The use of intuitive rules in interpreting students’ difficulties in reading and creating kinematic graphs

The ability to form and interpret kinematic graphs is an essential skill for students studying physics. The literature, however, details a variety of students’ difficulties in this regard. The present article discusses how intuitive rules theory (Stavy and Tirosh. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 18, 653 (1996)) can be applied as a conceptual framework for understanding why some of these difficulties may occur. It suggests, moreover, that explicit teaching regarding students’ use of intuitive rules in interpreting kinematic graphs may deepen students’ general understanding of graphs in physics.