Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis addresses several aspects of the teaching and learning of thermodynamics in the context of first year university Physics. The first part of the thesis focuses on the teaching aspect, and reports on a two-year experiment in at The University of Sydney that involved introducing a program designed to facilitate ‘Active Learning’. Four groups, known as streams (N=600), were separated into two that participated in the ‘Interactive Lecture Demonstration’ program and two that did not. In the first year, 2011, there were no differences in learning outcomes between the four streams as measured by the Thermal Concepts Survey, however, in a repeat of the experiment in 2012, one stream performing significantly better than the other three. Other measures of learning outcomes were examined and all lectures were observed and characterised. The second part of the thesis focuses on student understanding. First, student understanding is examined using existing measures. Several specific findings were made, highlighting particular aspects of thermodynamics that caused difficulties for students. In order to address some of the limitations in these existing measures and approaches, and to provide more explanatory analyses, a novel approach was pursued and developed. This approach, Legitimation Code Theory, was used to examine student understanding of thermodynamics through the focus on the organising principles of knowledge. The analysis using Legitimation Code Theory reveals that the nature of the scientific knowledge that students encounter has real effects on their engagement with the subject, and this, in turn, has consequences for instructional practices. It will be argued that Legitimation Code Theory is a powerful framework that can provide substantial utility for the study of student understanding and to science and Physics Education Research in general.
Author: Helen Georgiou
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W210988470