Students’ Understanding of Algebraic Concepts

Redish and Kuo gave in 2015 in a paper on the language of physics and mathematics for higher physics education the following take-away message: “How mathematical formalism is used in the discipline of mathematics is fundamentally different from how mathematics is used in the discipline of physics—and this difference is often not obvious to students. For many of our students, it is important to explicitly help them learn to blend physical meaning with mathematical formalism.” We argue that this message already holds in lower secondary physics education and that students at this level are not to blame for being confused and failing to transfer between mathematics and physics. We discuss the challenges that these students face in algebra when using and building mathematical models of physical systems and on efforts to help them overcome their difficulties. We focus on the different ways of using variables, equations, and formulas in mathematics and physics.