Study On How To Cultivate High-school Students’ Problem Representation Ability In Physics Teaching

Problem representation refers to how the resolver understands the problem based on hisown understanding so as to transform the task of a problem into the spacial concept of thatproblem. It is the resolver’s understanding of that problem and the key to the resolution of aproblem. Only a correct representation will ensure the thorough understanding of the problemand the smooth resolution of that problem.Based on questionnaires and cognitive production analysis, this paper, guided bycognitive psychology, studies the problem representation in students of Grade One and GradeThree of high school. The conclusion is that: First, horizontally, the students in Grade One aremore distinctly influenced by the problem representation than those in Grade Three; thecognitive structure and the resolution strategy of the excellent students in Grade One is betterthan that of poor students; second, vertically, the overall problem representation ability ofGrade Three students is superior to that of Grade One. The contributing factors includecognitive structure, problem solving strategies, thinking set, and problem schema.Given the students’ difference in the problem representation ability and the contributingfactors, we try to seek three teaching strategies to effectively cultivate their problemrepresentation ability by adopting three measures: First, preview, which will help students todiscover the loopholes in the learned part so that they can make it up and contribute to theacquisition of new knowledge; second, questioning situation, which will help to expandstudents’ scope of knowledge and improve their representation ability to shift from concretethinking to abstract thinking; third, guiding with series of questions, cutting one complicatedsubject into several separate but progressive points so that students can form correct problemrepresentation. These measures have greatly improved the teaching of physics in high school.However, the quantitative evaluation and distributive cognition and other ecologicalstudies concerning the problem representation capabilities call for further research in thefuture.