Students' regulation of cognition in physics problem-solving

Abstract

In physics education, the regulation of cognition becomes an essential activity for students in solving problems. The way students solve the problem by presenting the answer is not enough to show the steps of regulation of cognition completely. To discover the steps fully, this research focused on the way students solve a problem through thinking aloud. Via this technique, students could reveal their thinking pattern in solving the problems. Based on the exploration of preliminary study, three of 68 students were selected purposively as the participants to represent the low, middle, and high level of physics problem-solving skills. Each student was given a test about heat transfer of some system states by thinking aloud. The result showed that all participants passed all steps of regulation of cognition, although they worked at different speeds. Students of the middle and high level of problem-solving skills could plan fast and effectively. The lack of confidence when doing monitoring mostly was done by the middle-leveled student. However, the high-leveled student needed diagrams to ensure the chosen concept in solving the problem. Meanwhile, the low-leveled student presented the answer in a different version, was correct in guessing, but incorrect on physics concept during monitoring.