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Writing is an important aspect of experimental physics. Physics laboratory classes typically engage students in scientific documentation and writing in the forms of lab notebooks, reports, or proposals. Instructors of these classes may have a variety of motivations for incorporating writing. We previously developed a framework for thinking about the role of writing in physics lab classes that lists and categorizes possible goals instructors may have for writing. Here, we use that framework as a research tool to investigate students&#39; views about, and experiences with, writing in lab classes, and experimental physics more generally. We present results of an analysis of student responses to weekly reflection questions throughout one semester of an advanced lab class. The results suggest that students think about writing in a variety of ways, and that the context and framing of the course may impact student thinking about the purpose of writing.

PERC SM 20

Investigating students&#39; views about the role of writing in physics lab classes

student views

writing

labs

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. The program featured plenary speakers, sessions, workshops and many special activities.

For more information please visit the 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting page at: https://www.aapt.org/Conferences/SM2020/index.cfm.


AAPT SM 20

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. 

Writing is an important aspect of experimental physics. Physics laboratory classes typically engage students in scientific documentation and writing in the forms of lab notebooks, reports, or proposals. Instructors of these classes may have a variety of motivations for incorporating writing. We previously developed a framework for thinking about the role of writing in physics lab classes that lists and categorizes possible goals instructors may have for writing. Here, we use that framework as a research tool to investigate students' views about, and experiences with, writing in lab classes, and experimental physics more generally. We present results of an analysis of student responses to weekly reflection questions throughout one semester of an advanced lab class. The results suggest that students think about writing in a variety of ways, and that the context and framing of the course may impact student thinking about the purpose of writing.

Investigating students' views about the role of writing in physics lab classes

poster

Join us in exploring emergent themes in PER as a scholarly endeavor and as a research community!  Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?
Following the lead of AAPT for the summer meeting, PERC 20/20 was virtual. Enjoy browsing the content.

Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?

In physics lab groups, students experience a wide range of equitable and inequitable interactions. After observing videos of students collaborating in an introductory physics lab, we defined that an equitable group is one in which every students bids are heard by their peers. We developed a methodology to characterize different lab groups by tracking students bid exchanges and assessing their levels of inchargeness. The analysis of equitable and inequitable groups showed that lab groups where one student is in charge can be equitable, as long as each group members opinions are acknowledged. We also found that gender and inchargeness do not sufficiently predict the equity of student groups. Based on these results, we argue that students that are in charge use their inchargeness to make their groups either equitable or inequitable. Future work will explore whether additional variables interact with inchargeness to predict levels of equity in group work.

How do gender and inchargeness affect equity in lab group interactions?

Student assistants (SA), which includes graduate and undergraduate teaching/learning assistants, are pivotal to non-traditional physics instruction in large classrooms. Despite its effectiveness, little is known about how SA-student interactions promote students learning. How should SAs respond to students questions? What support should SAs provide or refrain? What makes a SA effective or ineffective? We are particularly interested in SAs questioning skills. We propose a coding scheme to scrutinize SA-student interactions. For analysis, we segment a SA video into vignettes based on different situations SAs encounter and define activities like guiding questions, probing questions, and imparting information. From the pattern of activities, we code a vignette as one of the 6 levels on the hierarchy of students accountability. The frequency of certain levels in multiple vignettes could suggest a SAs performed knowledge of questioning, which will be compared with SAs narrated knowledge measured by a written test of their questioning skills.

Scrutinize SA-student interaction in inquiry-oriented college physics courses

Students' self-efficacy, their confidence in their ability to complete a task, is a good predictor for student success and persistence. Previous research indicates that improvements in learning methods can enhance self-efficacy and that classroom dynamics allow for different self-efficacy opportunities that may impact students' self-efficacy. In this study, we analyzed interviews from 12 students enrolled in a flipped integral calculus course to understand their perceptions of self-efficacy and how these perceptions were affected by classroom dynamics and activities. We found three self-efficacy opportunities mentioned in the interviews: mastery experience, vicarious learning, and verbal persuasion. Preliminary findings reveal that experiences in previous math courses, particularly high school, impacted students' perceptions of their self-efficacy in math both positively and negatively, active learning activities increased students' confidence in their ability to do math from their perspective, and verbal persuasion increased students' confidence and was seen as helpful in learning.

Qualitative analysis of student perceptions of their self-efficacy

Pre-class reading is especially important for the active-learning classroom. Some strategies for encouraging students to prepare for class include quizzing students, replacing readings with videos, using a social-annotation platform, or asking students to generate a question from the reading. In this four-year study of introductory physics courses at a small liberal arts college in Utah (N=132), students were surveyed about the frequency of their textbook reading and the perceived value of the textbook for their learning. Students who were asked to generate a question completed more of the pre-class readings, but were not more likely to see the value of doing the readings. There is a correlation between how often students complete the readings and how valuable they find the textbook; this correlation is still present, but slightly smaller, for those students who were assigned to generate a question compared to those who were not.

Using Student-Generated Reading Questions to Encourage Pre-Class Preparation in Introductory Physics

Research in physics education has shown that poor student performance on certain physics tasks may stem primarily from domain-general reasoning phenomena rather than a lack of conceptual understanding. The observed reasoning patterns are consistent with dual-process theories of reasoning (DPToR). Efforts are ongoing to design intervention strategies that can guide the development of research-based curriculum to help students strengthen their reasoning skills and support cognitive reflection. In one new intervention, students are asked to set aside (at least temporarily) their own reasoning and engage in alternative lines of reasoning. Students first respond to a qualitative physics task, then construct reasoning chains that could have been used to reach the answers given by fictitious students, and finally revisit the original physics task. In this poster, we will discuss the preliminary results, how they relate to DPToR, and the implications of our findings for future curriculum development.

Examining and supporting student construction of alternative lines of reasoning

Diagrams are ubiquitous in physics, especially in physics education and physics problem solving. Students might generate diagrams to orient themselves to a scenario, to organize information to aid in solving a problem, or as a tool of communication to demonstrate their understanding of a physical scenario. By asking 19 undergraduate and graduate physics majors to solve a number of multiple-choice physics problems (with no prompting regarding diagrams), and then explicitly asking them to generate diagrams of similar physical scenarios, we are able to compare elements of diagramming that students do spontaneously to aid in problem solving with those that they produce when the diagram is requested as an artifact for communication. We found that different types of physical contexts impacted how critical accurate diagrams are to getting the correct answer, and we explore implications for teaching and research.

Comparing Unprompted and Prompted Student-generated Diagrams - Poster

A choose-your-own-adventure online assessment has been developed to measure the process of modeling undertaken by students when asked to measure the Earths gravitational constant, g, using a simple pendulum. This activity forms part of the Modeling Assessment for Physics Laboratory Experiments (MAPLE), which is being developed to assess upper-division students proficiency in modeling. The role of the pendulum activity is to serve as a pre-test assessment with apparatus that students are likely to be familiar. Using an initial sample of student data from a development phase of the assessment, we show that the pendulum activity is able to discriminate between a range of student processes that are relevant to understanding student engagement with modeling as a scientific tool.

Capturing modeling pathways using the Modeling Assessment for Physics Laboratory Experiments

We report on an exploratory study in which we investigate the factor structure of an in-development survey on student experiences during group exams and subsequently examine how these factors can be modelled using performance and self-reported performance measures, while focusing on the role of group familiarity because it is a measure that we could influence with interventions.

Exploratory Factor Analysis of a survey on group-exam experiences and subsequent investigation of the role of group familiarity

University outreach efforts are typically undertaken by students, who are often familiar with formal pedagogical methods; there is comparatively little systematic study, however, of the techniques they employ in informal spaces. A 2016 study took a critical step toward addressing this discrepancy, observing volunteer pedagogy in an outreach program and developing a modes of pedagogy framework for characterizing their techniques. In this work, we extend that model, attending more nearly to the factors that influence volunteers' choice of pedagogy in a CU Boulder-based physics outreach program. In addition to corroborating the findings of the 2016 work, we find that instructors may blend traits and techniques from multiple modes simultaneously and that their large-scale objectives can affect their implementation of the modes as well. We thus construct a more comprehensive framework that more readily lends itself to the task of equipping volunteer instructors to teach effectively in informal settings.

Toward a Comprehensive Characterization of Pedagogy in Informal Physics Learning Spaces

Providing students with opportunities to develop models in the introductory physics lab is made difficult by the dearth of physical phenomena that are both accessible to students at the introductory level and aren't easily found with a google search. In response to this difficulty, we have developed a set of laboratory activities that leverage the unique affordances of virtual reality to provide a learning opportunity in which introductory physics students engage in the authentic practice of physics model development for a novel phenomenon. We present preliminary evidence of expert-like modeling behaviors, both in the context of hypothesis generation and in the context of modeling a measurement tool, as well as suggestions how virtual reality labs can be engineered to target other laboratory learning outcomes. Further, we discuss difficulties associated with this approach to curriculum design and ways they might be mitigated.

Next from PERC SM 20

How do gender and inchargeness affect equity in lab group interactions?

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Framework of goals for writing in physics lab classes