the integral, the notion of accumulation of an infinitesimal physical quantity, the meaning of integration as area under the curve, and the relationship between the process of accumulation and area under a curve.  I will describe a set of instructional materials that we have developed and are currently refining to enable students to overcome these difficulties.   

This work is supported by NSF grant 0816207.