Related papers: Student and instructor framing in upper-division p…
Mastering problem solving requires students to not only understand and apply physics concepts but also employ mathematics and mathematical representations (sketches, diagrams, graphs, gestures, equations and spoken language) skillfully. As…
Students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving in physics can profoundly influence their motivation to learn and development of expertise. We developed and validated an Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving survey by expanding…
A goal of PER is to understand how students use math in physics contexts. To investigate how students use math, we need to identify transitions between conceptual sense-making about physical systems and using mathematics to describe and to…
Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing rather than a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. Using the theoretical lens of epistemological framing,…
Investigations related to expertise in problem solving and ability to transfer learning from one context to another are important for developing strategies to help students perform more expert-like tasks. Here we analyze written responses…
Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a give problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
Computational physics is a key part of what it means to do physics in the twenty-first century. However, upper division computational physics remains a largely understudied area. We set out to understand the experiences of students in an…
Computation is intertwined with essentially all aspects of physics research and is invaluable for physicists' careers. Despite its disciplinary importance, integration of computation into physics education remains a challenge and, moreover,…
Current investigations into pedagogical goals of introductory algebra-based physics students at the University of Central Arkansas, by learning orientation towards an in-class metacognitive group problem solving task, seek to determine…
We use the theories of identity statuses and communities of practice to describe three different case studies of students finding their paths through undergraduate physics and developing a physics subject-specific identity. Each case study…
Helping students become proficient problem solvers is a major goal of many physics courses from introductory to advanced levels. In fact, physics has often been used by cognitive scientists to investigate the differences between the…
Group work is becoming increasingly common in introductory physics classrooms. Understanding how students engage in these group learning environments is important for designing and facilitating productive learning opportunities for…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
As educators we often ask our physics students to work in groups---on tutorials, during in-class discussions, and on homework, projects, or exams. Researchers have documented the benefits of group work for students' conceptual mastery and…
The method of images (MoI) is a valuable technique for solving certain electrostatic boundary value problems consisting of charge density near conductor(s). We developed and validated an inquiry-based tutorial on MoI to help students learn…
Pre-college mathematics modeling instruction often frames mathematics as being separated from reasoning about the real world -- and commonly treats reasoning mathematically and reasoning about the real-world context as separate stages of a…
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…
Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to…
Previous research has found that introductory physics students perform far better on numeric problems than on otherwise equivalent symbolic problems. This paper describes a framework to explain these differences developed by analyzing…