HOW STUDENTS UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF KINEMATIC QUANTITIES USING MARBLES: A HYPOTHETICAL LEARNING TRAJECTORY

Kinematics quantities are fundamental to understanding kinematics, dynamics, and advanced physics concepts such as mechanics. This study uses a traditional marble game to explore how students understand kinematics quantities in contextual problems. This study follows the Gravemeijer and Cobb research design model, which consists of three phases: Initial Design, Design Experiment, and Retrospective Analysis. This study involved 15 prospective elementary school teachers with low, medium, and high academic abilities. Data collection was conducted through analysis of student work documents and in-depth interviews to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the thinking processes and conceptual constructions that emerged during the learning process. The research findings show that students can discover and construct the concept of kinematic quantities. With guidance from lecturers, students completed more structured student work documents in accordance with their thinking processes, which were presented starting from contextual problems to discovering formal physics concepts. In other words, the Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) can facilitate conceptual understanding and make it easier for students to understand kinematic quantity concepts. The impact of these research results is that the Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) design can internalize physics concepts in a more meaningful, contextual, and relevant way to everyday life.