Two Perspectives on Physics Problem Solving and Their Relations to Adaptive Expertise

This talk overviews a chapter in The International Handbook of Physics Education Research: Learning Physics reviewing two historical threads of research in physics problem solving. Thread 1 focuses on classifying and teaching students to (re)produce expert solution methods. Work within thread 1 has focused on expert knowledge and strategies, training students to learn expert-like problem-solving methods, and algebraic and computational difficulties. Thread 2 focuses on the role of problem solving in the practice of learning and understanding physics. In contrast to an emphasis on producing solutions, thread 2 focuses on the formal and informal ideas used in physics problem solving and how problem solving connects to other aspects of physics learning. This review also proposes that each one of these threads is associated with one component of adaptive expertise: routine efficiency (thread 1) or innovation (thread 2). Moving forward, this suggests that further efforts to foster adaptive problem-solving expertise may benefit from combining knowledge from both threads to uncover new insights.