RUME 27
2025
Alexandria, Virginia
New Methods for Analyzing Students’ Reasoning About Definite Integrals in Introductory Physics
Page: 888
Over the past decade, research on students’ understanding of integrals has grown significantly. While previous studies have noted students’ difficulties in coordinating the “product layer” with definite integrals in applied contexts, they often overlook the diverse knowledge resources students use in their moment-to-moment reasoning. Additionally, effective methods for analyzing this complexity have been lacking. This paper introduces new methods for examining students’ reasoning about the “product layer”, !(#) ∙ &#, and definite integrals, combining a modified dynamic conceptual blending diagram and an expanded Visualization/Analysis/Physics (VAP)- model. We demonstrate these methods with an example of an integration task, illustrating their application and impact on integration research (see Sus & Izsák, 2024b for further examples). This contribution advances the literature on integration research by providing a more nuanced analysis of students’ reasoning.