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  • Open Access

Student sensemaking on electrostatics problems involving the method of images through the lens of epistemic game framework

Jaya Shivangani Kashyap and Chandralekha Singh

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, 3941 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 22, 010117 – Published 10 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/j6lc-c5q8

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms of student sensemaking while navigating the physics problem-solving process can play an important role in developing approaches to helping students become proficient problem solvers. Since most prior studies on student sensemaking in physics have focused on introductory physics, this study sheds light on a relatively unexplored research area involving advanced physics students’ sensemaking. We conducted individual interviews with graduate students to investigate their sensemaking while solving upper-level undergraduate electrostatics problems in the context of the method of images. Analysis through the lens of the epistemic game framework proposed by Tuminaro and Redish shows that the central part of student sensemaking can be mapped onto the Pictorial Analysis game, with other epistemic games also playing a role, but the ontological components of some games require refinement. The study involves an in-depth comparison of sensemaking on related but distinct problems for individual graduate students and a comparison between multiple students solving the same problems. It provides insights into how graduate students transfer and translate strategies between different problems while sensemaking. Graduate students showed persistence in activating different knowledge resources and consistent use of reasoning primitives across different problems, such as a “balancing” primitive multiple times while sensemaking. The study investigated the impact of small nudging and scaffolding that resulted in significant improvements in graduate students’ problem-solving approaches. Another novel finding is that graduate students’ problem-solving approaches significantly improved with successive attempts and multiple drawings for the same problem and across problems. Often, graduate students initially drew more three-dimensional figures with conducting planes given in the problem statement to visualize and understand the problem; they also drew diagrams from different viewing angles, which helped in improving their physical understanding and comprehension of the symmetry of the underlying problem.

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 22, 010117– Published 10 February, 2026
  • Received 19 August 2025
  • Accepted 14 January 2026
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