Correlation of Aspects of Recent Drawings made by Physicists

TL;DR

This study analyzes physics students' recent experimental drawings to explore how aspects like plasticity, spatiality, and motor recognition relate to their understanding of space and time, using Polanyi's consciousness theory.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach linking drawing aspects to physical notions and motor experience, extending Polanyi's theory to explain observed correlations.

Findings

Certain drawing aspects tend to correlate in specific trends.

Correlations relate to students' attitudes towards space and time during experiments.

Results are presented schematically for easier interpretation.

Abstract

In this study recent drawings made by physics students are investigated. These drawings are part of reports made during experimenting. Aspects of drawings are chosen for investigation that are linked to basic physical notions like plasticity and spatiality. Also the aspects are required to link to the motor recognition experience during drawing, of the one who made the drawing. In this way the aim is to clarify the individual notions of space and time that are basic to performing the experiments. These are called the attitude with which the experiment is performed. Some aspects of these drawings tend to be correlated in several trends. Polanyi's theory of consciousness is generalised to explain why this correlation of aspects occurs. The correlation trends and attitudes can be related to each other. The results are presented in a schematic way to facilitate interpretation of the concepts introduced and of the correlation results.