Using Analogy to Solve a Three-Step Physics Problem

TL;DR

This study investigates students' ability to transfer physics problem-solving skills from a two-step problem to a more complex three-step problem using analogical reasoning, highlighting challenges in extending learned principles.

Contribution

It demonstrates the difficulty students face in applying analogical reasoning to transfer solutions from simpler to more complex physics problems involving additional steps.

Findings

Students struggle to extend two-step problem solutions to three-step problems.

Analogical reasoning aids but does not fully bridge the complexity gap.

Transfer of problem-solving strategies is limited when problem steps increase.

Abstract

In a companion paper, we discuss students' ability to take advantage of what they learn from a solved problem and transfer their learning to solve a quiz problem that has different surface features but the same underlying physics principles. Here, we discuss students' ability to perform analogical reasoning between another pair of problems. Both the problems can be solved using the same physics principles. However, the solved problem provided was a two- step problem (which can be solved by decomposing it into two sub-problems) while the quiz problem was a three-step problem. We find that it is challenging for students to extend what they learned from a two-step problem to solve a three-step problem.