University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group

Activity Based Physics Thinking Problems

In many introductory physics textbooks, most, if not all, of the end-of-chapter problems are find-the-equation and plug-and-chug. Those that are not tend to be difficult and require a sophisticated mix of skills. Qualitative questions are usually "fuzzy". As a result, they are rarely assigned, and when they are, students don't gain much from solving them.

In the pages linked to this one, we have collected a number of problems which attempt to link a student's qualitative understanding of concepts with specific problems. Some serve well as probes of student understanding in a think-aloud taped-interview protocol. Most have been written by the Maryland PERG. Some are adapted from other sources. Some valuable sources of problems include:

• Arnold Arons, A guide to introductory physics teaching (Wiley, NY, 1990).
• Arnold Arons, Homework and test questions for introductory physics teaching (Wiley, NY, 1994)
• Eric Mazur, Peer Instruction: A user's manual (Prentice Hall, NY, 1996)
• Fred Reif, Understanding basic mechanics: Workbook(Wiley, NY, 1995)

Other collections of thinking problems available include:

• The University of Maryland Fermi Problems site
• The University of Minnesota Context Rich Problems site

Table of Contents

Thinking Problems in Mechanics
Thinking Problems in Oscillations and Waves
Thinking Problems in Thermodynamics
Thinking Problems in Electricity and Magnetism

Go back to the Activity Based Physics page

Maintained by University of Maryland PERG
Comments and questions may be directed to E. F. Redish
Last modified June 21, 2002