Development of a System to Construct Explanation for Physics Phenomenon through Thought Experiment

Abstract

This study focused on thought experiments (TEs) as a strategy to modify students’ incorrect internal mental models and aimed to develop a system to externalize TEs in students’ mind. A TE is an experiment conducted in the mind. Our system, called Thought Experiment Externalizer (TE-ext), provided some situations where TEs were conducted. The students externalized the results of their TEs on a PC display using the TE-ext. We tried to modify the student’ incorrect internal model and their incorrect explanation of surprising data using the system. The students were able to improve their explanation, which means that they were able to modify their internal models.