On The Situational Knowledge For The Problem Representation In Senior High School Mechanics

Promoting students’problem-solving ability is a main task of physics education. Problem representation plays a signifigant role in problem solving. With the development of the researches on problem represeentation, it is not just considerated as the beginning of the problem solving, but a dynamic process.Problem sovlers’internal knowledge is stored in certatin constructure which is called problem schema. Situational knowledge is one of the four components of the schema. It is knowledge about situations as they typically appear in a particular domain. It enables the solver to sift relevant feartures out of the problem statement. Elements of situational knowledge include isolated situation features, conditions for the application of a solution procedure, and complete problem templates.In the thesis physics problem solving process model has been constructed. Three main sub-processes are included which are feature identifying, auxiliary reasoning and production calling. Think-aloud method is applied to get the verbal data of the process of the students" representing three groups of physics problems. After the coding of the data, the recognized features and the errors during the representation are analysed. The aim of the research is to find out the features and functions of the three elements of situational knowledge in three main sub-processes. Besides the think-aloud method, interviews are taken after the data have been analyzed.The conclusion is made up of three parts:(1) Isolated situation features enable students to notice certain information in problem statement in feature identifying and auxiliary reasoning. And it can also trigger the production directly. However, for some students, the features are isolatedly noticed and superficially understood.(2) Conditions for the application of a production guide the students to pay attention to the situation features with a certain purpose. In the production calling, due to the unstability and over-genenalization, some mistakes occur.(3) Senior one students do have some specific problem templates, whereas the combinations of productions in the templates still remian vague, which results in the failure to get essential information for the application of the templates. Meanwhile at the initial stage of representation, the activation of problem templates can lead the students to avoid construting an integrate physics prospect. As a result, the only use the formulary with no analysis.According to the conclusion and literature review, some proposals are offered. First, isomorphism problems could be used to create many more different situations for practice. In this way the structure of the situational knowledge can be optimized. Second, think-aloud method can also be applied to get the information of students’ situational knowledge. Then instrucational designs and assessments can be adjusted...