Acceleration in One-Dimension

Related Physics Education Research

There has been much written about student difficulties in this area. In particular, see Arnold Arons A Guide to Introductory Physics Teaching and D. E. Trowbridge Investigation of student understanding of the concept of acceleration in one dimension in American Journal of Physics, 48 242-253 (1981).

Overview of Worksheet

Worksheet simply has students take data on a cart moving up and down an inclined plane and fit data. Students should then go on to do the one-dimensional tutorial to help make sense of the velocity and acceleration data.

Approximate Time

Half an hour to three quarters of an hour.

Required Student Background

They should be familiar with the definitions of velocity and acceleration.

Connections to the Tutorials

This can be just prior to the tutorial on one-dimensional acceleration to verify that the data given in the tutorial agrees with experiment.

Required Equipment

Low friction carts and tracks, motion detector, and either CBL or MBL equipment (see either Vernier or Pasco for information on microcomputer-based or calculator-based laboratory equipment (known as MBL and CBL).

Evaluation of Worksheet

We used the Force Concept Inventory that measures student understanding of basic kinematics and dynamic concepts and which was introduced by I. A. Halloun and D. Hestenes in The initial knowledge state of college physics students in American Journal of Physics 53, 1043 - 1055 (1985).

To take into account previous knowledge, the FCI is typically given twice: once before instruction and once after. Scores on the FCI are reported as percent gain: post test - pre test score / perfect score - pre-test score. This measure the fraction of what they could have learn, that they learn.

We used our own class as a control, in that the activities did not work well the Fall 1998 semester, and were reworked for the Fall 1999 semester.

For Fall 1998, our students percent gain was 25% +/- 45% (17 students), for Fall 1999 45% +/- 28% (43 students) the second year. The second year score is in line with national averages for interactive-engagement classes, see R. R. Hake Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses in American Journal of Physics 66, 64-74 (1998). We feel these improvements in scores were made possible by improved worksheets.