• Open Access

Productive resources in students’ ideas about energy: An alternative analysis of Watts’ original interview transcripts

Benedikt W. Harrer, Virginia J. Flood, and Michael C. Wittmann
Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 023101 – Published 10 September 2013

Abstract

For over 30 years, researchers have investigated students’ ideas about energy with the intent of reforming instructional practice. In this pursuit, Watts contributed an influential study with his 1983 paper “Some alternative views of energy” [Phys. Educ. 18, 213 (1983)]. Watts’ “alternative frameworks” continue to be used for categorizing students’ non-normative ideas about energy. Using a resources framework, we propose an alternate analysis of student responses from Watts’ interviews. In our analysis, we show how students’ activated resources about energy are disciplinarily productive. We suggest that fostering seeds of scientific understandings in students’ ideas about energy may play an important role in their development of scientific literacy.

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  • Received 31 May 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.9.023101

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

Authors & Affiliations

Benedikt W. Harrer1,*, Virginia J. Flood2, and Michael C. Wittmann1,2

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469, USA
  • 2Center for Research in STEM Education, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469, USA

  • *benedikt.harrer@maine.edu

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Vol. 9, Iss. 2 — July - December 2013

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