Applying a mathematical sense-making framework to student work and its potential for curriculum design

• Main Authors: Julian D. Gifford, Noah D. Finkelstein
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society 2021-05-01
• Series: Physical Review Physics Education Research
• Online Access: http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.010138

This paper extends prior work establishing an operationalized framework of mathematical sense making (MSM) in physics. The framework differentiates between the object being understood (either physical or mathematical) and various tools (physical or mathematical) used to mediate the sense-making process. This results in four modes of MSM that can be coordinated and linked in various ways. Here, the framework is applied to novel modalities of student written work (both short answer and multiple choice). In detailed studies of student reasoning about the photoelectric effect, we associate these MSM modes with particular multiple choice answers, and substantiate this association by linking both the MSM modes and multiple choice answers with finer-grained reasoning elements that students use in solving a specific problem. Through the multiple associations between MSM mode, distributions of reasoning elements, and multiple-choice answers, we confirm the applicability of this framework to analyzing these sparser modalities of student work and its utility for analyzing larger-scale (N>100) datasets. The association between individual reasoning elements and both MSM modes and MC answers suggest that it is possible to cue particular modes of student reasoning and answer selection. Such findings suggest potential for this framework to be applicable to the analysis and design of curriculum.