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Cited by 623

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 18 of the 18 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Research on conceptual understanding in mechanics

McDermott, Lillian C.·1984·Physics Today
DOI 10.1063/1.2916318
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Abstract

Over the past decade, physicists, psychologists and science educators have been conducting research that has yielded detailed information about how students learn physics. Some investigators have used physics as a context for examining cognitive processes and approaches to problem-solving. For others, the primary emphasis has been on conceptual understanding in a particular area of physics such as mechanics, electricity, heat or optics. Regardless of the motivation behind the research, the results indicate that similar difficulties occur among students of different ages and ability, often in spite of formal study in physics. The persistence of these difficulties suggests that they are not easily overcome, and need to be addressed explicitly during instruction.

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Crossref · 10.1063/1.2916318

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Metadata

Authors
McDermott, L. C.
Venue
Physics Today
Publisher
AIP Publishing
Published
1984-07-01
Volume
37
Issue
7
Pages
24-32
ISSN
  • 0031-9228 (ISSN-L)
  • 1945-0699
DOI
10.1063/1.2916318
OpenAlex
W2041285360
Cited by
623
References
18
FWCI
71.53
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Research on conceptual understanding in mechanics. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1063/1.2916318
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McDermott, L. C. (1984). Research on conceptual understanding in mechanics. Physics Today. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2916318

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.