A computer-based diagnostic tutor for average velocity

Abstract The concept of average velocity is often misunderstood, even by students at university level. To analyse student reasoning about average velocity, students who were being instructed in kinematics in an introductory physics course were shown a series of computer animations of two cars moving independently. Their answers to subsequent questions tended to use partial knowledge elements present in the problem. On this basis, a list of eight procedures used by students was drawn up and used as the basis of a computer-based diagnostic tutor, Velo. The performance of Velo is being compared with human tutors.