Pseudolongitudinal investigation on Chinese students’ categorization of kinematics and mechanics problems

Students’ categorization of physics problems reflects their expertise in problem solving. We conducted a pseudolongitudinal study to investigate the development of students’ categorization ability. Over 250 Chinese students from grade 10 to grade 12 were asked to categorize 20 problems of kinematics and mechanics into suitable categories based on the similarity of solutions. We compared the categories made by the students in different grades and found that, although students in all three grades performed as novices, their expertise in categorization gradually developed. The results also suggested that the training in problem solving may affect students’ categorization, especially for those in grade 12.