Supporting students in reasoning consistently

An emerging body of research suggests that the nature of human reasoning itself may impact student performance on physics questions. Analysis of student reasoning patterns through the lens of dual-process theories of reasoning (DPToR) indicates that students may struggle to engage analytical processing productively when responding to physics questions containing salient distracting features (SDFs). While students may reason correctly on one question (screening question), they may abandon that same line of reasoning on an analogous question containing an SDF (target question). As part of a larger effort to investigate and support student reasoning in physics, we have designed and tested interventions that explicitly guide students to apply the reasoning they successfully used on the screening question to the target question so that they may reconsider their initial responses. In this talk, intervention results will be presented and implications for research-based curriculum development will be discussed.