Computers & Education 87 (2015) 10e23

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

The effect of computer science on physics learning in a computational

science environment
Rivka Taub*, Michal Armoni, Esther Bagno, Mordechai (Moti) Ben-Ari
Science Teaching Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl St., Rehovot 7610001, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 30 June 2014
Received in revised form
4 March 2015
Accepted 5 March 2015
Available online 9 April 2015

College and high-school students face many difculties when dealing with physics formulas, such as a
lack of understanding of their components or of the physical relationships between the two sides of a
formula. To overcome these difculties some instructors suggest combining simulations' design while
learning physics, claiming that the programming process forces the students to understand the physical
mechanism activating the simulation. This study took place in a computational-science course where
high-school students programmed simulations of physical systems, thus combining computer science
(CS) and mathematics with physics learning. The study explored the ways in which CS affected the
students' conceptual understanding of the physics behind formulas. The major part of the analysis
process was qualitative, although some quantitative analysis was applied as well. Findings revealed that a
great amount of the time was invested by the students on representing their physics knowledge in terms
of computer science. Three knowledge domains were found to be applied: structural, procedural and
systemic. A fourth domain which enabled reection on the knowledge was found as well, the domain of
execution. Each of the domains was found to promote the emergence of knowledge integration processes
(Linn & Eylon, 2006, 2011), thus promoting students physics conceptual understanding. Based on these
ndings, some instructional implications are discussed.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Interdisciplinary projects
Programming and programming languages
Secondary education
Simulations
Teaching/learning strategies

1. Introduction
Computational science is a eld that deals with the construction of mathematical models of scientic phenomena. The models require
extensive computational resources to explore large amount of data or non-linear systems. It is an interdisciplinary eld that combines
computer science (CS) and applied mathematics, in order to understand and solve complex scientic problems. Developing computational
models combines science (e.g., physics, biology), mathematics, programming, simulation design, modeling and more (Shiet & Shiet,
2006; Yasar & Landau, 2003). Computational science is a continuously changing and growing eld, re-dening its boundaries and paradigms (Post & Votta, 2005). It has reached predictive capabilities similar to those of the traditional experimentation and theory (Sloot, n.d.).
The success of this approach has led to the proposal that computational science should be taught in secondary schools so that students will
be exposed to this scientic method, and will acquire knowledge and strategies to solve complex problems. Another goal addressed in
computational science courses is the enhancement of students' understanding of scientic issues while developing computational models
for them.
Modern approaches of teaching science and mathematics make use of computer systems (Skryabin, Zhang, Liu, & Zhang, 2015; Taka

ci,
Stankov, & Milanovic, 2015). Studies show that science courses enriched with computational environments foster students' scientic understanding (Chabay & Sherwood, 2008; Louca, Druin, Hammer, & Dreher, 2003; Redish & Wilson, 1993). The study reported in this paper
aimed to explore whether and how, among other reasons, the elements of the computational environment foster understanding of the
physics expressed in formulas. Specically, it investigated the way the discipline of computer science affected the conceptual understanding
of physics formulas achieved by computational-science students. Observations revealed that computational-science students achieved

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 972 89344203.

E-mail address: rivka.taub@gmail.com (R. Taub).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.03.013
0360-1315/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

R. Taub et al. / Computers & Education 87 (2015) 10e23

11

conceptual understanding of physics formulas.1 To explore what affected this learning, episodes of students learning were explored by using
the knowledge integration (KI) perspective (Linn & Eylon, 2006, 2011). This perspective describes four processes that are essential in
achieving conceptual understanding. We used the KI perspective to carefully identify the changes in students' conceptual knowledge and
their causes and focused on changes that were triggered mainly by CS. Three major steps were applied in the analysis process: (a) detection
of the KI processes emerged in the learning episodes; (b) qualitative identication of the ways that CS triggered the emergence of these
processes; (c) quantitative examination of the most frequently used KI process and the role of CS in it.
This paper opens with the theoretical background relevant to the research (Section 2). It continues with the methodology (Section 3). The
ndings are then presented (Section 4), concluded and discussed (Section 5).
2. Theoretical background
This section starts with some background on difculties that students face when dealing with physics formulas. It continues with studies
that show the positive outcomes of learning physics in a computational environment. It ends with a description of the knowledge integration perspective that was used to assess the students' learning.
2.1. Difculties related to learning physics formulas
Years of research have outlined the difculties students face while trying to understand the physics behind the formulas they learn
(Halloun & Hestenes, 1985; McCloskey, 1983; McDermott, Rosenquist, & Van Zee, 1987). Bagno, Berger, and Eylon (2008) found that highschool physics students provide a vague description of the components of a formula. For instance, they related only to the force F denoted in
P
!
the formula
F m a and ignored the net force. As another example, the students explained the meaning of the variable t in a formula as
time, while an accurate explanation should have been the time elapsed since t 0. Another difculty Bagno et al. (2008) described is that
many students were unable to explain the conditions under which a formula can be applied. For instance, in the formulax x0 v0t at2,
80% of the students did not mention the fact that the formula applies only for objects moving with constant acceleration. Another study
reported by Shaffer and McDermott (2005), examined whether 20,000 college and university students were able to associate the direction of
P
!
the acceleration and the net force denoted in the formula F m a . They found that when asked about the direction and magnitude of the
acceleration of a ball moving on a ramp, only 20% of the students answered correctly. The others thought that the direction of the acceleration is toward the bottom because 'gravity causes the motion'. The authors' explanation for this is that some of the students did not
associate the direction of the acceleration with that of the net force.
Some studies explored epistemological aspects regarding students' use of physics formulas. Domert, Airey, Linder, and Kung (2012) asked
physics students to scale the importance of statements related to learning physics formulas. They discovered that the students believed that
knowing what physics quantities are involved, understanding the underlying physics, establishing a link to everyday life and knowing how
and when to use the formula are important in using equations. Still, students tend to deal with formulas in a rote manner. When they solve a
physics problem in a textbook, they many times look for a formula that consists of variables that are compatible with those appearing in the
problem being solved (Sherin, 2001b), a plug-and-chug strategy. Redish, Saul, and Steinberg (1998) explain that physics students use
physics formulas as an arithmetic way to calculate numbers, and fail to understand the deeper relationships they represent.
2.2. Using computational environments to overcome difculties of understanding physics formulas
In order to improve the physics learning, some instructors suggest combining computational-science programs into ordinary physics
introductory courses (e.g., Chabay & Sherwood, 2008). The rationale behind this suggestion is that such a combination requires that physics
knowledge will be organized and represented as computational models of physical systems, i.e., computer programs. Abelson, Sussman, and
Sussman (1996) explain that computer programs are more than just sets of instructions for the computer in order to perform tasks. They also
serve as frameworks for organizing ideas about processes. They deal with data that represent objects in a given system, and procedures that
represent the rules for manipulating the data. These attributes of computer programs enable computational-science students to organize
their ideas about physical objects and processes.
Research on combining computational-science elements in physics introductory courses shows positive effects. Redish and Wilson
(1993) developed an Introduction to physics course that was based on the computerized M.U.P.P.E.T environment. The authors introduced programming at the beginning of the traditional calculus-based introductory physics course at the University of Maryland. They
found several benets of teaching physics in a computer-based environment, among them are: using the environment to overcome lack of
intensive mathematical knowledge, exposing students to research methods that professional physicists use, and being able to discuss realworld problems such as projectile motion with air resistance.
Chabay and Sherwood (2008) list pros and cons of learning physics while programming it. One benet is that when programming the
physics, there are no black boxes of the physics knowledge at the basis of the simulation. Another benet is the link generated between
different representations of the same physics idea, an algebraic equation and programming code. Among the negative aspects of using
programming for learning physics they mention the fact that a large portion of the students have no background in programming and
therefore teaching programming spends a lot of time needed for physics learning.
Sherin (2001a) compared between what he termed algebraic-physics and programming-physics. Two groups of his students solved
physics problems. One group solved ordinary textbooks problems (algebraic-physics) and the other was asked to develop simulations on
phenomena similar to the algebraic ones (programming-physics). He concluded that the algebraic notation of the physics formulas does not
naturally imply on causal relationships between parameters, therefore students tend to infer the existence of equilibrium between the two
sides of an equation, instead of on causal relationships. In contrast, programming-physics leads more naturally to understanding processes

These results are in preparation to be described elsewhere, but examples in the current paper were chosen to demonstrate the new understandings the students gained.

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R. Taub et al. / Computers & Education 87 (2015) 10e23

and causality, stemming from the importance of the order of the lines in the program. In Sherin's words: algebra-physics instruction leaves
some undiscovered intuitive cobwebs in this territory, and the act of programming tends to expose these cobwebs (p.49). Sherin adds
that getting dynamical feedback is easier in programming since learners can simply run the simulation.
Our research aims to expand these ndings in that it aims to understand how programming leads to physics understanding, as reported
in the above described studies. For this purpose we used the knowledge integration perspective which enables the examination of students
learning processes while achieving conceptual understanding.
2.3. Knowledge integration
Conceptual understanding includes understanding of new concepts and of the interrelationships among them (Rittle-Johnson, Siegler, &
Alibali, 2001). To evaluate conceptual understanding, it is important both to compare between the learner's knowledge before and after a
learning session and to examine the learning processes leading to the knowledge gain. This paper examines the learning processes of
computational-science students in order to understand how they achieved conceptual understanding of physics formulas. To do so we used
the knowledge integration perspective (Linn & Eylon, 2006, 2011) that emphasizes the importance of relating new knowledge to prior
knowledge, and, furthermore, it provides terminology to describe the mechanism underlying the establishment of this relationship: the
evaluation of the new knowledge in light of different criteria.
The KI perspective was developed on the basis of research into science learning and instruction. It brings together recent trends in
developmental, constructivist, socio-cultural and cognitive perspectives on learning. According to KI, learners build knowledge by going
through four processes:
 Eliciting ideas. Learners become aware of their pre-existing knowledge.
 Adding new ideas. Learners are introduced to ideas that are new to them. These ideas may come from various sources such as a teacher,
a textbook, a peer, or the Internet.
 Developing criteria to evaluate ideas. Questions and tests that the learner use to evaluate whether he/she considers the ideas as
acceptable or not. Examples of such criteria are: whether the origin of the new ideas is reliable (i.e. based on scientic principles), and
whether there are contradictions within the ideas acquired, or between them and the ideas that are already known to the learner.
 Sorting out and reecting. The learners reect and differentiate between their pre-existing ideas and the newly acquired ones based
on criteria.
The four processes do not necessarily appear one after another, and not always in the described above order. Instead they may appear in a
different order and be intertwined so that the same learning incident includes two or more processes altogether.
The KI framework has been used, tested and revised over the past two decades. It has been used for several purposes: (a) as a guide for
the design of instructional activities. For example, WISE (Web-based Inquiry Science Environment) is based upon the four KI processes (Linn,
Clark, & Slotta, 2003); (b) as an assessment tool to evaluate learners' scientic knowledge (Liu, Lee, Hofstetter, & Linn, 2008). For example,
Lee and Liu (2010) used the KI framework to assess middle-school students' knowledge of energy concepts across the physical, life and earth
sciences by conducting multiple-choice questionnaires; (c) as a tool to analyze learning processes using a micro level analysis. Yerushalmi,
Puterkovsky, and Bagno (2012) used the framework to characterize the learning processes of two pairs of high-school physics students who
participated in an on-line troubleshooting instructional activity. One pair of students reached a high level of physics understanding, while
the other, although gained knowledge in the described experience, reached a lower level one. The authors showed that the KI perspective
was sensitive enough to characterize the differences between the two learning experiences. For instance, one of the differences was the
students' application of different types of criterion. The current research used KI in a similar way and aimed to characterize the learning
processes in terms of the KI perspective. Most of the research done in the context of KI dealt with knowledge within a single discipline, such
as learning concepts of physical sciences or life sciences, sometimes in the presence of technological tools (Kali, Orion, & Eylon, 2003). Some
research has been done in interdisciplinary contexts: Chiu and Linn (2011) used design principles that were intended to promote the KI
processes to develop an interdisciplinary curriculum in engineering and science. Their curriculum supported the learning of engineering
skills and concepts (such as systems thinking and collaboration) while learning science, and assessed the students' acquisition of these
concepts. It did not assess, however, how the learning of one discipline affected the learning of another. In fact, we could not at all nd such a
KI-related study. This research aims to use the KI perspective to explore the effect of CS on the understanding of physics formulas by a
detailed analysis of students' learning.
3. Methodology
The research was conducted in a computational-science course that has been activated for eight years. The research goal was to observe
the learning taking place during the course. The research question investigated is: what is the effect of CS on the students' understanding of
physics formulas in a computational-science course?
3.1. The context
This research took place in a course on Computational Science intended for talented high-school students who come from different highschools. The course was developed and taught by physics teachers, neither of whom were a part of the research staff. The three-year course
(tenth through twelfth grades) was interdisciplinary: students learned how to program computational models of physics phenomena,
which required that they learn physics, mathematics and computer science. Most of the material was learned independently by the students, while the teacher served as a mentor. The instruction was directed by a textbook during most of the school year. The students were
required to develop interim and nal projects of their own, working in pairs. All the classes took place once a week in the afternoon for 3 h,
after regular school hours.

R. Taub et al. / Computers & Education 87 (2015) 10e23

13

This research was carried out with tenth and eleventh grade students. During the course these students learned programming concepts,
the Java language, kinematics, dynamics and optics. The software the students used in these classes was Easy Java Simulations2 (10te11th
grades) and Maxima3 (11th grade).
The authors of this paper were neither developers nor teachers of the course.
3.1.1. Easy java simulation
EJS is a software package, created by Francisco Esquembre (Christian & Esquembre, 2007; Esquembre, 2004). It enables the construction
of computational models by providing a user-friendly environment for Java. The audience towards which EJS is directed is science students,
teachers and researchers who want to avoid putting too much effort in programming and more emphasis on the scientic content. This is
done by the fact that the user interface can be created without any programming knowledge of the simulation's designer. Therefore she/he
may focus on the algorithm to design the scientic model.
This software breaks the modeling process into three activities which are selected by pushing radio buttons: (a) documentation (b)
modeling (c) interface design. In the modeling activity the designer implements the physics into Java code.
3.1.2. Maxima
Maxima is a Computer Algebraic System (CAS). It is a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions, including
differentiation, integration, ordinary differential equations, systems of linear equations, polynomials, and more. In the computationalscience course being explored here, eleventh grade students studied random models in a CAS environment, differential equations, using
Maxima to nd analytic and numeric solutions of differential equations, writing a program to solve linear equations, and more.
3.2. Projects for analysis
We observed and recorded the work on six nal projects. Four of them were done by tenth grade students and two by eleventh graders.
One of the pairs was recorded both in tenth and eleventh grades. The students volunteered to participate in the research. Out of the volunteers we chose all the girls (two), since we wanted to have both genders in the research population. The students worked on the projects
in pairs, each work lasted approximately 10 h (four lessons).
In this paper three examples are provided, in order to demonstrate the ndings of the analysis of all the projects. The rst example
demonstrates how tenth grade students managed to characterize the kind of mathematical model they needed to describe a circular motion.
The second example demonstrates how tenth grade students who used optics formulas without understanding their parameters reached an
understanding of one of the parameters. The third example demonstrates how programming promoted the understanding of eleventh grade
students of the relationship between the net force and acceleration.
3.3. Research tools
A documentation of the work of pairs of students on six nal projects took place. Debut screen-capture4software was used for this
purpose. It recorded their screens, including the work on the programming les; actions done by the mouse, such as scroll and click; and the
students' voices while talking to each other during their work. In addition, one of the researchers randomly observed sessions of the
students' work and took eld notes.
3.4. Analysis framework
As explained above, we used the KI perspective to analyze the students' discourses. At this context, the operational denitions we used
for the four KI processes are:
 Eliciting ideas. Exhibiting memory of pre-existing knowledge by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers.
 Adding new ideas. Acquiring knowledge from external source to the learner, such as the Internet, a friend or a teacher.
 Developing criteria to evaluate ideas. Asking questions and making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work,
comparing between some ideas.
 Sorting out and reecting. Demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions,
stating the main ideas, and reecting on the process of acquiring the new ideas.
The process of sorting out and reecting is referred to by Linn and Eylon (2006, 2011) as a continuous process of reecting and developing
criteria, thus gradually sorting out scientically from non-scientically accepted ideas. Here we wanted to capture all the details in this
process; hence we categorized every single statement that demonstrated physics understanding as expressing the process of sorting out and
reecting. Statements that demonstrated reection on the process of acquiring new knowledge were categorized to this process as well.
3.5. Analysis procedure
The procedure of analyzing the students' discourse was mainly qualitative but involved a quantitative method as well. The analysis
process was as follows:

2
3
4

http://fem.um.es/Ejs/.
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/.
www.nchsoftware.com.

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R. Taub et al. / Computers & Education 87 (2015) 10e23

a. Sampling the data. Since the protocols of the transcription of students' discourse are very long, we sampled them, as Chi (1997) suggests,
based on a noncontent criterion: we analyzed the second and third lessons of the work of each pair. This choice was based on the
assumption that in the rst lesson the students were busy with deciding on which phenomena to simulate, and not on learning the
intensive related physics or on programming. The analysis was done on a sequence of two lessons to be able to capture the continuity of
the learning processes.
b. Searching for statements in the students' discourses that expressed KI processes and categorizing them as one of the KI processes.
c. Categorizing each KI statement as related to CS or to physics. For example, statements of students who evaluated the correctness of a
physical idea based on a given equation were categorized as the process of developing criteria related to physics. A CS related criterion, on
the other hand, could be a decision not to use some physics procedure since it requires the computer to activate too much processing
power.
d. Searching for CS activities that were involved in the KI processes and appeared to trigger them.
e. Counting the KI processes that appeared in the students' discourses.
Actions bed of the analysis procedure were applied twice by the rst author who is a CS education researcher. The third author, a physics
education researcher, independently analyzed 10% of the data and the two analyzes were compared to check inter-related reliability.
Cohen's Kappa was calculated, k 0.8969.
4. Findings
This section is divided to two parts. It starts with presenting the frequencies of the students' application of the KI statements, and the role
CS played in triggering the most frequently used process: developing criteria. It continues with an explanation of the effect of CS on students'
physics learning and how it triggered all KI processes. The rst part is based on quantitatively counting the appearances of the KI processes
and comparing between the numbers of physics-related to CS-related processes. The second part is based on a qualitative analysis of the
data.
4.1. The most frequently used KI process and the role of CS in triggering it
In order to nd the relative portion of each KI statement in the students' work, we counted the number of the statements related to KI
from all the projects. Out of 5209 statements that were analyzed, 2820 statements were KI-related. Fig. 1 shows the distribution of the KI
processes appeared in the students' statements, in terms of percentages. Goodness of t Chi-square test showed that this distribution is
signicantly different than the null hypothesis of an equal distribution of 25% per each KI process (p < .05). Cramer's V 0.2362.
The pie chart presented in Fig. 1 also shows that the most frequently used process was developing criteria. Goodness of t Chi-square test
showed that the difference between this process and the second most frequently used-sorting out and reecting-is signicant (p < .05).
Cramer's V 0.0419.
Since there was diversity in the distributions of the KI-statements within the different projects, Table 1 brings the percentages of the KI
processes applied by each pair of students (named Project1-Project 6). It can be seen that for some of the projects the process of developing
criteria was the most frequent one, while for the others it was the process of sorting out and reecting. Note that the later process is based on
criteria developed by the students, as well (see Section 2.3 for further explanation).
Our next examination concerned the portion of CS KI-related statements versus physics ones. Fig. 2 shows that overall, the portions are
very similar.
Since the most frequent KI process applied by the students was developing criteria (Fig. 1), we checked the portion of CS versus physics KIrelated statements. Results show that when taking all the projects together, more statements were related to CS than to physics (Fig. 3). A
goodness of t chi square test revealed that these differences were signicant (p < 0.05). Cramer's V 0.2695.
Since there was diversity in the distributions of the KI-statements regarding CS or physics within the different projects, Table 2 brings the
percentages of the KI processes applied by each pair of students in relation to CS or to physics (named Project1-Project 6). Note that the CS
KI-related statements' percentage was large in all projects, although denitely not always the largest.

Fig. 1. Percentages of KI processes in use in all the projects.

R. Taub et al. / Computers & Education 87 (2015) 10e23

15

Table 1
Percentages of KI processes applied by each pair of students.
Project#/Percentage of KI statements

Eliciting

Adding

Developing criteria

Sorting out and reecting

Project
Project
Project
Project
Project
Project

9.95
13.36
2.91
10.60
25.25
4.56

9.84
18.87
18.02
23.04
14.22
21.16

39.71
44.08
52.62
40.09
28.19
21.99

40.50
23.69
26.45
26.27
32.35
52.28

1
2
3
4
5
6

Fig. 2. CS versus physics KI-related statements.

To sum up the quantitative ndings, we saw that during their learning processes, the KI process most frequently used by the students was
developing criteria. In addition, we found that more developing criteria statements were related to CS than to physics. We believe that these
ndings may indicate on the important role CS played in the students' physics learning.
4.2. The effect of CS on physics learning
One of the basic aspects of CS is knowledge representation for solving problems (Wing, 2006). In the computational-science course
examined in this research, a great amount of the time was invested by the students on representing their physics knowledge. Three CS
knowledge domains were used for the representation of physics knowledge: structural knowledge, procedural knowledge, and systemic
knowledge. The structural knowledge domain involved dealing with the structure of programming entities that represent the material
components of the simulated system. The procedural knowledge domain involved representations of the mechanism underlying the
simulated system as programming procedures. The systemic knowledge domain involved representing the main characteristics of the
physics system as, for instance, programming objects, and their inter-relations. Working in this domain is done on a higher level of
abstraction.
In the context of software development (programming), another domain was found to be applied by the students, the execution domain.
While the rst three domains serve as representations of the physics knowledge, the fourth enables reection on this knowledge, as will be

Fig. 3. Developing criteria statements related to physics and to CS.

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Table 2
Percentages of the KI processes applied by each pair of students in relation to CS or to physics.
Project#

CS KI-related statements' percentage

Physics KI-related statements' percentage

Project
Project
Project
Project
Project
Project

54
45.18
62.39
42.4
36.05
59.34

46
54.82
37.61
57.6
63.95
40.66

1
2
3
4
5
6

Fig. 4. Screenshot of a simulation of a car driving around the road developed by students S1 and S2.

elaborated later on. Our analysis of all the episodes revealed that each of these domains contributed to the emergence of the KI processes,
thus promoting students physics conceptual understanding.
Before we describe the four CS domains, we present some examples that illustrate the analysis. The rst example is very detailed and
demonstrates how KI processes were triggered by the two disciplines of physics and CS. The other two examples are shorter and
demonstrate how CS promoted the emergence of KI processes that led to physics conceptual understanding.
The examples are followed by a discussion of how the four CS domains promoted the emergence of the KI processes in all the six projects
analyzed.
4.2.1. Examples
4.2.1.1. Example15: characterizing a mathematical model of a circular motion. S1 and S2 (tenth grade) developed a simulation of a car driving
on a circular road (Fig. 4). The program randomly sets the radius of the circle, the angle of the road's slope, and the coefcient of friction. The
user chooses the velocity of the car so that it completes one round under a pre-set time limit (the velocity should be high enough) without
ying out of the road (the velocity should not be too high).
Here we bring the analysis of the rst 66 min of the second lesson. By reading it the reader will get a sense of how the KI processes
(emphasized in Italics) emerged and whether they were triggered by physics or by CS.
At the time of the previous lesson, S2 was familiar with some of the laws and formulas related to uniform circular motion, while S1 was
not familiar with them at all. Towards the end of this lesson, they succeeded in dening the forces acting on the car as corresponding
programming variables, and wrote the programming code relevant to the physics' formulas.
The session was opened with S1eliciting their existing knowledge on circular motion, understanding that they have to look for the related
formulas. After reading about them in Wikipedia (adding), he described them and explained why, in his opinion, they were useless for them;
this led to the understanding that they need to seek additional new ideas:
S1: We saw now formulas of circular motion, but they do not help us because this motion is not uniform, its direction is all the time
changing. I need a formula to express x, the distance from the beginning of the circle; that's my problem. I don't know how to do it. I want

An extended example appears at Taub, Armoni, and Ben-Ari (2013).

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17

to know its location each second on the circle. It's not as simple as it looks. We must consult with someone who knows physics well, F [a
friend]!
S1 thought that their current knowledge is lacking both in physics (I need a formula to express x; that's my problem) and in computer
science, since he did not know how to express the car's location in the simulation (I want to know its location each second on the circle).
Their friend F added information in physics. However, the formula he wrote down was x vt which deals with linear motion (instead of
circular motion). S1 realized that he had to examine the new information based on some criterion and asked F whether there is a correspondence between the formula and the requested circular motion:
S1: That's interesting, but this formula is for linear motion and I want circular motion. Is it the same?
F: Yes. Your x is the circumference of the circle. It's 2 p R. Your x is recursive [he means iterative]; every time the car gets to the beginning,
x becomes 0 again.
F explained that the formula x v t may describe circular motion since the x that is described in linear motion appears in circular motion
as well (criterion). To reinforce his explanation, he exemplied the behavior of x by describing the algorithm to be used to present the car's
motion around the circle (your x is recursive, every time the car gets to the beginning, x becomes 0 again). By using this algorithmic
language, F connected the formula to the concrete motion of the car. He explained to S1 that the circle may be treated as a straight line and
be used with linear motion formulas; with the extension that circular motion is an iterative linear one, i.e., the car returns every time to
x 0.
Afterwards, it seemed that S1 could not accept the argument about the location of x on the circle expressed as a CS criterion: whether the
software can understand that the linear motion formula now refers to circular one, or not.
S1: But I want to nd its distance from the beginning of the circle. Your formula will make the computer present the motion along a
straight line instead of a circle.
F: No, it can't be a simple straight line formula because we have radial acceleration, as well [adding]. You do x 2 p R. Let's say that
x 100 m, therefore it's easy to calculate the radius. Now, the formula of radial acceleration says that aradial v2/R. You have the velocity
of the car, because the user sets it, and you calculate R, therefore you can calculate aradial of the circular motion.
S1: But we still don't know how to calculate the location of the car on the circle.
The above discussion between F and S1 exposed another difference between linear and circular motion: circular motion relates to radial
acceleration.
Accordingly, S1 evaluated the correctness of using the straight line formula for their project and decided to reject F's suggestion (sorting
out):
S1: No, I have a problem with how the computer will present it, we should nd another way.
F suggested a new idea (adding) stemming from a CS point of view, to refer the circle as a series of small straight lines. The software can
treat each one of them sequentially by using the straight line formula x v t:
F: A circle may be viewed as a set of very small vectors.
S2: OK, but won't it require a lot of processing power? It is a huge for-loop.
S1: You're right, it's too much.
The criterion that caused S2 and S1 to drop this suggestion stemmed, again, from the CS perspective, an efciency criterion. They realized
that F's way of viewing circular motion from a linear motion point of view will not promote their project. As S1 stated:
S1: I'm quite sure there is a simpler way to calculate it x equals something, something, something. That's what I'm looking for.
In the above episode, F came up with two suggestions stemming from a straight line point of view, i.e., using the straight line formula
with the addition of radial acceleration and referring to the circle as a set of small straight vectors. The students rejected this point of view by
using CS criteria. Therefore they were looking for a formula that referred both to the location on the circumference of the circle and to the
radial acceleration.
At this point, the students turned back to Wikipedia, to the circular motion formulas they studied at the beginning of the lesson
(adding). This time, interestingly, they noticed that circular motion involves an angle corresponding to the location of the car on the
circle.
After several failures to express the angle q, S2 and S1 understood that they still lack physics understanding; therefore they went back to
the formulas. They started by discussing the variable t (time) in the formula q ut:
S2: t is the time. We should nd its value.
S1: We have its value, the simulation runs 100 times per second. It's being added to the value of t [S2 wrote the code: t t0.01;].

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S2 explained that t is 'the time', an explanation physics students usually tend to give, without referring to the cumulative nature of this
parameter. The fact that the simulation runs 100 times per second emphasized that t is more than a particular value of time; it is the time
accumulated since the beginning of the simulation's execution.
Next, the students wrote the equations for calculating the angle q and the angular velocity as programming code. They then calculated
the coordinates of the location of the car on the circle, by dening graphical segments creating the angle q and the related equations (x R
cosq;y R sinq). At this point they ran the simulation (criterion), but errors occurred.
S2 reected on the process of writing the code, a process that led S1 to understand their mistake (sorting out):
S2: Let's see, we started by dening two segments that create q and the coordinates x and y. It seems correct. Now, the equations are
correct, as well. Where is the problem, then?
S1: Let me see I know! We wrote the equations for calculating the angle q after the calculation of the coordinates of each point on the
circle. This way we calculate x and y using q, before we calculated q. We should reverse the order, put the equations rst and only then the
calculation of the coordinates.
They changed the order, ran the simulation and checked it for different and extreme values of velocity (criteria):
S2: Let's check it for both, very high and very low velocities.
The car was moving as expected, causing them to understand that their calculations were correct (sorting out).
To summarize, we saw that at the beginning of the lesson, despite of their checking of circular motion formulas, S1 and S2 had no idea
how to express the location of the car on the circle and consulted a friend (adding). The need to program the circular motion made them try
to apply the linear motion formula to their simulation. This triggered an examination of the difference between linear and circular motions,
which was resolved due to various criteria stemming from CS aspects. The students explored the physics formulas (adding) and used the
need to program them to clarify the meaning of some of the parameters, such as the time t. This was done by the students continuously
relating the formulas they were discussing to a concrete situation, a car driving around the road. Finally they found the way to calculate the
car's location based on the formulas. It is important to emphasize the difference between the rst time the students checked the formulas,
and the second one. At rst, they checked the formulas in a rote manner and could not connect them to their question of how to calculate the
location of the car. Later, after working with several criteria that claried the characteristics of such a calculation, they were able to understand the very same formulas and nd the answer they were looking for. At the end of a session that took about 1 h long, they had a
more-or-less correct simulation of a car moving around the circle. Note that the entire development process was carried out independently
with no intervention by a teacher.
In terms of the KI perspective, this learning episode demonstrates the emergence of all the KI processes. The students initial elicitation of
their physics knowledge led to the adding of new ideas, coming from Wikipedia and a friend. They examined the new ideas by developing
criteria, stemming from physics and CS aspects. Based on these criteria the students sorted out the various ideas and decided which of them
should be used for their simulation and which should be rejected.
4.2.1.2. Example 2: understanding the meaning of a variable in a formula. Students S3 and S4 had to simulate an object positioned in front of a
lens (concave or convex), where the lens is positioned in front of a mirror (plane, concave or convex). The simulation should present the
image of the object created by the lens and the image of the image that the mirror creates (see Fig. 5 for a screenshot of the simulation). The
students recalled (elicited) a formula they had previously studied, 1/v 1/u 1/f, appropriate for both lenses and concave and convex
mirrors. In addition, they recalled that for plane mirror, the distance between the image and the mirror is equal to the distance between the
object and the mirror. See Fig. 6 for a sketch that illustrates the variables in the simulation.
They tried to develop an algorithm that calculates the position of the image created by the mirror, in order to locate it in the simulation.
They wrote the following code:

Unintentionally, for the case of the plane mirror they calculated the distance between the image and the origin as dened by the EJS
environment; but for the concave and convex mirrors they calculated the distance between the image and the mirror (and not the origin), as
it appears in the formula they studied. After writing the code, they re-read it and noticed the inconsistency:
S3: What's that? For concave and convex mirrors, we calculated v1 to be the distance between the nal image and the mirror. However,
for the plane mirror we calculated v1 to be the distance between the nal image and the origin. We have to determine where to locate the
image in the simulation.
The need to represent the knowledge of how to calculate the location of any nal image in the simulation (relative to the origin) served as
a criterion to examine whether the formula can be used for this calculation, a criterion that is rarely used in ordinary physics tasks (Sherin,

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Fig. 5. Screenshot of an execution of the simulation of S3 and S4.

2001b). This is in contrast to manually locating a specic image on a paper, where the learner may avoid generalizing the calculation. This
promoted the students' understanding (sorting out) of the meaning of the variable v1 in the formula.
4.2.1.3. Example 3: understanding the relationship between the two sides of a formula. S1 and S2, the students from the rst example, were
recorded again in eleventh grade. They simulated launching a rocket and intercepting an enemy rocket. See Fig. 7 for a screenshot of the
simulation. Before the students started programming they studied the relevant physics formulas from scientic papers and the Internet.
They started programming by declaring the programming variables corresponding to a list of the physics variables that they had previously
listed. One of the variables was ae (acceleration of the enemy rocket) and S2 was wondering whether the name of the variable truly reected
its physical meaning:
S2: What is ae? Acceleration, right? What is the direction of the acceleration of the rocket?
S1: Toward the bottom, because of gravitation.
S1 referred only to the gravitational force causing the direction of the acceleration.
S2: So let's name it aey [y refers to the y axis].
S1: [changing his mind] No, the product won't be toward the bottom. The direction needs to be calculated every time.
S2: Why?

Fig. 6. A sketch illustrating the variables in the simulation of students S3 and S4.

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Fig. 7. Screenshot of an execution of the simulation (students S1 and S2). A rocket intercepting the enemy's rocket.

S1: Because not only gravitation is acting on the rocket.

S2: Right! There is also air resistance. OK.
We see that even though the students studied the formulas and physics variables prior to programming them, this discussion claried
two signicant issues. First, the criterion of looking for a meaningful name for the variable, claried the causal relationship between the force
and the acceleration. Second, S1 raised the criterion of the requirement to calculate the direction of the acceleration every time. This led to
the understanding that the acceleration is determined by all the forces acting on the rocket, not only by the gravitational force.
4.2.2. The four CS domains
Programming a simulation of a physics system involves representing physics knowledge and reecting on it. This is done by four domains, of which the rst three refer to knowledge representation (in this case, knowledge of physics), and the fourth refers to the reection
on this knowledge: structural knowledge, procedural knowledge, systemic knowledge, and execution. Our analysis of all the episodes
revealed that each of these domains contributed to the emergence of the KI processes, and promoted students physics conceptual
understanding.
4.2.2.1. The structural knowledge domain. The structural knowledge domain involves dealing with the structure of programming entities
that represent the material parts of the simulated system. Processes in programming that participate in this domain include identifying the
required programming variables and determining the appropriate programming objects the declaration of programming variables and the
creation of programming objects.
Identifying the required variables, choosing meaningful names for them and designing their initialization them elicit the students' prior
knowledge in physics and make them discuss its meaning. We observed that even this preliminary programming stage enabled the students
to clarify relationships between concepts that the literature reports to be difcult (e.g., Bagno et al., 2008). Example 3, dealing with the
rockets, demonstrates how the criterion of choosing a meaningful name for the acceleration variable led to an understanding of the relationship between the acceleration and all the forces acting on the rocket.
Determining objects is another action related to structural knowledge. When using programming objects corresponding to the physical
objects of the system, the learners use criteria to distinguish among different structures of physical objects; to decide which properties or
programming variables should be attributed to each object. Finally, the learners sort out the structure of each physical object.
4.2.2.2. The procedural knowledge domain. The procedural knowledge domain refers to the code activating the programming variables and
objects. It represents the mechanism underlying the simulated system. Procedures include statements of input, output, control structures
(e.g., conditional execution, repeated execution) and assignment. Additionally, they include functions. Examples of such procedures are
instructions to physical objects to move in some direction under certain conditions (e.g., force orthogonal to the direction of the velocity
of an object would cause it to move in a circle); and instructions for molecules to get higher values of temperature when being close to a
re.
All the four KI processes are triggered when developing procedures. First, the learners elicit their physics knowledge that is related to the
simulated phenomenon. They expose the formulas and laws that they already know. Subsequently, the process of criterion usage is
employed. The learners evaluate whether and how the physics formulas and laws explain the mechanisms they wish to describe. The
relevance of each formula and law to how the phenomenon occurs should be examined. At this stage learners many times discover that they
lack additional knowledge. Learners then try to sort out how the physics formulas and laws can be integrated to a coherent procedure. Finally
they translate the procedure to programming code and apply it.
Example 2, dealing with the simulation of lens and mirror that create images, demonstrates how the students effort to calculate the
position of the nal image led to their examination of the meaning of a parameter in the formula.
In example 1, students S1 and S2 found a better procedure to express the car's location on the circular road by relying on the criterion of
efciency. A friend F suggested thinking of the circle as a set of very small lines. Although S1 thought that this suggestion was correct in
terms of physics, he rejected it because it was not efcient.

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4.2.2.3. The systemic knowledge domain. The systemic knowledge domain refers to characteristics of the system being simulated and an
understanding of the relationships among objects in it. At this manner, it is less important to understand the exact details of how one object
manipulates another. It is more important to understand the qualitative nature of the effect of one object on the other. Object-oriented
programming, as in the projects done by the students in the EJS environment, promotes an understanding of relationships among objects. One of the reasons to the emergence of this understanding is that EJS forces the programmers to dene graphical objects and to
connect them with variables and procedures.
For example, students S1 and S2 from example 1 who simulated the car, dened in the previous lesson the two programming objects car
and road. They dened corresponding programming variables and tried to determine to which of the objects each variables is related
(criterion). They examined all the forces acting on the objects (elicitation and adding) and decided on the origin of each force. This made them
realize that some forces (the normal force and the friction force) stemmed from the meeting of the two objects, leading to an understanding
(sorting out) of the nature of the relationship between the car and the road.
4.2.2.4. The execution domain. The execution domain involves reecting on the knowledge represented in the simulation. Every time the
students push the Run button in order to execute their simulation, all KI processes may take place:
 Eliciting students existing knowledge: The simulation was created by the students coding their own physics knowledge. Executing the
simulation presents a reality-like phenomenon, which is a reection of the students' knowledge on it.
 Adding new information: The simulation's execution does not only enable the students to reect on what they know, but it may also
supply them with new information. As a computational model, the simulation is designed to provide new knowledge. The models are
expected to give additional information that the developers do not have and to simulate experiments that are harder to perform in real
life.
For example, S1 and S2 wanted to learn how the angle of the rocket affects its chances to hit the enemy rocket. They added dynamic
graphs that expressed the velocities of both rockets as functions of the time elapsed since the launching of the hitting rocket (Fig. 8).
 Criteria for evaluating the students' physics knowledge: Running the simulation provides feedback regarding the students' knowledge;
if errors occur the students must look for gaps in their knowledge. The students examine their knowledge in several ways:
- Students use the simulation's execution as a criterion by comparing its behavior and their predictions regarding it. S1 and S2 in
example 1 used the execution of the simulation to examine whether the equations they wrote as code were correct.
- Students use the simulation's execution as a criterion by checking the behavior of the simulated system in different and extreme
physics cases. In example 1 the students executed the simulation both for high and low values of velocity to check its behavior.
 Reecting and sorting out: Following the execution of the simulation, the students went through the process of debugging. They reected on how they programmed the simulation, and if necessary examined their physics knowledge, which led to decisions (sorting
out) what in their knowledge was correct, false or should be revised.
To summarize, CS provided a language to represent the students' physics knowledge and tools to check and correct this knowledge. This
was done by triggering the emergence of the KI processes, which in turn led to conceptual understanding.
5. Discussion
Understanding the physics behind the formulas is not an easy task. High-school and college students tend to use such formulas in a rote
manner, and do not understand the meaning of each variable in them. Moreover, the algebraic notation of the physics formulas does not
naturally imply on causal relationships between variables, therefore students sometimes infer the existence of equilibrium between the two
sides of an equation instead of causality (Sherin, 2001a). Programming simulations may assist in overcoming these difculties. Research has

Fig. 8. Screenshot of a graph of the velocities of the enemy's rocket and the hitting one (students S1 and S2).

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shown that computational contexts are efcient in physics learning (e.g., Redish & Wilson, 1993), and have some advantages over using
algebra to express the physics (Sherin, 2001a).
Our research expanded previous studies by exploring how the computational context improved physics learning. It examined the
thinking processes, as described by the KI perspective that were stimulated by the programming. Our ndings indicate that CS played an
important role in the students' physics learning. Four different domains that exist in CS and triggered all KI thinking processes were
detected: the structural knowledge, procedural knowledge and systemic knowledge domains that deal with knowledge representation; and
the execution domain that enables reection on the represented knowledge. In the work of Sherin (2001a), for instance, mainly procedural
knowledge was represented.
These four CS domains differ not only in the physical content knowledge they represent, but also in their levels of abstraction. The
execution domain is at the most concrete level, since it includes the implementation of the programming code with specic inputs, a visual
representation of the physical system. The structural knowledge domain that represents the physical entities in the system is at a higher
level of abstraction, since the representation is done as an algorithmic design which is more abstract than the graphics. Still, this domain
focuses each time on a single physical entity, therefore at a lower level of abstraction than the procedural one. The procedural knowledge
domain represents a mechanism that connects between more than one physical entity, thus is related both to the system's structure and to
its underlying procedures. The systemic knowledge domain is at the highest level of abstraction since it represents physical entities and
relationships among them, without getting into the specic details of the structure of each entity and the procedures activating them.
The CS domains promoted all the KI thinking processes. Nevertheless, a closer examination revealed that the students mainly applied the
KI process of developing criteria. Moreover, a large portion of these criteria were related to CS. These ndings point to the importance of the
criteria learners use in order to evaluate the knowledge they acquire and on the contribution of CS to such a dominant thinking process (cf.
Taub et al., 2013).
This paper provided evidence that CS was effective in promoting different learning processes than ordinary physics tasks (e.g., Sherin,
2001b). It did not claim, in any way, that solving physics problems in a computational environment is the only instructional method that
promotes such KI processes and enhances physics learning. Research should be conducted to compare between the computational method
and other methods, such as computerized tutors, in terms of the KI processes they encourage.
Based on the above ndings, instructional implications should be considered. Analysis of all the projects revealed that programming
physics phenomena is a complex situation. On the one hand, it may confuse the students and prevent them from focusing on physics aspects.
On the other hand, CS was shown here to be much more than a technical tool. In particular, it forced the students to unfold the physics
meanings and relationships expressed in the formulas. Moreover, programming simulations provided context-rich problems, similar to reallife.
Physics and computational-science instructors are facing this dilemma when considering the inclusion of programming sessions in
physics classes. Several suggestions for instructions are brought here, based on: the KI framework, the theory on cognitive load (Chandler &
Sweller, 1991) and the ndings of this work. The theory of cognitive load seems as a natural choice to lead instructional recommendations
for an interdisciplinary course, in particular where each of the disciplines is considered to be difcult on its own.
In light of the KI perspective used in this work and of other related studies (Kali et al., 2003), activities that encourage the emergence of
the KI processes should be included in the course's materials. Specically, the KI process of developing criteria was found in this research to
be the most dominant one. Instructional activities may explicitly demand that the students develop criteria by comparing between the new
knowledge they learn and their prior one, explaining the differences or similarities between them.
In light of the cognitive load theory, three types of cognitive load are described in the literature: intrinsic, extraneous (Chandler &
nboer, & Paas, 1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational PsySweller, 1991), and germane (Sweller, Van Merrie
chology Review, 10(3), 251e296. Intrinsic is the level of difculty inherent to the learning task; extraneous is generated by the manner in
which the information is presented to the learner; and germane is the load devoted to the processing, construction and automation of
schemata. In that manner, intrinsic and extraneous are the bad loads and germane is the good one, since instructional effort should be
put to creating schemata of information to make the learning efcient.
Learning the disciplines of CS, physics and mathematics may cause intrinsic load, since each discipline is difcult by itself. Moreover, it
may cause extraneous load as well, due to the instruction of three different disciplines at the same time.
One of the possible ways to reduce the extraneous load would be to provide the students with more intensive physics training. Some of
the training may take place apart from the programming, so that students would understand the physics before they mix it with the
programming. Similarly, the students should be instructed with CS strategies apart and maybe after learning some of the physics content.
In order to strengthen the desired, germane load, it is recommended that instructors explicate the connections between CS and physics.
For example, they can demonstrate how each CS knowledge domain represents a different aspect of the physical phenomenon, as was
described above. This would engage the students into an interdisciplinary way of thinking, which has strong roots in the disciplines of CS
and physics.
In light of the ndings of this work, we suggest that the instruction of the computational-science course explicitly focus on some issues
that this paper suggested evidence for. First, the four CS domains of structural knowledge, procedural knowledge, systemic knowledge, and
execution shed light on different aspects in the physical system. For instance, the structural knowledge domain includes identifying
appropriate variables and objects and therefore illuminates on the physical entities that compound the simulated system. The procedural
knowledge domain, on the other hand, illuminates on the mechanism underlying the same system. Instruction that emphasizes these
unique relationships between the physics knowledge and the CS representations may enhance a more complete and coherent understanding of the physical system. Second, instruction may emphasize the different levels of abstraction being expressed in the CS domains.
The students then consciously move between levels of abstraction, thus strengthening their abstraction ability, a highly desired instructional outcome (NRC, 2010, 2011; Wing, 2006). Third, since the development of criteria was found to be central in the students' physics
learning, instruction may strengthen the role of CS in developing such criteria.
The current research explored the effect of CS on physics formulas learning. It did not refer to other factors that may have affected the
learning as well. The students investigated were considered gifted but we did not compare their learning to that of non-gifted students.
Further research is needed in order to explore the possible effect of such interventions on such students. Another factor that was not

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examined concerns the high motivation demonstrated by the students for developing a working and correct simulation. Once they started
the programming process, they were committed to complete it. We believe that this motivation was one of the reasons that promoted the
students' conceptual understanding in physics, exploring each parameter in the formulas and the underlying mechanisms.
Computational science is an important interdisciplinary scientic eld which should appear more often in science education. It includes
not only the three different disciplines of physics, CS and mathematics but it also combines an intensive use of technology. Further research
is needed in order to investigate whether the described above contribution stemmed mainly from the activities related to computer science
or also from the technological ones, and whether these contributions can be distinguished.
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