Do You Know Where To Look

TL;DR

This paper explores how physics students' line drawings during experiments reflect their attitudes towards time perception and scientific focus, linking these behaviors to philosophical concepts of science.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis connecting students' drawing attitudes with philosophical notions of science by applying Levinas and Husserl's concepts.

Findings

A meaningful correlation between drawing attitudes and philosophical notions of science.

Students' drawings reveal their perception of time and scientific responsibility.

The study offers a new perspective on interpreting experimental drawings in physics education.

Abstract

A group of line drawings in recent reports made by physics students during experimenting is investigated in order to describe the attitudes that can be related to the act of drawing. These attitudes represent time behavior and are related to how the experimenter basically perceives time. Also two concepts, one of desire, by Levinas, and the concept of constitution, by Husserl, are applied to describe two different notions of science. These notions are related to the question where the focus of the experiment is on: in the case of field work with responsibility for the infinite, and in the case of testing with responsibility for the un-distracted given. At least for this investigated group of drawings a meaningful correspondence can be shown to exist between the attitudes of the act of drawing and these notions of science.