The role of computer simulations in university students’ reasoning about physics

The aim of this paper is to describe the different roles that a computersimulation of a physics phenomenon plays in university students’ reasoning aboutphysics. In this way, the paper strives to illuminate the potential value of computersimulations as a tool in students’ learning, as their reasoning around physics problemsimplies possible learning outcomes. Four different ways of using the computer simulationwere discerned from data collected from students working with a simulation of Bohr’smodel of the hydrogen atom. The four categories are distinguished by their characteristicsof Answering, Implying, Interacting and Opening. We describe the categories in moredetail, illustrate them from the empirical data and analyze each of them according to ananalytical model of learning, with a motive, an act and an object of learning. We alsodiscuss the categories in terms of design of pedagogical settings with simulations