Physical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research (Jan 2008)

Gesture analysis for physics education researchers

  • Rachel E. Scherr

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.4.010101
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
p. 010101

Abstract

Read online Read online

Systematic observations of student gestures can not only fill in gaps in students’ verbal expressions, but can also offer valuable information about student ideas, including their source, their novelty to the speaker, and their construction in real time. This paper provides a review of the research in gesture analysis that is most relevant to physics education researchers and illustrates gesture analysis for the purpose of better understanding student thinking about physics.