Gesture analysis for physics education researchers

TL;DR

This paper reviews gesture analysis research to help physics education researchers understand student thinking by examining gestures that reveal ideas, sources, and novelty in real time.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of gesture analysis methods specifically tailored for physics education research to interpret student ideas more effectively.

Findings

Gestures reveal students' ideas and sources in physics learning.

Gesture analysis can identify the novelty of student ideas.

Real-time gesture interpretation enhances understanding of student thinking.

Abstract

Systematic observations of student gestures can not only fill in gaps in students' verbal expressions, but can also offer valuable information about student ideas, including their source, their novelty to the speaker, and their construction in real time. This paper provides a review of the research in gesture analysis that is most relevant to physics education researchers and illustrates gesture analysis for the purpose of better understanding student thinking about physics.