相关论文: Assessing student reasoning in upper-division elec…
The Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic is an exam developed as part of the curriculum reform at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU). It was designed to assess conceptual learning within upper-division electricity…
While introductory electricity and magnetism (E&M) has been investigated for decades, research at the upper-division is relatively new. The University of Colorado has developed the Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic to…
The Colorado Upper-division Electrostatics (CUE) diagnostic was designed as an open-ended assessment in order to capture elements of student reasoning in upper-division electrostatics. The diagnostic has been given for many semesters at…
Standardized conceptual assessment represents a widely-used tool for educational researchers interested in student learning within the standard undergraduate physics curriculum. For example, these assessments are often used to measure…
The use of validated conceptual assessments alongside more standard course exams has become standard practice for the introductory courses in many physics departments. These assessments provide a more standard measure of certain learning…
As part of ongoing investigations into student learning in advanced undergraduate courses, we have developed a conceptual assessment tool for upper-division electrodynamics (E&M II): the Colorado UppeR-division ElectrodyNamics Test…
Favorable outcomes from ongoing research at the University of Colorado Boulder on student learning in junior-level electrostatics (E&M I) have led us to extend this work to upper-division electrodynamics (E&M II). We describe here our…
End-of-course assessments play important roles in the ongoing attempt to improve instruction in physics courses. Comparison of students' performance on assessments before and after instruction gives a measure of student learning. In…
As part of an ongoing project to investigate student learning in upper-division electrodynamics (E&M II), the PER research group at the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a tool to assess student conceptual understanding: the…
We investigate upper-division student difficulties with direct integration in multiple contexts involving the calculation of a potential from a continuous distribution (e.g., mass, charge, or current). Integration is a tool that has been…
Student learning in instructional physics labs represents a growing area of research that includes investigations of students' beliefs and expectations about the nature of experimental physics. To directly probe students' epistemologies…
Laboratory courses for upper-division undergraduates often involve sophisticated equipment, relatively small class sizes, and extended hands-on projects. These courses present distinct challenges and opportunities for the physics education…
Free-response research-based assessments, like the Colorado Upper-division Electrostatics Diagnostic (CUE), provide rich, fine-grained information about students' reasoning. However, because of the difficulties inherent in scoring these…
Student learning in instructional physics labs is a growing area of research that includes studies exploring students' beliefs and expectations about experimental physics. To directly probe students' epistemologies about experimental…
Separation of variables can be a powerful technique for solving many of the partial differential equations that arise in physics contexts. Upper-division physics students encounter this technique in multiple topical areas including…
Many students in upper-division physics courses struggle with the mathematically sophisticated tools and techniques that are required for advanced physics content. We have developed an analytical framework to assist instructors and…
The Dirac delta function is a standard mathematical tool that appears repeatedly in the undergraduate physics curriculum in multiple topical areas including electrostatics, and quantum mechanics. While Dirac delta functions are often…
Expert problem solvers are characterized by continuous evaluation of their progress towards a solution. One characteristic of expertise is self-diagnosis directed towards elaboration of the solvers' conceptual understanding, knowledge…
In their study of physics beyond the first year of University -- termed upper-division in the US, many of students' primary learning opportunities come from working long, complex back-of-the-book style problems, and from trying to develop…
In response to national calls to better align physics laboratory courses with the way physicists engage in research, we have developed an epistemology and expectations survey to assess how students perceive the nature of physics experiments…