Does Conceptual Understanding Matter: Patterns Of Error In Senior Engineering Students Problem Solving In Statics?

This paper describes a study that investigates students’ explanations of force when describing the errors they made when solving a Statics problem based on the concepts of free body diagram (FBD) and equilibrium. Three male civil and mechanical engineering seniors were asked to think aloud as they solved the fore mentioned problem. Participants’ solutions were analyzed using two conceptual frameworks. The first framework describes a substance-based conceptual schema of force that students may have. This framework is based on the works of Reiner, Slotta, Chi and Resnick 1 and Chi 2 . The second framework from the works of Steif 3 describes the common errors that students make in their solutions of Statics problems and the Statics concepts that they represent. Findings of this study show that students who got the answer incorrect made four common errors. In conjunction, when explaining the reasoning behind these errors, students talked about the force(s) as represented in the problem and solution as a substance or a material object.