Rule‐governed approaches to physics: Conservation of mechanical energy

Abstract This article reports on a study conducted to investigate the methods individuals use to make predictions about five situations involving the conservation of mechanical energy. The subjects in the study came from two different populations—science majors and nonscience majors. The technique used to determine the strategies subjects employed was a paper‐and‐pencil version of Siegler's Rule‐Assessment technique. Each subject worked five task sets, although the order in which they did the sets varied. The task sets had simple situations involving carts moving on inclines or horizontal paths. The situations had energy transformations from: (1) kinetic energy to thermal energy via work against friction, (2) potential energy to thermal energy via work against friction, (3) potential energy to potential energy, (4) potential energy to kinetic energy, and (5) kinetic energy to potential energy. The major findings of the study were: (a) the subjects did employ identifiable strategies in over 97% of the cases, (b) the sequencing of the task sets did affect the way subjects worked the problems, (c) there was a difference in the way science majors and nonscience majors worked the problems, and (d) the effect of the variation in sequence differed for the two populations.