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Contribution: This study examined student effort and performance in an introductory programming course with respect to student-held implicit theories and self-efficacy. Background: Implicit theories and self-efficacy shed a light into…
Automated methods are becoming increasingly integrated into studies of formative feedback on students' science explanation writing. Most of this work, however, addresses students' responses to short answer questions. We investigate…
Research shows that expert-like approaches to problem-solving can be promoted by encouraging students to explicate their thought processes and follow a prescribed problem-solving strategy. Since grading communicates instructors'…
As part of a larger study to understand instructors' considerations regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving in an introductory physics course, we investigated beliefs of first-year graduate teaching assistants (TAs) regarding…
Education is a goal-oriented field. But if we want to treat education scientifically so we can accumulate, evaluate, and refine what we learn, then we must develop a theoretical framework that is strongly rooted in objective observations…
Background: Software modelling is a creative yet challenging task. Modellers often find themselves lost in the process, from understanding the modelling problem to solving it with proper modelling strategies and modelling tools. Students…
This paper studies the relationship between the surface form of a mathematical problem and its solvability by large language models. We find that subtle alterations in the surface form can significantly impact the answer distribution and…
Models of physical systems are used to explain and predict experimental results and observations. The Modeling Framework for Experimental Physics describes the process by which physicists revise their models to account for the newly…
Interactive systems that facilitate exposure to examples can augment problem solving performance. However designers of such systems are often faced with many practical design decisions about how users will interact with examples, with…
College students routinely use online course catalogs to explore a variety of academic offerings. Course catalogs may therefore be an effective place to encourage reflection on academic choices and interests. To test this, we embedded a…
This study explores student attitudes to the use of substantive on-line assessments that require mathematical answers. Our goal is to learn what are the important aspects in a design of more effective e-assessments that support learning of…
We investigate the dynamics of how graduate students coordinate their mathematics and physics knowledge within the context of solving a homework problem for a plasma physics survey course. Students were asked to obtain the complex…
Undergraduates in work-based learning experiences often produce meaningful contributions as viewed by their supervisors, yet report a negative perception of their contributions because they struggled during the process or produced only a…
Research in student knowledge and learning of science has typically focused on explaining conceptual change. Recent research, however, documents the great degree to which student thinking is dynamic and context-sensitive, implicitly calling…
Diagrams are ubiquitous in physics, especially in physics education and physics problem solving. Problem solvers may generate diagrams to orient to a scenario, to organize information, to directly extract an answer, or as a tool of…
Physics education researchers have argued that authentic physics education includes computation as part of a physics student's training, and many parties have made efforts towards this goal. However, most research on this teaching modality…
With the rise of large language models such as ChatGPT, interest has grown in understanding how these tools influence learning in STEM education, including physics. This study explores how students use ChatGPT during a physics…
An assumed attribute of expert physicists is that they learn readily from their own mistakes. Experts are unlikely to make the same mistakes when asked to solve a problem a second time, especially if they have had access to a correct…
Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing and not a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. We observed groups of students solving quantum mechanics…
Helping students learn from their own mistakes can help them develop habits of mind while learning physics content. Based upon cognitive apprenticeship model, we asked students to self-diagnose their mistakes and learn from reflecting on…