The study of students' use of representations is one of the main topics of physics education research and is guided by the overarching field of semiotics. In this paper we compare two semiotic frameworks, one coming from didactics of mathematics and one from physics education research; "the theory of registers of semiotic…

Interviewed six first-year college students in an introductory physics course about their beliefs about physics. Characterized the students' beliefs about the structure of physics knowledge as isolated facts or a coherent system; content of physics knowledge as formulas or underlying concepts; and process of learning physics as receiving…

Presents a motion problem that students in a college physics class are asked to solve and later asked to continue to analyze until they have stopped learning from the problem or the problem itself is finished. (MDH)