• Open Access

Undergraduate student construction and interpretation of graphs in physics lab activities

Ryan S. Nixon, T. J. Godfrey, Nicholas T. Mayhew, and Craig C. Wiegert
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 12, 010104 – Published 16 February 2016

Abstract

Lab activities are an important element of an undergraduate physics course. In these lab activities, students construct and interpret graphs in order to connect the procedures of the lab with an understanding of the related physics concepts. This study investigated undergraduate students’ construction and interpretation of graphs with best-fit lines in the context of two physics lab activities. Students’ graphs were evaluated for overall graph quality and for the quality of the best-fit line. The strategies students used and their understanding of the meaning of the graph were accessed through interviews. The results suggest that undergraduate introductory physics students can successfully construct graphs with best-fit lines while not connecting the meaning of the graph to the underlying physics concepts. Furthermore, results indicated that the most challenging aspect of constructing a graph is setting up the scale, and that graphing is situated in specific contexts.

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  • Received 12 December 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.010104

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics Education Research

Authors & Affiliations

Ryan S. Nixon1,*, T. J. Godfrey2, Nicholas T. Mayhew2, and Craig C. Wiegert2

  • 1Department of Mathematics and Science Education, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2451, USA
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2451, USA

  • *Corresponding author. rynixon@byu.edu Present address: 206R MCKB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84601, USA.

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Vol. 12, Iss. 1 — January - June 2016

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