PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

(^)
I defined these additional statement categories after a thorough analysis of what
students actually said and did in the Problem 4 session. Categories such as Summarizing,
Skeptic, and Consensus checking, as well as Challenges, result from the assigned roles
based on the Johnson Model. In addition, I noticed that utterances like “OK”, “What”,
and “umm” don’t fit any category, and I realized I was seeing statements of Clarification,
Support, Acknowledgment, and Request. So, in addition to the four Toulmin statement
categories, I defined nine additional statement types. These additional statement types
augment the Toulmin statement types summarized in Table 2-4. The examples are drawn
from the At The Gasthaus problem to illustrate the various statement types. My new
definitions and some example statements are summarized in Table 2-5 (page 59). The
section of transcript shown above in its “raw” form is shown coded in Table 2-6 (page
60). I have added annotations, explanations and diagrams to clarify the students’
discussion.
It is very important to note that these non-Toulmin categories were not
determined before the analysis began, but grew out of the analysis. That is, the coding
scheme originated within the students discussions (Gustafson, 1977). The result of the
process was nearly 3000 lines of coded transcripts for the 14 groups. In the following
two chapters there will be numerous examples of coded transcripts.