Investigating students' scientific reasoning through heuristic and analytical thought processes

Abstract: In recent years there has been growing evidence that even after teaching designed to address the learning difficulties dictated by literature, many physics learners fail to create the proper reasoning chains that connect the fundamental principles and lead to reasoned predictions. Even though students have the required knowledge and skills, they are often based on a variety of intuitive reasoning that leads them to wrong conclusions. This research studies students' reasoning on science problems through heuristic - analytical thought processes (System 1 - System 2). System 1 operates automatically and quickly with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control, while System 2 focuses on the demanding mental activities that require it and is slow based on rules. Specifically, we seek to study those cognitive processes and information available to students when they face science problems and, therefore, to explore the various heuristic processes that students use when solving physics problems. Our results indicated four intuitive heuristics in students' minds when they solve problems in Mechanics and especially in the unit projectile motion: associative activation, processing fluency, attribute substitution and anchoring effect. These heuristics prevent students from applying knowledge and methods that they already possess to solve a physics problem.