Open Access

Oksana Lozovenko, Yurii Minaiev, Iryna Datsenko

• Engineering students should be able to recognize errors in simulation videos and explain correctly why an object is moving in a particular way. The purpose of this publication is to introduce tasks for checking students’ ability to use critical thinking skills for analyzing free rigid body simulations. The topics of the tasks are related to the behavior of the center of mass and rotational motionEngineering students should be able to recognize errors in simulation videos and explain correctly why an object is moving in a particular way. The purpose of this publication is to introduce tasks for checking students’ ability to use critical thinking skills for analyzing free rigid body simulations. The topics of the tasks are related to the behavior of the center of mass and rotational motion about principal axes. Special attention has been paid to the difference between the Dzhanibekov effect and the tennis racket phenomenon and to the influence of initial conditions on the motion. We also present data that came from our colleagues and former students’ responses to the corresponding quiz. Our findings strongly suggest that it is difficult to distinguish correct simulations from simulations with gross mistakes even when the respondents know all necessary physical concepts and laws. Presented tasks with corresponding videos and illustrations could be easily used during physics lectures, seminars, and tutorials. These activities could improve students’ ability to use physics laws and discern accurate representations. They also may become a starting point for student research projects.…