Students' views about the nature of experimental physics

The physics community explores and explains the physical world through a blend of theoretical and experimental studies. The future of physics as a discipline depends on training of students in both the theoretical and experimental aspects of the field. However, while student learning within lecture courses has been the subject of extensive research, lab courses remain relatively under-studied. In particular, there is little, if any, data available that addresses the effectiveness of physics lab courses at encouraging students to recognize the nature and importance of experimental physics within the discipline as a whole. To address this gap, we present the first large-scale, national study ($N_{institutions}=75$ and $N_{students}=7167$) of undergraduate physics lab courses through analysis of students' responses to a research-validated assessment designed to investigate students' beliefs about the nature of experimental physics. We find that students often enter and leave physics lab courses with ideas about experimental physics as practiced in their courses that are inconsistent with the views of practicing experimental physicists, and this trend holds at both the introductory and upper-division levels. Despite this inconsistency, we find that both introductory and upper-division students are able to accurately predict the expert-like response even in cases where their views about experimentation in their lab courses disagree. These finding have implications for the recruitment, retention, and adequate preparation of students in physics.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, Accepted to Phys. Rev. PE

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

A Review of Student Difficulties in Upper-Level Quantum Mechanics

Learning advanced physics, in general, is challenging not only due to the increased mathematical sophistication but also because one must continue to build on all of the prior knowledge acquired at the introductory and intermediate levels. In addition, learning quantum mechanics can be especially challenging because the paradigms of classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are very different. Here, we review research on student reasoning difficulties in learning upper-level quantum mechanics and research on students' problem-solving and metacognitive skills in these courses. Some of these studies were multi-university investigations. The investigations suggest that there is large diversity in student performance in upper-level quantum mechanics regardless of the university, textbook, or instructor and many students in these courses have not acquired a functional understanding of the fundamental concepts. The nature of reasoning difficulties in learning quantum mechanics is analogous to reasoning difficulties found via research in introductory physics courses. The reasoning difficulties were often due to over-generalizations of concepts learned in one context to another context where they are not directly applicable. Reasoning difficulties in distinguishing between closely related concepts and in making sense of the formalism of quantum mechanics were common. We conclude with a brief summary of the research-based approached that take advantage of research on student difficulties in order to improve teaching and learning of quantum mechanics

Contemporary developments in teaching and learning introductory programming: Towards a research proposal

The teaching and learning of introductory programming in tertiary institutions is problematic. Failure rates are high and the inability of students to complete small programming tasks at the completion of introductory units is not unusual. The literature on teaching programming contains many examples of changes in teaching strategies and curricula that have been implemented in an effort to reduce failure rates. This paper analyses contemporary research into the area, and summarises developments in the teaching of introductory programming. It also focuses on areas for future research which will potentially lead to improvements in both the teaching and learning of introductory programming. A graphical representation of the issues from the literature that are covered in the document is provided in the introduction

Modeling student pathways in a physics bachelor's degree program

Physics education research has used quantitative modeling techniques to explore learning, affect, and other aspects of physics education. However, these studies have rarely examined the predictive output of the models, instead focusing on the inferences or causal relationships observed in various data sets. This research introduces a modern predictive modeling approach to the PER community using transcript data for students declaring physics majors at Michigan State University (MSU). Using a machine learning model, this analysis demonstrates that students who switch from a physics degree program to an engineering degree program do not take the third semester course in thermodynamics and modern physics, and may take engineering courses while registered as a physics major. Performance in introductory physics and calculus courses, measured by grade as well as a students' declared gender and ethnicity play a much smaller role relative to the other features included the model. These results are used to compare traditional statistical analysis to a more modern modeling approach.Comment: submitted to Physical Review Physics Education Researc

From Grand Canyon to Yosemite: Lessons learned from the development and assessment of digital geoscience field trips for mobile smart devices

How geoscience apps are enhancing students' understanding of the geology of places such as Grand Canyon and Yosemite national parks