A quantitative analysis of university student reasoning lines in the field of thermally activated phenomena

In this contribution we present a research aimed at studying the effectiveness of two workshops in improving reasoning skills in undergraduate students. Both the workshops are based on the Feynman Unifying Approach. A questionnaire containing six open-ended questions on the temperature dependence of evaporation of a liquid and of a chemical reaction was administered to the students of both groups before instruction. A second one, similar to the first but focused on a physical content different from both the pre-instruction test one and the content dealt with during the workshops, was administered after instruction. The responses to the pre- and post-instruction questionnaires are analyzed by using Not-Hierarchical Cluster Analysis methods and students' lines of reasoning about the proposed phenomena/situations are inferred in both the experimental and the control group. The implications on the efficacy of the two workshops in improving student explicative skills are discussed.