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Physics lab courses are an essential part of the physics undergraduate curriculum. Learning goals for these classes often include the ability to interpret measurements and uncertainties. The Physics Measurement Questionnaire (PMQ) is an…
Introductory algebra-based physics courses frequently feature multiple student major populations in the same course section, however, different majors' requirements may impact students' motivations towards different aspects of the course…
Physics education research has probed for the relevance of physics in students' everyday lives. Attitudinal and epistemological surveys have asked students if they think of or use physics in their daily lives. We have previously documented…
While proof is a central component of postsecondary mathematical study, proof construction has historically posed significant difficulties for students who intend to earn mathematics degrees at the undergraduate level. This work is…
The study guide (textbook) is part of a set of materials designed to support high-quality practical training in physics. It includes a collection of tasks for organizing both in-class and independent work. The guide serves as a foundation…
Proficiency with calculating, reporting, and understanding measurement uncertainty is a nationally recognized learning outcome for undergraduate physics lab courses. The Physics Measurement Questionnaire (PMQ) is a research-based assessment…
From a department being resistant to change to students not buying into the new computational activities, the challenges that are faced with integrating computation into the physics undergraduate curriculum are varied. The Partnership for…
Developing students' ability to troubleshoot is an important learning outcome for many undergraduate physics lab courses, especially electronics courses. In other work, metacognition has been identified as an important feature of…
Most educational literature on conceptual change concerns the process by which introductory students acquire scientific knowledge. However, with modern developments in science and technology, the social significance of learning successive…
One of the objectives of the undergraduate physics curriculum is for students to become aware of the connections between the fundamental principles of classical physics and their personal experience. Nonetheless, numerous studies have shown…
In this paper we investigate the extent to which students' problem-solving behaviors change as a result of working on multi-faceted, context-rich problems. During the semester, groups of two to three students work on several problems that…
Undergraduate physics education has greatly benefited from the introduction of computational activities. However, despite the benefits computation has delivered, we still lack a complete understanding of the computationally integrated…
An essential step in the process of developing a physics identity is the opportunity to engage in authentic physics practices - an ideal place to gain these experiences is physics laboratory courses. We are designing a practice-based…
We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student's…
Measurement uncertainty is an important topic in the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. Previous research on student thinking about experimental measurement uncertainty has focused primarily on introductory-level students' procedural…
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…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our prior work has shown that…
A survey was developed to probe student understanding of quantum mechanics at the beginning of graduate instruction. The survey was administered to 202 physics graduate students enrolled in first-year quantum mechanics courses from seven…
Understanding how an instructional approach shapes student's cognitive resources and engagement is central to improving undergraduate physics education especially for novice learners. This study examines how three instructional modalities…
We describe a study focusing on students' and faculty members' reasoning about problems of differing cognitive complexity related to the double-slit experiment (DSE) with single particles. In the first phase of the study, students in…