University/Organization
Faculty of Education
University of Ottawa
Canada
Département de Didactique
Université du Québec à Montréal
Canada
Title
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF PARABOLIC MOTION
Synopsis
High school students experience difficulties when they studied parabolic motion since it requires, to understand its properties, that they combine one dimensional kinematics concepts. To understand the nature of their difficulties, we analyzed with qualitative methods the content of students’ answers to a questionnaire. Among key results, we found that many students encounter difficulties differentiating between position (time) and speed (time) along X and Y components.