Toward Understanding Student Difficulty in Upper-Level Mechanics Problem-Solving Processes

Over the past decade, many students have been losing their interest in physics. One of the essential reasons why students look away from physics is the fact that they face difficulty in solving physics problems. Since mechanics is a fundamental subject in physics, many researchers have studied how students learn mechanics and solve problems related to mechanics. However, there is little research focusing on the students specific difficulties in the process of problem solving. This study investigated students’ specific difficulties (with the degree of difficulties) and the core sources of these difficulties. 24 university students who majored in physics education participated in this study. We have developed a framework, the House Model (HM), for helping and analyzing students problem solving. We found that students felt greater difficulty in planning and executing steps than in visualizing, knowing and finding steps. As the problems grew in difficulty, this pattern became more distinct. We found the sources of the students’ difficulties and tried to suggest method of helping the students who experience difficulties in problem solving.