Helping Pregraduate Students Reach Deep Understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Education Sciences

Javier Paricio Royo¹  Macarena Trujillo²  José Vte. Benlloch-Dualde³  Amparo Fernandez-March⁴  Lorena Atarés⁵  M. Jose Canet⁶ 

[1] Departamento de Didáctica de las Lenguas y de las Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain;Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Campus de Vera, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain;Instituto de Automática e Informática Industrial, Campus de Vera, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain;Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación, Campus de Vera, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain;Instituto de Ingeniería de Alimentos para el Desarrollo, Campus de Vera, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain;Instituto de Telecomunicaciones y Aplicaciones Multimedia, Campus de Gandia, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46730 Gandia, Spain;

关键词: thermodynamics;    entropy;    second law of thermodynamics;    learning difficulties;    deep understanding;   

DOI  :  10.3390/educsci11090539

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Pregraduate students often have low success expectations toward their thermodynamics courses, which are often considered too abstract and remarkably difficult to understand. For this reason, they may not even try to reach any level of comprehension while settling for reproducing mathematical calculations and memorizing definitions to pass the exams. Traditional lectures on thermodynamics, focusing on mathematical deductions while neglecting the qualitative characterization of the concepts behind the equations, do not help in this respect. Aiming at a change in the teaching practice and focused on the second law of thermodynamics, the main goals of this work are to characterize the way of reasoning of the expert; to present a review on the most important learning difficulties encountered by students and categorize them into three groups: the disregard of qualitative understanding, the inherent conceptual difficulties, and those related to the students’ previous knowledge; and to propose some suitable teaching practices to assist instructors in this difficult but rewarding task.

【 授权许可】

Unknown