An Investigation On The Physical Reasoning Ability Of Senior Middle School Students

Reasoning ability is an important indicator to measure students’ thinking ability. It’s also an important part of physics ability. This paper investigates the status of the high school students’ physical reasoning ability, in order to provide some reference to improve students’ ability in physics and cultivate students’ scientific literacy.This study selected three different high school students in Nanjing as samples, analyzing students’ physical reasoning ability performed in three simulation tests using the physical reasoning theory of "element hierarchy". Research is divided into the following sections.First, through the analysis of students’ reasoning ability score in different levels, it shows that the creation of unfamiliar model for students is a huge challenge in certain situations.Second, this study compared the difference of physical reasoning ability between different school students. There are differences between different school students, especially in the reasoning ability of higher level. Strange situations and models have great influence upon the degree of differentiation.Third, this study compared the difference of physical reasoning ability between different genders of students. The results show that there is no significant difference between boys and girls. So fair and free developing environment should be paid to male and female students.Finally, this study puts forward some suggestions for improving students’ physical reasoning ability. It also expounds how to make use of mind map, problem-link, scientific inquiry to improve students’ physical reasoning ability.