Students' experiences of studying physics concepts: The effects of disintegrated perceptions and approaches

Abstract

Recent research on student learning has revealed that a number of students in any learning context are unable to distinguish between contrasting contextualised approaches to learning. In other words, the relationship between their perceptions of the learning context and their approaches to learning disintegrates and becomes incoherent. These students are observed to be among the lower academic achievers in their group. This paper reports on the results of a study which shows that physics students' prior understandings of key concepts are systematically related to the way they approach their studies, their perceptions of the learning context and the quality of the outcomes of their studies. A..