PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
A framework for the natures of negativity in introductory physics
Page: 68
Positive and negative quantities are ubiquitous in physics, and the sign carries important and varied meanings. Unlike physics experts, novices struggle to understand the many roles signed numbers can play in physics contexts, and recent evidence shows that unresolved struggle carries over to subsequent physics courses. The mathematics education research literature documents the cognitive challenge of conceptualizing negative numbers as mathematical objects. We contribute to the growing body of research that focuses on student reasoning in a physics context about signed quantities and the role of the negative sign. This paper contributes a framework for categorizing the natures of the negative sign in physics contexts, inspired by the research into the natures of negativity in algebra. Using the framework, we analyze several published studies associated with reasoning about negativity drawn from the physics education and mathematics education research communities. We provide implications for mathematics and physics instruction and further research