Difficoltà di apprendimento in cinematica di studenti del I anno del Corso di Laurea in Matematica

The skills of freshmen mathematics majors, in interpreting graphs of basic mathematical functions, kinematical graphs and the language of motion were investigated by means of three multiple choice questionnaires with open comments. The unidimensional analyses of each student’s answers and their correlations show context-dependence of skills: in particular the malhematical abilities are not entirely transferred to the physics context. The results indicate that the ability to connect different representations of the same phenomena must be taught explicitly by means of specifically designed approaches and tools, in order to develop the awareness of the cognitive and operative value of multirepresentation. Several investigated learning/teaching difficulties were addressed by interactive classroom activities based on on-line measurement of the students’ motion.