United States

In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, physics laboratory instructors worldwide leaped into action, transforming their courses from the hands-on to distance-learning. At Portland State University, two different methods were applied to accomplished this transformation for the Spring term, introductory physics lab course. One method was to replace the in-person laboratory apparatus environment with an existing, freely available physics simulation. The other method was to design and create a new component of the course that complements the simulation-based labs. This new curriculum guides introductory students through the process of selecting, designing, and conducting their own, independent experiment using tools available to them at home. We describe the process of those two efforts and present an outline of the new course curriculum. In addition, we designed a research study to measure the impact of the new curriculum on several student learning goals, such as experimental design and uncertainty estimation skills, as well as students attitudes regarding the purpose of experimentation and self-efficacy.

PERC SM 20

Rapid creation and assessment of introductory physics laboratory curriculum

distance-learning

science affect

research study

attitudes

laboratory

physics

covid-19

education

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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?

Self-efficacy (SE) the confidence in ones own ability to complete a task has been shown to be an important predictor of student success in the sciences. Traditionally, SE is measured using pre/post instruction surveys or retrospective interviews. In this study, we present a pilot of a mixed-methods approach to studying SE. This approach combines a fine-grained quantitative measure with close to the event qualitative reflections. In this paper, we present results from this initial study with five students who transferred credit from a two-year college into a bachelors program to study physics or astronomy at a large mid-western research university. We report on the incentive structure of the methodology and threats to the integrity of the data. Results indicate that our methodology is robust and ready to scale to a larger study.

Implementing a Mixed-Methods Approach to Understand Students' Self-efficacy: A Pilot Study

Student exposure to modern physics topics is severely limited in k-12 education. Secondary physics curricula in the U.S. predominantly focus on physics content established prior to the 20th century and rarely address modern topics like quantum physics. Even so, students are frequently exposed to terms such as quantum physics through a variety of contexts prior to post-secondary education. The aim of this study is to analyze secondary student perspectives of the term quantum physics. To do so, a group of secondary physics students were asked to complete a word-association test to establish a baseline of commonalities among student perspectives. The results of the tests revealed significant commonalities among student perspectives with the most common association being complexity. The results of the tests also revealed that students often view quantum physics as a complex version of classical physics.

Students' Pre-Instructional Perspectives of Quantum Physics (PERC)

At Michigan State University, we have created a facilitated a workshop with the intention of promoting the success and persistence rates of underrepresented minority students enrolled in Physics 183 (PHY-183) - Introductory Mechanics, a STEM gateway course. The goals of this initiative are to give students a space to build supportive peer networks and have opportunities to engage in scientific practices that support their success in physics courses. To facilitate the development of this supportive network, students were invited to attend 1-2 sessions a week which included a shared meal during which semi-planned discussion topics about equity and inclusion were introduced. In this poster, we outline the approach of one graduate teaching assistant (TA) facilitating this workshop, an analysis of the TAs approach, and our takeaways from studying this approach to building a supportive learning community.

A graduate teaching assistant’s approach to facilitating a supportive peer network (PERC)

Matrix algebra and eigentheory are important to students' learning of physics in upper division physics courses. In this study, we investigated how students apply matrix algebra and eigentheory in various physics contexts, excluding quantum mechanics. The data collected consist of student written responses taken from a math methods course. We used the Physical-Mathematical Model (Uhden et al, 2011) to categorize each question by the three skills the model presents: mathematization, interpretation, and technical operation. The results from our data show that students have difficulty with mathematizing and interpreting the mathematical and physical system of a matrix equation, but are fluent in technical operations. We will present examples of student responses illustrating student reasoning, and discuss implications for classroom instruction.

Examining student understanding of matrix algebra and eigentheory

We are interviewing students in a second semester introductory physics course as well as graduate physics students about the generation of electromagnetic waves. We have interviewed 43 intro level students and 20 graduate students. We found that only 10 of 43 intro students could identify accelerating charges as a source for electromagnetic radiation. 15 of these students came from a course that used the Matter and Interactions text and 7 were able to identify accelerating charges as a source of EM waves. Fully half of the grad students could not answer correctly. If you restrict to graduate students that do not work with radiation as part of their research, 7 of 8 graduate students could not answer correctly. We are continuing to search for specific difficulties as well as reasons why students do not seem to grasp this core concept. Additional details of methodology and findings will be presented.

What do Students Know about Electromagnetic Wave Generation? (PERC)

Most students find difficulty in visualizing 3D concepts in physics courses. Some of these include electric and magnetic fields, the divergence theorem, RC circuits, electric flux, Gausss law, electromagnetic induction, and three-dimensional integration. A solution to this issue is to present these concepts in augmented reality to allow for better visualization of them. The augmented reality activities presented in this paper were created by a team of undergraduate physics and computer science students using the software Unity and the Merge Cube. We present a systematic process of creating and improving specialized apps that can be utilized in a classroom environment.

Developing Augmented Reality Modules to Teach Electromagnetism (PERC)

Group work during lab instruction can be a source of inequity between male and female students. In this preliminary study, we explored the activities male and female students take on during a lab session at a university in Denmark. Different from many studies, the class was majority-female, so three of the seven groups were all female and the rest were mixed-gender. We found that students in mixed-gender groups divide tasks in similar ways to mixed-gender groups at North American institutions, with men handling the equipment and women handling the computer more often. We also found that women in single-gender groups took on each of the available roles with approximately equal frequency. We interpret the results through poststructual gender theory and the notion of 'doing physics' and 'doing gender' in physics labs.

Preliminary evidence for available roles in mixed-gender and all-women lab groups

It has been well documented that introductory physics students struggle with vector addition and subtraction. We use the results of a multiple-choice assessment on one-dimensional vector addition and subtraction, administered to students in a large-enrollment algebra-based physics sequence, to explore the consistency in the types of errors students make. The assessment was analyzed using Module Analysis for Multiple Choice Responses, a type of network analysis that highlights groups of responses commonly given together. We find evidence for five distinct modules that are consistent across multiple semesters. Of these groups, two support the method of "closing-the-loop", two are consistent with students performing the wrong operation, and one suggests that students provide an answer independently of whether they were prompted to add or subtract two vectors, though only for vectors that are anti-aligned.

Examining consistency of student errors in vector operations using module analysis

Proficiency in units/dimensional analysis is a useful skill in the sciences and engineering, and STEM instructors often presume competence from their students in this area. However, unit analysis techniques and unit systems are not always formally taught, and even with explicit emphasis during instruction, many students lack the repeated exposure necessary to master them. To assess student understanding of units and unit systems, we administered a brief, itemized survey to N=53 calculus-based introductory university physics students. The survey was intended to uncover possible misconceptions and identify previously unknown obstacles to student success within this topic. Our results suggest that as many as half of surveyed participants may not recognize the adaptability of symbolic physical equations to different unit systems. Furthermore, a similar proportion failed to eliminate non-viable answer choices involving analytic functions with units inside their arguments. Consequently, we believe units/dimensional analysis is a topic ripe for further investigation.

Excerpts from an exploratory survey of units/dimensional analysis in introductory physics

As a first step in a larger study of student difficulties in upper-division thermal physics, we conducted think-aloud interviews with 8 physics graduate students to probe their understanding of entropy. In this paper, we'll discuss results from a question which presented students with a novel system---a string in a bath of water---and asked students to rank the probabilities of particular arrangements of the string, define macrostates of the system, and discuss specifically what is meant by the entropy of the system. Exploring graduate students' understanding of entropy and their ability to solve problems and reason with entropic arguments will provide insights into how physicists develop a mature understanding of entropy as a physical quantity. We find a tendency for graduate students to project properties of macrostates onto constituent microstates and other similar difficulties. We discuss connections to other research in this field and identify observations warranting further study.

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Rapid creation and assessment of introductory physics laboratory curriculum

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