Research On The Thinking Methods Of High School Students Participating In Physics Olympiad

The Chinese Physics Olympiad intends to arouse students’ interest in physics learning, improve their physics learning methods, and identify and cultivate teenagers who may be brilliant in physics learning. With the requirement for high-quality talents gradually increased, physics competition, which could effectively select excellent seeds for physics learning from middle school students, has been increasingly favored by students, parents and schools. Physics, as a basic subject based on experiments, studies the structures and interactions, movements and mutual conversion rules of material。 The high abstraction and generality feature of physics makes physics learning much more difficult than other subjects, especially embodied in higher request for students’ thinking ability. The learning of physics thinking methods is an important aspect for effective physics learning; the acquirement of physics thinking methods may infinitely improve students’ physics problem solving ability. The requirement for physics knowledge and thinking ability in physics competition of middle school students is far beyond that in college entrance examination, which further emphasizes importance of thinking methods in the preparation for physics competition. Therefore, it will be helpful for physics competitors by analyzing and studying thinking methods applied in physics competition.A questionnaire survey has been conducted on a senior one physics competition group in the NO.1 Middle School Affiliated to Central China Normal University. The survey indicates that most students in the competition group try to improve their problem solving ability by doing a large number of exercises, keeping the "hand feeling" for exercises and working out more exercises than those needed in competition; while they pay little attention to physics thinking methods. The mechanical stuffing exercises not only burden students, but also cannot really improve students competition ability and learning ability. Based on this survey, the thesis analyzes, counts and summarizes physics thinking methods by studying physics competition courses and past quarter-final exam papers, intended to provide a guidance for physics competition instructors in physics thinking methods training.The research results are demonstrated as follows:Physics thinking methods in competition courses mainly include induction and deduction method, analysis andsynthesis method, equal effects method and model method, which are in accordance with what has been studied in past quarter-final exam papers. Based on questionnaire survey, and analysis of physics competition courses and past quarter-final exam papers, two suggestions for competition preparation are proposed:(1) lay more emphasis on physics thinking methods learning; (2) pay more attention to the essence and application of physics thinking methods in the study of physics concepts and rules.The thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter one introduces research background, research progress, research purpose and research methods. Chapter two presents some related concepts, such as physics competition and thinking methods; summarizes the frequently-used thinking methods in senior high school students’physics learning from literature reviews; illustrates concepts and features of different physics thinking methods in detail; and proposes theories applied in the research, including constructivism learning theory and humanistic learning theory. Chapter three describes questionnaire survey conducted on the senior one physics competition group in the NO.1 Middle School Affiliated to Central China Normal University, which lays foundation for the thesis. Chapter four, as main part of the thesis, counts and analyzes thinking methods in physics competition courses and past quarter-final exam papers, draws results of the research, and proposes related suggestions for physics competition learning. Chapter five, the conclusion and reflection part, generalizes research result, and illustrates deficiencies of the thesis and research implications.