Undergraduate physics students’ understanding and representations of introductory nuclear physics concepts

Abstract

One of the challenges for physics education is to develop the students’ conceptual understanding of physics. The developmental phenomenographic research approach, which is a qualitative research approach, can inform effective instructional design that can address such challenges. This study aimed to explore and develop undergraduate physics students’ understanding and representations of five basic concepts of nuclear physics. An exploratory case study research design underpinned by the conceptual frameworks of phenomenography and variation theory of learning was carried out. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews after the first group of students (N = 30) were exposed to traditional instruction for six weeks in phase one. Five sets of categories of description were constructed for the five concepts using phenomenography. These categories of description represent the different ways of students’ understanding and representations of these concepts. This informed the development of multiple representations (MR’s) based instruction with an interactive learning tutorial that was used as an intervention in phase two. The MR’s were the combination of text, equation, graph, diagram, simulation, and others. The second group of students (N= 40) was exposed to the intervention for six weeks. Data were collected using an open-ended questionnaire at pre-, post-, and delayed post-intervention. Fifteen sets of categories of description were constructed at these three points for each of the five concepts. In phase three, the results at pre-intervention were used as a baseline and were compared to the results found at post- and delayed post-intervention to explore the efficacy of the intervention. Therefore, the categories of description were used as a basis to identify the critical and irrelevant aspects discerned by students using the variation theory of learning as a lens. Findings suggest that the intervention was effective in developing the students’ conceptual understanding and representations of nuclear physics. This could inform effective instructional design for physics curriculum developers on what and how to include materials that facilitate students’ conceptual understanding.