1. The “revisiting” strategy in physics tutorials Joshua S
The “revisiting” strategy in physics tutorials Joshua S. Von Korff,1 Amin Bayat Barooni,1 Hannah Pamplin,1 Jacquelyn J. Chini2 1Georgia State University, 2University of Central Florida
Supported by NSF grant #
1. Motivation and Research Question
Instructional design strategies are important for creators of physics tutorials and labs, but most efforts in developing design strategies have been focused on individual sets of physics activities. For example, “elicit-confront-resolve” and “refining intuitions” are typically mentioned in the context of the Tutorials in Introductory Physics (TIP) and Open Source Tutorials (OST), respectively. In order to perform a comparative analysis of different physics activities and to give general advice to activity designers, a more general theory of instructional design is needed.
RQ: What research-based instructional design strategies are general and easily identifiable across multiple types of tutorials and lab activities?
3. Revisiting
Revisiting was the core design principle that emerged from our analysis.
Definition of revisiting: The tutorial asks an initial question, then addresses the same question a second time.
Example #1: In “predict-observe-explain,” the student makes a prediction to answer a question, then makes an observation that will answer that same question. E.g. the student might make a prediction about what the velocity vs. time graph will look like as a cart rolls down a hill, then test that prediction.
Example #2: In “elicit-confront-resolve” (ECR), the student answers a problem, which “elicits” a misconception that the student has. Then, the student has a second experience that “confronts” them with a new answer to that same problem.
Example #3: In “checking with the instructor,” the student answers a question, then discusses that same question with an instructor. (Note that this is not an example of ECR, since the instructor need not “confront” the students, but it is an example of revisiting.)
Nine types of revisiting:
2. Methods
Overall, a constant comparative method was employed.
Four authors of TIP and OST were interviewed (as part of a larger project). Interviews were one hour in length.
The literature was searched for instructional design strategies for tutorials and labs.
A computerized word count of the TIP and OST found words such as “prediction” that are more common in tutorials than in cookbook labs.
The Open Source Tutorials design documents were coded.
The tutorials themselves were coded.
Name
Code
Nature of the initial question
Nature of the revisit
Prediction / Experiment
PREX
The prediction
The experiment
Statements to Agree or Disagree With
SAD
The statements may be the revisit OR may be the initial question
Revisit with Reasoning
RWR
Conceptual reasoning
Procedure*
PROC
Procedures or plug-and-chug
Think-Pair-Share
TPS
Working independently
Sharing / comparing
Symposium*
SYM
Working as a table
Talking to other tables
Checking With Instructor
CWI
Working as a group
Checking with instructor
Telling the Answer
TELL
Any question
The activity gives the solution
Printed Answer
PRIN
The solution gives the answer as a separate printed document
* PROC appeared only in lab, not tutorials. SYM appeared only in ISLE labs.
4. Conclusions and future work
The most common revisiting strategies in both TIP and OST were prediction / experiment (PREX), revisit with reasoning (RWR), and checking with the instructor (CWI), each of which made up about 20-30% of all codes. In terms of relative frequency of all codes, TIP and OST look similar, although think-pair-share seems to be more common in OST and “statements to agree or disagree with” is more common in TIP.
There are about twice as many revisits coded in OST as in TIP. This fits with a comment one TIP author made in an interview, namely, that ECR is not as common in TIP as people think. TIP authors suggested many other strategies that are important in TIP, including guided inquiry / guided derivation, generalization, model building, and constructing and interpreting concepts. Future work will be needed to understand these other strategies.
Future work could investigate whether revisiting has a common mechanism. One such mechanism might be argumentation: revisiting results in multiple answers to a single question, which may lead students to make arguments in order to defend their answer and therefore to think in terms of evidence and rational justification.