Examining Students Reasoning in Physics Through the Lens of the Dual Process Theories of Reasoning: The Context of Forces and Newton’s Laws

Prior research identified a common phenomenon observed in introductory physics courses (and beyond): Students often demonstrate competent reasoning on one task, but not on another, closely related task. Sometimes, students simply do not possess the formal knowledge necessary to reason productively (referred to as mindware). In other cases, students seem to abandon the formal reasoning in favor of more appealing intuitive ideas. These observed inconsistencies can be accounted for by the dual process theories of reasoning, which assert that cognition relies on two thinking processes. The first process is fast, intuitive, and automatic; the second is slow, rule-based, and effortful. The tendency toward mediating automatic responses via productive engagement of the slow and analytic process is called the cognitive reflection skills. We present results from an empirical investigation suggesting that both mindware and cognitive reflection skills play key roles in physics performance. Moreover, even in the presence of mindware, students with low cognitive reflection skills tend to reason intuitively on certain types of physics tasks. We argue that efforts directed toward the development of instructional interventions that take into account tendencies in student reasoning are critical for achieving further improvements in physics performance.