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Abstract Title: Students’ understanding of the moment of inertia in a rotating rigid body
Abstract: There are previous studies on students' difficulties in the understanding of the rotation of a rigid body [1, 2, 3]. It is well known that the comprehension of the moment of inertia is essential to understand any phenomenon of the rotation of a rigid body. The objective of our study is to inquire into the conceptions of university students when they explain the role of the moment of inertia in phenomena of rotation of a rigid body about a fixed axis. We have designed an open-ended questionnaire for students in a calculus-based introductory physics course. The questions were designed following an epistemological analysis in order to raise the key concepts needed to understand the moment of inertia of a rigid body properly. In this study, we intend to find different ways in which students interpret significant aspects of the moment of inertia, through the analysis and understanding of students' explanations [4]. We will present a number of the questions and results obtained from them.

[1] Close, Gomez & Heron (2013). Am. J. Phys. 81(6), 458-470.
[2] Rimoldini & Singh (2005). Phys Rev PER, 1(1), 010102.
[3] Mashood & Singh (2015). Eur. J. Phys, 36(4), 045020.
[4] Savall-Alemany, Domènech-Blanco, Guisasola & Martínez-Torregrosa (2016) Phys Rev PER, 12, 010132.
Abstract Type: Contributed Poster Presentation
Session Time: Poster Session II
Poster Number: 2.K1

Author/Organizer Information

Primary Contact: Paulo Sarriugarte
Applied Physics department, UPV/EHU Europa Plaza 1, 20018 Donostia, Basque Country
Non U.S.
Co-Author(s)
and Co-Presenter(s)
Jenaro Guisasola, Applied Physics department, UPV/EHU Europa Plaza 1, 20018 Donostia, Basque Country

Kristina Zuza, Applied Physics department, UPV/EHU Europa Plaza 1, 20018 Donostia, Basque Country