Investigating students’ performance in physics qualitative and quantitative questions

Abstract

This study aimed to provide an insight of the difficulties which students encounter when attempting quantitative and qualitative SEC Physics questions. It investigated whether students find more difficulties in answering quantitative or qualitative questions, evaluated any patterns in the way problems are tackled by students who score high, average and low overall marks, and whether there are any possible gender differences in performance. In order to fulfil these aims, a sample of 150 examination scripts of students sitting for SEC Physics May 2016 paper 1. Students’ responses were analysed to determine sources of difficulties. Results show that students tend to answer quantitative question more correctly than qualitative ones and that common difficulties that students find in answering both types of questions are related to lack of knowledge and conceptual understanding. Furthermore, there was no significant gender difference in performance.