OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Open search box
We present an excerpt from an in-class group activity where students generate equipotential curves for a quadrupole using: a whiteboard, a Mathematica notebook, and a 3D plastic graph. Applying Shaaron Ainsworth's framework for the functions of multiple external representations, we analyze how the students used the three representations in concert. We found that the students used different processes for generating each representation. The highly complementary nature of the representations facilitated the group's direct comparisons between representations, helping them to construct deeper understanding about the system and the representations. This case study also exemplifies a limitation of the Functions framework for multiple representations, namely that it does not consider the role of generating representations. We echo the calls to account for student generation in future analyses of the use of multiple representations, when relevant.
