Physics Student Understanding of Divergence and Curl and Their Constituent Partial Derivatives

RUME 25

2023

Omaha, Nebraska

Physics Student Understanding of Divergence and Curl and Their Constituent Partial Derivatives

Page: 1098

• Zeynep Topdemir
• Michael F. Loverude
• John R. Thompson

This work is part of a broader project to investigate student understanding of mathematical ideas used in upper-division physics. This study in particular probes students’ understanding of the divergence and curl operators as applied to vector field diagrams. We examined how students reason with partial derivatives that constitute divergence and curl of the vector field diagrams. Students’ written responses to a task on derivatives, divergence, and curl of a 2D vector field were collected and coded. Students were generally successful in determining the sign of some of the constituent derivatives of div and curl, but struggled in one case in which components were negative. Analysis of written explanations showed confusion between the sign, direction, and change in the magnitude of vector field components.