Leveraging dual-process theories to support student reasoning about air resistance

An emerging body of research has shown that, even after research-based instruction, students who demonstrate correct conceptual understanding and reasoning on one task often fail to use the same knowledge and skills on related tasks. Observed inconsistencies can be accounted for by dual-process theories of reasoning (DPToR), which assert that human cognition relies on two thinking processes. The first, the heuristic process, is fast, intuitive, and automatic, while the second, the analytic process, is slow, effortful, and deliberate. In this talk, I will describe how we have leveraged DPToR to develop an instructional intervention designed to improve student reasoning about the terminal speed behavior of falling objects. I will describe the results of a controlled experiment in which we tested the effectiveness of the DPToR-based intervention against a control condition in which students engaged in additional scaffolded practice.