The measuring instrument of primitive physics problem for junior high school students: Compilation and Research

Problem representation in specific domains has raised great attention in the past years. In mainland China, research of the primitive physics problem teaching has been booming in the physics education domain recently. This study proposes six representations in the process of solving problems for middle school students, including abstraction representation, assignment representation, image representation, physics representation, methodology representation and mathematics representation. The measuring instrument of primitive physics problem for junior high school students was developed according to previous research and the principle of “Objectively Evaluating Subjective Questions”. The participants were 113 grade nine students in mainland China. The results of confirmatory factor analysis confirm the effectiveness of the measuring instrument. A weak correlation between the measuring instrument of primitive physics problems and Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) was found. Therefore, we believe that the primitive physics problem solving ability is a unique ability which is different from the general reasoning ability. This study demonstrates that using the measuring instrument of primitive physics problem to measure junior high school students’ ability of problem solving is promising.