Numerous calls and reports emphasize the importance for students to develop a coherent understanding of science. The drive for coherence can be traced to the vast number of studies demonstrating that students emerge from science courses with misconceptions and fragmented ideas, regardless of the science discipline. Therefore, with this project we begin to develop an understanding of how students connect and apply their knowledge from three different science courses (chemistry, biology, and physics) to common everyday phenomena. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students enrolled in a second-semester physics course (since these students had previously completed each of the three courses). We investigated how students integrate their experiences from their science courses and the real world to discuss the various phenomena. This presentation will present the preliminary findings from this project.

Investigation into how students make connections that cross the disciplinary boundaries of chemistry, biology, and physics

251st National Meeting (2016)

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