Analyzing Students' Problem Solving Difficulties on Modern Physics

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series Vol. 1028; no. 1; pp. 12205 - 12209
• Main Authors: Sartika, Dewi, Humairah, Nur Aisyah
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.06.2018
• Subjects: College students; Colleges & universities; Learning; Physicists; Physics; Problem solving; Qualitative analysis; Students
• ISSN: 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1028/1/012205

Problem solving is the most important skill which physicists should have. A research about problem solving skill in physics instruction was significantly essential because physics students have to comprehend concepts and recognize how to cohere it. By those comprehensions, students would be ingenious to solve the physics problem. The purpose of this study was to analyze students' problem solving skill which is based on problem solving step by Polya. The study was an initial research for the next developing research about implementation of a learning model in physics instruction to increase the students' problem solving skill. Subjects of research were college students of physics education department, who had taken modern physics subject. Data was analyzed by using qualitative-descriptive method. The research revealed these following conclusion: (1) college students had difficulty to comprehend the problems and hard to plan a solution (2) lecturer should apply a model of learning which train the students' problem solving skill in physics such as cooperative problem solving model.