Reflections of problem solving strategies amongst senior and junior physics students

Abstract

Solving complex problems requires one to have an adequate repertoire of problem solving skills. Teaching such skills is not enough to solve complex problems, because most teachers or lecturers reinforce the idea of finding an appropriate formula for well-constructed problems (Ogilvie, 2009) but the problem solving skill fails for ill-structured problems. In this paper, the students have reflected in their problem solving strategies whilst solving physics problems. A questionnaire with categorized problem solving strategies was administered to junior and senior university students, who are taking physics as part of their core curriculum. This research was towards the end of the semester, with the idea of getting a holistic perspective of their problem solving strategies in physics. The results of this study revealed that the senior students employed more of the “expansive” problem solving strategies, compared to the juniors who had used only a few of the “limiting” and “expansive” strategies. Typically, seniors were in the habit of breaking up a problem into sub-problems, frequently used free-body diagrams and thought about the concepts involved in problem solving. The only “expansive” strategy used by the juniors was the breaking up of a problem into sub-problems.