Important student misconceptions in mechanics and thermal science: Identification using Model-Eliciting Activities

As any engineering faculty member teaching undergraduates knows, students possess a wide variety of misconceptions about fundamental engineering concepts. In the thermal sciences, there are numerous misconceptions about heat, energy, and temperature; mechanics students hold misconceptions about inertia, angular velocity, and energy. This is complicated by the fact that we possess many years of everyday experiences with energy flows, forces, and kinematics. Due to previous experiences, it is often difficult to repair these misconceptions - simple classroom lecturing often fails to instill correct conceptual knowledge. In order to provide real-world context, we are developing model-eliciting activities (MEAs) to help repair misconceptions in dynamics and the thermal sciences. An MEA is a client-driven problem that requires student teams to develop an engineering model or procedure. This approach creates an environment where students value abilities beyond using the traditional prescribed equations and models. During this process, we hypothesize that rich discussion and model re-formulation will help students recognize and repair misconceptions, and that the real world context will help them remember these critical concepts.