Work

When skill meets struggle: Mapping students’ physmatic difficulties to physmatic skills in physics lessons

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The interplay of mathematics within physics—termed here as —presents unique cognitive challenges for students, requiring coordination between mathematical reasoning and physical sensemaking. While previous studies have documented common physmatic difficulties, capturing these challenges as they emerge in classroom instruction is rare. This study analyzed 273 teacher–student interactions from 23 video-recorded physics lessons taught across a diverse range of classrooms, aiming to identify and categorize physmatic difficulties as they naturally arose during instruction. Twenty-four codes of difficulties were identified through content analysis and grouped into five overarching clusters: (i) , (ii) , (iii) , (iv) , and (v) . A key finding of this study was the identification of systematic associations between the modeling skills teachers aimed to develop (i.e., mathematization, manipulation, interpretation, and validation) and the corresponding student difficulties. These findings underscore the centrality of modeling as a pedagogical framework for physics instruction and suggest that teachers who are aware of the links between skills and difficulties may be better prepared to anticipate student struggles, respond to them in real time, and even leverage them as part of their instructional practice.

Source: Physical Review Physics Education Research

DOI: 10.1103/s3wr-sbqb

Authors: Hadas Levi, Yaron Lehavi, Avraham Merzel

Institutions: Jerusalem College of Technology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, David Yellin College of Education, Weizmann Institute of Science

Language: English

Topic: Science Education and Pedagogy

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,000