Improving Students' Understanding of Lock-In Amplifiers
Abstract
The lock-in amplifier is a versatile instrument frequently used in physics research. However, many students struggle with the basic operating principles of a lock-in amplifier which can lead to a variety of difficulties. To improve students' understanding, we have been developing and evaluating a research-based tutorial which makes use of a computer simulation of a lock-in amplifier. The tutorial allows students to realize their conceptual difficulties by comparing their predictions about how a lock-in amplifier will behave with the outcome of simulated experiments. After being confronted with discrepancies between their predictions and the lock-in amplifier results, the tutorial targets the common difficulties that students have and leads them to develop a deeper understanding of the principles of lock-in amplification.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1601.01285,
title = {Improving Students' Understanding of Lock-In Amplifiers},
author = {Seth DeVore and Alexandre Gauthier and Jeremy Levy and Chandralekha Singh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1601.01285},
year = {2016}
}