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As part of our effort to develop a concept inventory for statistical mechanics, we have interviewed a number of students who have taken a thermal physics course, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, about their understanding of the statistical mechanics topics taught in the thermal physics curriculum. The questions asked during the interviews were formulated with input from experts in the field, and will later be fleshed out into multiple-choice questions. Here, we report some of our intermediate findings about the students understanding of some of the topics.

PERC SM 20

Insights into student understanding of statistical mechanics (PERC)

student understanding

statistical mechanics

concept inventory

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. 

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?

Designing experiments by students is an important scientific skill and increasingly an explicit goal in the creation of new research-based activities. In this work, we studied the use of student design actions in research-based activities. Our definitions of student design tasks are: 1) Describing an experimental procedure invented by the student, 2) Improving a previous experiment, 3) Making hypothesis by students, 4) Choosing questions by students for investigation, and 5) Asking students to design, state, invent, or improve a mathematical or quantitative procedure. We analyzed 66 research-based activities from 11 different design groups to categorize them according to the frequency with which students are asked to complete design tasks

Investigating student design engagement in research-based activities

Scaffolding student mechanistic reasoning about static and dynamic liquids-

How learning environment predicts male and female students’ physics motivational beliefs in introductory physics courses - Poster

This study will inform the Physics Education Research (PER) community about patterns of partnerships and collaborations between authors and patterns of funding sources for the PER community over the last ten years. The study involves a text-based analysis of all Physics Education Research Conference (PERC) proceedings between 2010 to 2019 to identify funding sources and to determine patterns. PERC proceedings were selected given the central role of PERC to the PER community. PERC proceedings represent the community across scope of projects from small to large, across stage of projects from beginning to finished, and across investigator experience from new to established researchers. Findings are contrasted with those from the Learning Sciences community to provide context for understanding the significance of patterns. The goal of this work is to provide insight into the community's history and ten-year trajectory and thus enable the community to move forward in new and better directions.

Investigating partnerships and funding for the Physics Education Research community (PERC)

The AIP TEAM-UP report identifies the structural and systemic causes explaining why African Americans have not experienced the growth in bachelor's degrees in physics the way they have in other fields or as other minority groups have experienced in physics over the past two decades. Solving these problems requires changing not only the way physicists train students, but how they think about training students. Research on change in higher education suggests the need for physicists and astronomers to recognize and question the norms, values, and culture of their fields. The TEAM-UP report, SEA Change, and the new APS-IDEA all seek to stimulate and sustain a cultural transformation in the profession.

Systemic Change: TEAM-UP and Beyond

Students’ Conceptual Understanding and Problem-Solving of the Work-Energy and Impulse-Momentum Theorems

Developing coupled, multiple-response assessment items addressing scientific practices

Practicing physicists’ knowledge about disability: Development of the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS)

Student Ownership of Physics Projects: Manifestation in Student-Project Interactions (PERC)

Physics education research (PER) studies of students understanding of kinematics have largely been focused on difficulties and misconceptions ideas that act as barriers to student understanding of formal physics. Our research takes an alternative perspective on students ideas. We offer insight into student resources for understanding kinematics ideas students have that we consider to be the beginnings of a more sophisticated scientific understanding of motion. Our analysis of 582 written student responses to several kinematics questions highlights four common resources students use when justifying their solutions to different problems. In this paper, we elaborate on these four resources and give examples from our preliminary research.

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Insights into student understanding of statistical mechanics (PERC)

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Insights into student understanding of statistical mechanics