LEARNING STRATEGIES FOR BASIC CONCEPTS OF MECHANICS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEGREE PROGRAMS. MEXICAN EXPERIENCE

У цій статті представлені результати педагогічного дослідження, метою якого було встановлення обсягу концептуальних карт, здійснених за допомогою CMapTools під час вивчення основних понять класичної механіки студентами-металургійними інженерами в Національному політехнічному інституті Мексики та визначення шляху як такі поняття засвоюються. Автор виявив, що студенти, створивши концептуальні карти з основними поняттями механіки за допомогою CMapTools з гарною якістю контенту, оціненого за допомогою рубрики семантичної оцінки, покращили своє розуміння цих понять згідно з опитувальником Force Concept Inventory (FCI) та підвищили свою мотивацію. вивчати ці аспекти механіки. Тому створення концептуальних карт за допомогою CMapTools позитивно впливає на значне вивчення основних понять класичної механіки.

Probing the effect on student conceptual understanding due to a forced mid-semester transition to online teaching

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) can be used as an assessment tool to measure conceptual gains in a cohort of students. The FCI uses a conceptions/``misconceptions" lens rather than a context dependent perspective, such as ``knowledge-in-pieces". In this study it was given to first year students ($N=256$ students) pre- and post-mechanics lectures, at the University of Johannesburg. From these results we examine the effect of switching mid-semester from traditional classes to online classes, as imposed by the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa. Overall results indicate no appreciable difference of gain, when bench-marked against previous studies using this assessment tool. When compared with $2019$ grades, the $2020$ semester grades do not appear to be greatly affected. Furthermore, statistical analyses also indicate a gender difference in mean gains in favour of females at the $95\%$ significance level (for paired data, $N=48$).

Relevancy of Force Concept Inventory and Mechanics Baseline Test in Excerpting Conceptual Understanding of High-Performing Students

In the topics of mechanics, readily available instruments such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and the Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT) have been extensively used to assess students’ conceptual understanding, especially for high school and undergraduate students. In this paper, the relevancy of these two instruments in excerpting conceptual understanding of high-performing students was examined and the results were elaborated. The findings in this paper suggest that the FCI and MBT are indeed effective to show students’ basic conceptual understanding in mechanics but should not be used to assess improvement after learning intervention or to differentiate students’ conceptual understanding in a population of high performers. More advanced assessments, such as those that comprise higher order thinking questions, should be used for such purposes.

Senior high school students' responses to graphical and mathematical representation items: The case of kinematics

This research aims to investigate and compare students’ responses in solving physics problems about kinematics concepts. The students’ responses cover the conceptual understanding as overall performance, representational abilities, and students’ response patterns.This research is a non-experimental survey research with thequantitative-descriptive approach. The research samples consisted of 56 students determined by purposive sampling technique. The research instrument was adapted from the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) in Physport Assessmentwhich has been validated. The students’ responses were analyzedusing descriptive statistics to measure the average and standard deviation. Students’ answers were also grouped according to the type of representation and pattern of presentation in percentages. The results showed a significant difference between the tenth-grade students and eleventh-grade students' understanding of the Kinematics concept. Furthermore, the students found it easier to answer mathematical representation questions rather than graphical representation questions.

Can Peer Discussion Reduce Students’ Mistakes in Conceptual Physics Questions?

In this work, we tried to check whether students can overcome their mistakes in conceptual physics questions by peer discussion. For this purpose, we administered Force Concept Inventory to high school students and university students. Our study showed that high school students and university students could not overcome their mistakes in the conceptual physics questions by peer discussion. We separately found out that males are better than females at conceptual physics questions.

Effect of Compliance on Residual Stresses in Manufacturing with Moving Heat Sources

Manufacturing processes involving moving heat sources include additive manufacturing, welding, laser processing (cladding and heat treatment), machining, and grinding. These processes involve high local thermal stresses that induce plasticity and result in permanent residual stress and distortion. The residual stresses are typically calculated numerically at great computational expense despite the fact that the inelastic fraction of the domain is very small. Efforts to decouple the small plastic part from the large elastic part have led to the development of the tendon force concept. The tendon force can be predicted analytically for the case of infinitely rigid components; however, this limitation has prevented the broader use of the concept in practical applications. This work presents a rigorous mathematical treatment using dimensional analysis, asymptotics, and blending which demonstrates that the effect of geometric compliance depends on a single dimensionless group, the Okerblom number. Closed-form expressions are derived to predict the effect of compliance without the need for empirical ad-hoc fitting or calibration. The proposed expressions require input of only material properties and tabulated process parameters, and are thus ideally suited for use in metamodels and design calculations, as well as incorporation into engineering codes and standards.