Learning from Mistakes: The Effect of Students' Written Self-Diagnoses on Subsequent Problem Solving

• Andrew Mason ^[1] ; Edit Yerushalmi ^[2] ; Elisheva Cohen ^[2] ; Chandralekha Singh ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Central Arkansas

     University of Central Arkansas

     Township of Cadron, Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] Weizmann Institute of Science

     Weizmann Institute of Science

     Israel

     
  3. [3] University of Pittsburgh

     University of Pittsburgh

     City of Pittsburgh, Estados Unidos

     

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• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 54, Nº. 2, 2016, págs. 87-90
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Helping students learn to think like a physicist is an important goal of many introductory physics courses. One characteristic distinguishing more experienced physicists from novice students is that they make better use of problem solving as a learning opportunity. Experts were found to spend more time than novices in monitoring their work, reflecting upon their possibly deficient approach to solving a problem, reconsidering their choices as necessary, and extending and refining their knowledge structure. Moreover, research on worked-out examples suggests that better performing students are those who “self-explain,” that is, elaborate to themselves what they are learning from those examples, generate inferences, acknowledge mismatches between their own approach and that of the example, and attempt to resolve conflicts (self-repair). Indeed, physics instructors often express concern that many students do not make an effort to learn from their mistakes after the graded problems are returned to them. Here, we discuss an investigation focusing on how well introductory physics students self-diagnose their mistakes in their quiz solutions and its effect on subsequent problem solving in different interventions.