Gesture analysis for physics education researchers

Abstract

Systematic observations of student gestures can not only fill in gaps in students' verbal expressions, but can also offer valuable information about student ideas, including their source, their novelty to the speaker, and their construction in real time. This paper provides a review of the research in gesture analysis that is most relevent to physics education researchers and illustrates gesture analysis for the purpose of better understanding student thinking about physics. © 2008 The American Physical Society.