PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

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The very nature of a qualitative case-study approach makes this research
exploratory and speculative, as opposed to definitive. This research will tell us “where to
look” in attempting to understand cooperative group problem solving. That is, the
patterns found in the group processes will help set the future research agenda, both
qualitative and quantitative, in cooperative group problem solving.
The Researcher as a Participant
Finally, there is an epistemological question I must acknowledge. In a qualitative
case-study design the researcher “interacts” with that which is being researched. Because
of this, and because the design emerges from that which is being studied, the research is
value-laden and biased. That bias, however, does not attempt to force specific results or
conclusions. It rather recognizes that, for example, my choice of an analysis category
reflects my world-view. In a sense, I am a participant in the research, despite my efforts
to distance myself from any causal effect on the outcomes. The Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle is a useful analogy. The act of making the measurement disturbs the system.
The art of qualitative research is to keep the disturbance to a minimum (although perhaps
not as small as Planck’s constant).
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
With all of these limitations, it may seem that the choice of a qualitative case-
study design severely limits the outcomes of this study. Although it may not be possible
to specify what all physics students do in cooperative group problem solving, it will be
possible to describe what these students in these 14 groups did. That in itself will be an
accomplishment due to the relative paucity of insights into what students actually do in