Programming as a semiotic system to support physics students’ construction of meaning: A pilot study

Abstract

Programming as a tool to be used for analyzing and exploring physics in an educational setting offers an unprecedented opportunity for the students to create and explore their own semiotic resources. Students may use programming to create and explore different models of physical systems. In this study a small group of upper secondary education students participated in a workshop where they learned to program physics simulations and to create their own models to implement using the programming language Python. Results from the study shows that upper secondary education students are able to create their own models of physical systems and implement them into code. The implemented models were models of hanging cloth and heat diffusion. Results were obtained by analyzing video and audio recordings of the students through the lens of social semiotics.