The Impact of Multirepresentation Learning on Students’ Ability to Work with Graphs in One-Dimensional Kinematics

Abstract

Students’ low ability to work with graphs remains a problem in physics education. This study aims to apply a multirepresentation approach to improve high school students’ ability to work with kinematic graphs. A quasi-experimental control group design was employed to compare the improvement in students’ abilities between the experimental and control groups at a senior high school in Malang Regency. Students’ ability to work with graphs was measured using a test adapted from the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUGK), consisting of 24 questions grouped into five indicators: (1) directly reading graphs; (2) reading graphs through the interpretation of slope/gradient; (3) reading graphs through the interpretation of the area under the curve; (4) a combination of Indicators 1 and 2; and (5) a combination of Indicators 1 and 3. The analysis results showed that the n-gain value for the experimental class was 0.30 (lower medium), was significantly higher on the  scale compared to the control class value of 0.10 (low). The experimental class also showed superior results across all indicators. For basic skills (indicators 1-3), the experimental class obtained n-gain scores ranging from 0.25 to 0.27 (low-medium), while the n-gain for the control class ranged from 0.13 to 0.23 (low). For indicator 4, the experimental and control class achieved n-gain values of 0.19 and 0.01. Meanwhile, Indicator 5 could not be compared because the n-gain for the control class was undefined. Nevertheless, the achievement of experimental group was still not optimal, particularly regarding students’ tendency to think “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG). The results emphasize that multirepresentational instruction should be complemented with tasks that assist students in linking graphical representations to their physical interpretations.