Learning physics is socially organized through interactions with peers and more competent others. Instructors’ and peers’ assessment of and responsiveness to learners’ ideas in the moment is critical for the collaborative construction of knowledge in physics. However, we still know little about how instructors and learners negotiate the value and productiveness of ideas. While to an outsider, some of the ideas physics learners discuss do not seem immediately valuable or productive for the problem being solved, Duckworth encourages us to pursue an “insider’s view” on how learners experience their ideas. Building on this notion, I pursue an “insider’s view” to better understand how peers and teachers experience each other’s ideas. In particular, I examine the interactional methods and resources physics students use to express their ideas and to mark their own or others’ ideas as wonderful or not-so-wonderful. I demonstrate how participants rely on a variety of multimodal communicational tools, including speech, words, gestures, and whiteboard inscriptions to negotiate wonderfulness, extending our current understanding of how peers and instructors are responsive to physics ideas in the moment.

B. W. Harrer, The multimodal interactional work of having wonderful ideas, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Harrer.

The common idea of video analysis in physics education so far is that students record the motion of an object using a video camera, transfer the video on a computer and analyze it with a suitable software. In our approach students perform video analysis time-efficiently using only tablet computers. We present the results of a study which examines learning effects of tablet PC-supported video analysis in high school physics courses in a pre-post-test design with treatment and control groups for two essential topics of mechanics, the uniform motion (N = 109 matched samples) and the accelerated motion (N = 70 matched samples). The results show that the treatment leads to significantly higher learning gain regarding conceptual knowledge in comparison to traditional teaching without video-based motion analysis, especially for the cognitively more demanding topic. We discuss the results in the context of learning theories and reveal implications for future research.

S. Becker, P. Klein, and J. Kuhn, Promoting Students’ Conceptual Knowledge using Video Analysis on Tablet Computers, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Becker.

Mathematical reasoning skills are a desired outcome of introductory physics courses, particularly calculus-based courses. Signed quantities are ubiquitous in physics, and sign carries important and varied meanings. Unlike physics experts, novices struggle with the many roles signed numbers can play in physics contexts; recent evidence shows that unresolved struggle carries over to subsequent physics courses. Mathematics education research literature documents cognitive challenges of conceptualizing negative numbers as mathematical objects—for experts, historically, and for novices as they learn. We add to the small but growing body of physics education research that focuses on student reasoning about signed quantities and the role of the negative sign in models. This paper contributes a framework for categorizing the various natures of the negative sign in physics contexts, modeled on the established natures of negativity in algebra from the mathematics education research community. We hope such a framework can facilitate innovation in methods and curricular activities to catalyze a deeper mathematical conceptualization of signed quantities in the introductory courses and beyond.

S. W. Brahmia, A. Olsho, T. I. Smith, and A. Boudreaux, NoNIP: Natures of Negativity in Introductory Physics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Brahmia.

Students in calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics courses have been shown to perform significantly better on vector addition and subtraction using ijk representation than identical tasks using an “arrows-on-a-grid” representation. Evidence supporting a knowledge hierarchy has been observed, with the ability to correctly solve ijk format questions necessary to correctly solving arrow format questions. The absence of explicit ijk instruction in typical algebra-based courses may exacerbate difficulties experienced by all physics students with vector addition and subtraction in the arrow representation in the algebra-based population. In this study we investigate to what degree instruction in the ijk format improves vector subtraction skills in the arrow format. The instruction was a one-time online intervention with feedback given to students in an algebra-based introductory physics course. While neither intervention produced gains that were statistically significant, we find evidence that students who performed well on the intervention questions perform better on a posttest question when controlling for pretest scores.

J. B. Buncher, Algebra-Based Students & Vectors: Can ijk Coaching Improve Arrow Subtraction?, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Buncher.

We redesigned an advanced physics laboratory course to include a project component. The intention was to address learning outcomes such as modeling, design of experiments, teamwork, and developing technical skills in using apparatus and analyzing data. The course included experimental labs in preparation for a six-week team project in which students designed and implemented a research experiment. The final assignment given to students was a reflective essay, which asked students to discuss their learning and satisfaction in doing the project. Qualitative analysis of the students’ reflections showed that the majority of the students reported satisfaction and achievement, functional team dynamics, learning outcomes unique to this experience, practicing modeling skills, and potential future improvements. We suggest that reflections are useful as support for student learning as well as in guiding curricular improvements. Our findings may be useful for other course redesign initiatives incorporating project-based learning and student reflections.

B. Cai, L. Mainhood, and R. G. Knobel, Using reflections to explore student learning during the project component of an advanced laboratory course, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Cai.

Group exams are an assessment technique that has been gaining traction in recent years. Group exams provide students with an environment that amplifies typical collaborative learning. We interviewed students who were taking group exams in physics classes to learn about how they reoport group exams influence their expectations of peers, their involvement in the classroom community, and their external values. Given the paradigm-changing nature of group exams, we find that experience is a key factor in these areas.

E. T. Carr, T. M. Sault, and S. F. Wolf, Student Expectations, Classroom Community, and Values Reported on Group Exams, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Carr.

Research has led to the identification of some specific difficulties that students have in understanding the motion of an object that is rolling without slipping. At the University of Washington, we have been building on this work and are developing and testing a tutorial based on a relative motion approach to teaching rolling motion. Results from questions on this topic, administered before and after tutorial instruction, suggest that although this approach seems fruitful, additional research is needed to identify what is needed to help many students. The tutorial and results from several questions are presented to illustrate the instructional sequence and ongoing assessment.

S. L. Chang and P. S. Shaffer, Curriculum development to improve student understanding of rolling motion, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Chang.

Students interested in graduate school may make application decisions, or choose a graduate school based on socio-economic factors, career interests, and their perceptions about graduate admissions/selection processes. To better understand students’ graduate school decision-making, we conducted a Postgraduate Career Intentions Survey as part of the APS Bridge program ? a program designed to increase the number of students from the traditionally marginalized ethnic/racial groups who earn physics PhDs. In this paper, we examine the responses to identify the main factors influencing students’ graduate school decision making, especially in the case of students from traditionally marginalized race/ethnic groups in physics. Our study provides important information to departments interested in diversifying and improving support for the graduate cohort.

D. Chari and G. Potvin, Understanding the graduate school selection process from students’ perspectives, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Chari.

This study presents a new method for assessing the effectiveness of instructional resources using online learning technology that provides much richer information than a traditional summative assessment. By requiring students to complete a sequence of problem solving and learning activities in a given order, this new method not only measures students’ ability to directly transfer learning to a new problem, but also their ability to learn from additional resources, or the “preparation for future learning” effect. We used this method to evaluate the quality of two problem solving tutorials, and found that both tutorials significantly benefit transfer to nearly identical problems, but only one facilitates transfer to a further distance. Moreover, we found evidence suggesting that one tutorial prepared students with lower prior knowledge to learn as effectively from a following worked example as students with higher prior knowledge.

Z. Chen, K. M. Whitcomb, and C. Singh, Measuring the effectiveness of online problem-solving tutorials by multi-level knowledge transfer, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Chen.

As part of the STEP UP 4 Women project, a national initiative to empower high school teachers to recruit women to pursue physics degrees in college, we developed two lessons for high school physics classes that are intended to facilitate the physics identity development of female students. One discusses physics careers and links to students’ own values and goals; the other focuses on a discussion of underrepresentation of women in physics with the intention of having students elicit and examine stereotypes in physics. In piloting these lessons, we found statistically significant improvements in students’ identities, particularly recognition beliefs (feeling recognized by others as a physics person) and beliefs in a future physics career. Moreover, female students have larger gains than male students in future beliefs (seeing themselves as physicists in the future) from both lessons, which makes it promising to contribute to alleviating the underrepresentation of women in physics. Using structural equation modeling, we test a path model of various physics identity constructs, extending an earlier, established model. In this paper, we also compare a preliminary structural analysis of students’ physics identities before and after the career lesson, with an eye towards understanding how students’ identities develop over time and due to these experiences.

H. Cheng, G. Potvin, R. Khatri, L. H. Kramer, R. M. Lock, and Z. Hazari, Examining physics identity development through two high school interventions, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Cheng.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in shifting some of the basic presentation of the algebra-based physics curriculum in situations where it serves students with a background and/or major in the Life Sciences. Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) courses are becoming more common however the courses are often created entirely separate from one another with very different goals and aims, making assessment of these courses very difficult, and necessarily individualistic. This paper presents the development of a rubric for categorizing specific aspects of an IPLS curriculum in such a way that would allow certain comparisons across curricula. Roughly speaking, it categorizes the context of specific questions as being physics or biology related, and then further categorizes the actual content and information necessary to answer the question as being related to physics or biology, thus allowing users to determine the proportion of questions are that are superficially biological. An application of the rubric to existing course material is presented.

W. M. Christensen, A. Coakley, J. Brainard, K. Austin, E. Mylott, and R. Widenhorn, Development of a Rubric for Improved Understanding of IPLS Curricula, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Christensen.

Departmental Action Teams (DATs) are departmentally-based working groups of faculty, students, and staff aimed at achieving sustained departmental change related to undergraduate education. DATs have been conceptualized and are facilitated by members of our project team based on a set of Core Principles. These principles serve both as guides in the design of DATs and targets for the kinds of culture we aspire to create through our facilitation. In this paper, we describe our Core Principles, including theoretical underpinnings and a brief implementation example for each. We argue that articulating principles is a critical component of externalizing a complex change effort and that our Core Principles are applicable beyond the DAT model.

J. C. Corbo, G. M. Quan, K. Falkenberg, C. Geanious, C. Ngai, M. E. Pilgrim, D. L. Reinholz, and S. Wise, Externalizing the Core Principles of the Departmental Action Team (DAT) model, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Corbo.

Across teacher and faculty professional development efforts, there is significant momentum around building professional learning communities. More research however is needed on how the design and emergent norms of such communities enable or constrain particular learning opportunities for educators. In this paper, we share a comparative analysis of the conversations unfolding in two distinct faculty groups (associated with the Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking Faculty Online Learning Community). We choose to focus on moments in their video conferences when similar issues arise (e.g. concerns about pacing). By comparing these moments, we demonstrate important differences in how the instructional problem is posed, how participants interact with the problem, and how these differences open up and close off opportunities to learn.

A. Corrales, F. Goldberg, C. Turpen, and E. Price, Conversational norms in faculty communities enable and constrain opportunities to learn, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Corrales.

We have investigated the effect of peer-review on the development of students’ problem-solving abilities in an introductory physics course. Specifically, we report the results of a multiple-group pre/post-test quasiexperiment comparing two groups receiving different treatments with respect to activities completed after cooperative group problem-solving (CGPS) sessions. Both the treatment and control groups received identical instruction in lecture and CGPS discussion sections. Individual student problem solutions submitted on-line were evaluated via a validated problem-solving process rubric that was supplied to all participants at the beginning of the course. The treatment group completed rubric-based peer-review on-line for three randomly selected students, whereas the control group did not. Reliability-corrected analysis of covariance showed that the treatment group demonstrated greater improvement in problem-solving process compared to the control over the four-week study period.

T. Crouch and J. C. Moore, Effect of peer-review on development of students' problem-solving abilities, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Crouch.

We have designed, implemented and assessed a series of pedagogical strategies that seek to improve the climate of large introductory STEM courses and promote accessibility to students from all groups and backgrounds. These strategies rely on deliberately fostering collaboration among students, rather than competition, and promoting a culture that rewards effort and personal growth. We have collected and analyzed students’ responses to our approach in a large introductory physics course over several semesters. We report that our strategies are successful in building a course community, in which students, regardless of demographic, perceive a welcoming atmosphere and feel supported and cared for by their classmates and instructors.

C. De Grandi, R. Ramos, and S. G. J. Mochrie, Assessment of strategies to build a welcoming STEM classroom environment for all students, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.De_Grandi.

There is a growing recognition of the need to replace "cookbook"-style introductory labs with more-meaningful learning experiences. To identify the strengths and weaknesses of a mix of cookbook-style and inquiry-based labs, an introductory lab course currently being reformed was observed following a reflexive ethnographic protocol and pre and post E-CLASS surveys were administered. We analyzed data to identify shortcomings of the current labs and to determine areas for improvement.

D. Doucette, R. Clark, and C. Singh, What’s happening in traditional and inquiry-based introductory labs? An integrative analysis at a large research university, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Doucette.

There is strong evidence that the implementation of active learning in undergraduate science courses can lead to increased student conceptual understanding and course achievement, but we still do not know what specific characteristics of active learning contribute the most to student success. Our work examines the tasks that students are asked to engage with during active learning, with the goal of investigating the relationship between different task characteristics and student level outcomes. To this end, we are working to characterize the active learning tasks that students engage with in the classroom with respect to authenticity and cognitive depth. This paper presents our characterization of the tasks we have collected from four introductory physics courses at three institutions and discusses the relationship between these characteristics and student gains on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation instrument.

L. Doughty, L. Hartley, P. Le, M. Nyaema, J. Boyer, and R. M. Talbot III, Investigating the Relationship between Active Learning Task Characteristics and Student Success, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Doughty.

Multiweek projects in physics labs can engage students in authentic experimentation practices, and it is important to understand student experiences during projects along multiple dimensions. To this end, we conducted an exploratory quantitative investigation to look for connections between students’ pre-project views about experimental physics and their post-project sense of project ownership. We administered the Colorado Learning Attitudes About Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS) and the Project Ownership Survey (POS) to 96 students enrolled in 6 lab courses at 5 universities. E-CLASS and POS scores were positively correlated, suggesting that students’ views about experimentation may be linked to their ownership of projects. This finding motivates future studies that could explore whether these constructs are causally related.

D. R. Dounas-Frazer and H. J. Lewandowski, Correlating students' views about experimental physics with their sense of project ownership, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Dounas-Frazer.

Project Accelerate is a NSF-funded project aimed at helping prepare underserved high school students for the AP Physics 1 exam. The students attend schools that do not offer AP Physics 1. All Project Accelerate students are enrolled in a scaffolded small private online course (SPOC) that takes them through the physics material in an interactive way. A significant fraction of the students, including all those in the Boston area, also attend weekly 2.5-hour sessions on campus to do hands-on lab activities and recitation exercises. These sessions are led by undergraduate students who have pedagogical training. Our data indicate that Project Accelerate participants do at least as well on the AP Physics exam as similar students who take an AP Physics 1 through a traditional classroom-based course. One of the main goals of Project Accelerate is to give underserved students access to a rigorous science course, helping these students to build a solid foundation for a possible undergraduate degree in STEM. We also present evidence that successfully completing Project Accelerate makes students more likely to pursue further opportunities in STEM.

A. Duffy and M. Greenman, Project Accelerate: Increasing STEM Opportunities for Underserved High School Students, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Duffy.

Recent work in epistemic affect contends that students’ affect during inquiry is entangled with their cognition. Epistemic affect affords a lens through which to uncover the etiology of epiphanies, in which a cognitive leap co-occurs with an expression of positive affect. Using video data from a minimally structured physics laboratory classroom, we examine how student problematization (cognition about problems as problems) couples to their excitement. Analysis reveals two connections. First, problematization can set the stage for a future excited realization (an “Archimedean epiphany”). Second, a problem can itself be an excited realization (an “Asimovian epiphany”). We posit that, in both cases, students’ attribution of value mediates the connection between cognition and affect: when students frame a certain kind of idea as valuable and then have an idea of that kind, they feel good about it. We conclude by discussing implications for design and facilitation.

G. S. Ehrlich and M. Selen, "Eureka!" "That's funny...": Problematization and value in two classroom epiphanies, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Ehrlich.

The electric potential is often represented graphically using equipotential lines. Representing a multivariable function like the electric potential in this way can be challenging to interpret, and it is often helpful to make sense of a contour graph by making connections to other physical and mathematical ideas. We describe how upperlevel physics students make sense of two-dimensional equipotential graphs representing the electric potential. Our data are the students’ responses to a matched pair of open-ended questions given at the beginning and end of a junior-level electrostatics course. Students predominantly discussed the sign, shape, and location of the charged objects that give rise to the potential. We also find that, while some students discuss how the potential changes in space, they rarely connect the potential explicitly to an electric field, even after junior-level instruction on electrostatics.

P. J. Emigh, J. W. Alfson, and E. Gire, Student Sense Making about Equipotential Graphs, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Emigh.

This paper presents the development and field-testing of a multiple-choice content assessment designed to measure student learning gains of prospective elementary teachers enrolled in a course using the Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking curriculum over the course of one term. Preliminary results of the initial pilot in spring 2017 with a small group of experienced instructors and a larger second administration by members of the Next Gen PET-Faculty Online Learning Community in fall 2017 are presented. Practical aspects of developing and evaluating the effectiveness of the assessment instrument for a modular curriculum and administration by a large collaboration are discussed.

P. V. Engelhardt, S. J. Robinson, E. Price, P. S. Smith, and F. Goldberg, Developing a conceptual assessment for a modular curriculum, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Engelhardt.

Coming to appropriately appreciate the meaning of algebraic signs is an important aspect in introductory kinematics. However, in this educational context, the “disciplinary relevant aspects” of algebraic signs across vector and scalar representations are extremely difficult to discern. Our study explores the “relevance structure” that one-dimensional kinematics problems evoked for introductory level university physics students across two very different educational systems which have, in PER terms, progressive teaching environments: Sweden (n=60) and South Africa (n=24). The outcomes of two previous PER studies are used to provide the analytic basis for formulating categories of relevance structure. Aspects of a contemporary PER-developed social semiotics perspective (referred to here in terms of communication practices) are used to discuss implications for teaching in the given educational context of introductory kinematics.

M. Eriksson, C. J. Linder, and U. Eriksson, Towards understanding learning challenges involving sign conventions in introductory level kinematics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Eriksson.

The interaction between course environments and student responses can be complex. We look at two different sets of classes – algebra-based and calculus-based introductory physics. The focus is on students who went from the traditional classroom for one course to an alternative style for the next in the sequence, as well as feelings regarding interactive elements interwoven into large-enrollment lecture classes. Individual interviews with students allowed us to examine the elements of the instructional environment that have impacts on students' attitudes.

W. Faries, R. Gordon, and B. W. Dreyfus, Student experiences in traditional and active learning classrooms in introductory physics courses, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Faries.

A core principle of design-based educational programming is its focus on iterative improvement through the incorporation of viewpoints from multiple stakeholders. The youth who participate in informal physics programs are heavily invested and spend their time and energy interacting with the program; however, their feedback is not often considered in the iterative design process. The Partnerships for Informal Science Education in the Community (PISEC) is an informal physics program adapted from the design-based Fifth Dimension afterschool model. Here, we consider the child participants as stakeholders in the program and ask what it is that children value in an informal physics program. Semi-formal interviews with the children are coded within the context of the Fifth Dimension framework to understand the youth perspective on a program built with physics practice as a core principle. We see a variety of themes in the children’s responses that align with Fifth Dimension principles and additionally aligns with several practices outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards.

B. L. Fiedler, C. Fracchiolla, M. B. Bennett, K. A. Hinko, and N. D. Finkelstein, A Design-Based Informal Physics Program from a Youth Perspective, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Fiedler.

There has been an increase of funding agencies’ investment in informal science education in recent years, resulting in significant growth of the field. However, little research has been done in discipline-based education research to determine the impact of informal physics programs and what makes them successful. While structures exist to assess the impact of informal learning, those are not yet robust enough to rigorously assess which programs work and, more critically, why they work. In this study, we used a non-profit organization framework as a lens to evaluate the ’success’ of three informal physics programs in achieving their objectives and overall vision. To determine the practices and structures that most influence the ’success’ of these programs, we conducted interviews with directors and coordinators of the programs, hosted at R1 institutions and identified initial indicators that can increase chances of informal physics programs to be ’successful’.

C. Fracchiolla, N. D. Finkelstein, and K. A. Hinko, Characterizing Models of Informal Physics Programs, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Fracchiolla.

“Wow! I wish I’d written that question...” Many instructors struggle to write Peer Instruction questions that can drive the intellectually engaging discussions necessary to fully develop learners’ discipline fluency. Does your question bank contain the questions you need? How would you go about evaluating this and even if you did, how would you know what you’re missing? We present a framework for uncovering the variety in the discipline representations, intellectual tasks, and difficulty levels employed in hundreds of multiple-choice questions produced by faculty in our workshops over the years. We then exploit this framework to generate new questions using underutilized representations and tasks. Through this work, we illustrate a process for creating fluency-inspiring questions. Learning environments that make use of fluency-inspiring questions afford learners more robust opportunities to unpack complex concepts, practice critical discernment, and develop discipline fluency.

R. S. French and E. E. Prather, Uncovering the unknown unknowns of Peer Instruction Questions, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.French.

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 identity survey to be used in physics laboratory courses. A first step in determining the impact of these physics practices is understanding student’s interpretations of them. In physics education research, discussions of physics practices, are typically grounded in definitions from experts. Our students are not necessarily experts so, asking questions about what these practices mean to the students and what counts is fundamental to insure that our survey questions are being interpreted correctly.

K. Funkhouser, M. D. Caballero, P. W. Irving, and V. Sawtelle, What counts in laboratories: Toward a practice-based identity survey, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Funkhouser.

There is a growing societal recognition of the need for transdisciplinary scholarly collaboration which can enhance undergraduate physics, science, and engineering education. A regional conference/network with 100 university education researchers in physics and other STEM fields was formed to address three themes (problemsolving, computational thinking, and equity) with multiple goals including to strive for transdisciplinary publications. As part of an ongoing participant observation study, phone interviews were conducted 3-4 months later. One year later, publications that were completed as a result of the conference were analyzed for their disciplinary integration. The papers showed evidence of interdispliciplanry collaboration but transdiciplinary collaboration proved too difficult to achieve. Multiple factors such as certain facilitating conditions (including lack of prior shared working history, intrapersonal and interpersonal expectations, and sufficient time) may explain why transdisciplinary publications were not developed.

J. L. Fuqua, J. A. Phillips, A. Bargagliotti, and D. Herreiner, Facilitators and outcomes of STEM-education groups working toward disciplinary integration, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Fuqua.

It is central to the resources theoretical framework that the knowledge elements that comprise thinking – i.e., resources – are sensible, based on experience, and continuous with formal physics. While many authors agree that students’ conceptual resources can be framed as continuous with formal physics, few have discussed how and in what ways specific resources are productive for learning. We closely examine the progression of one introductory physics student’s thinking during an exploratory problem-solving interview, attending to the role that specific conceptual resources play in the evolution of her ideas over short time-scales. Two commonly activated resources for wave propagation (treating a pulse as an object moving through a medium and treating a pulse as a propagating disturbance) are integral to the conceptual progress she makes during this episode, and therefore can be considered productive for this situation.

L. M. Goodhew, A. D. Robertson, P. R. L. Heron, and R. E. Scherr, Examining the productiveness of student resources in a problem-solving interview, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Goodhew.

Projects and Practices in Physics (P³) is an introductory physics class at Michigan State University that replaces lectures with a problem based learning environment. To promote the development of group based practices, students all receive group and individual feedback at the end of each week. The groups are comprised of four students, one of which often takes on the role of being the group’s “leader.” Developing leadership based skills is a specific learning goal of the P³ learning environment and the goal of this research is to examine what leadership-specific actions/traits students in P³ demonstrate while working in their group. The initial phase of this study examined multiple pieces of literature to identify possible characteristics and behaviors that may present themselves in potential leaders – creating a codebook. This phase of the study applies the codebook to in-class data to compare two tutor-labeled leaders and their leadership styles.

K. Griswold, D. R. McPadden, M. D. Caballero, and P. W. Irving, Denoting and Comparing Leadership Attributes and Behaviors in Group Work, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Griswold.

Mastery-style online homework is used in a preparatory physics course at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Managing student frustration and making homework content achievable is a priority. In a level that historically has been difficult for students to master, content was broken into two smaller mastery levels for half of the students, with the original level given to the other half. Students performed similarly on follow-up assessments and spent similar amounts of time on the homework and assessments, but significantly more students were able to master the content when they were split into two smaller units. Further, students who saw split levels spent significantly less time re-doing problems that they had previously mastered.

B. Gutmann, N. Schroeder, and T. Stelzer, Effective Grain-Size of Mastery-Style Online Homework Levels, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Gutmann.

Project and Practices in Physics (P-Cubed) is a flipped section of introductory, calculus-based physics, which is designed with a problem-based learning approach where students work in groups on complex physics problems. Learning Assistants (LAs) are critical to the course, where they each function as a primary instructor for four to eight students by asking questions and prompting discussion during class. LAs in P-Cubed also write individualized weekly feedback to each of their students, which is meant to offer suggestions to the student for how to improve their work in class and provide the student with a justification for their in-class grade. We conducted semi-structured interviews with LAs to examine the ways that they construct feedback and how this impacts their own experiences as students taking classes. In this paper, we examine and discuss the reflections of one such LA as a case study for the impact feedback can have.

P. C. Hamerski, P. W. Irving, and D. R. McPadden, Learning Assistants as constructors of feedback: How are they impacted?, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Hamerski.

In previous work, we demonstrated the existence of differences between students’ epistemologies (beliefs about knowing and learning) in classical and quantum physics. Here, we explore the pervasiveness of these "splits" using five bifurcated items from the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) distributed across ten courses and four institutions (N=571). Data come from both lower and upper division quantum mechanics courses, with a variety of instructional and pedagogical contexts. Further, we investigate why students answer questions differently about classical and quantum physics through analysis of focus groups. We find splits in all course-instances surveyed. We develop a coding scheme that documents variations in epistemic beliefs between classical and quantum along themes of the following 5 categories: intuition, mathematics, social/cultural/experiential, quantum weirdness, and coherence. Lastly, we provide instances where students’ epistemological splits reflect a sophisticated stance towards learning.

I. E. Hanemann, J. R. Hoehn, and N. D. Finkelstein, Characterizing differences in students' epistemologies between classical and quantum physics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Hanemann.

Research shows that community plays a central role in learning, and strong community engages students and aids in student persistence. Thus, understanding the function and structure of communities in learning environments is essential to education. We use social network analysis to explore the community integration of students in a pre-matriculation, two-week summer program. Unlike previous network analysis studies in PER, we build our networks from classroom video that has been coded for student interactions using labeled, directed ties. We also examine the change in student conversation topicality over the course of the program, and its connection to the forming student collaborations. We define 3 types of interaction: on-task interactions (regarding the assigned task), on-topic interactions (having to do with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)), and off-topic interactions (unrelated to the assignment or STEM). While we do not see a significant change in network analysis measures, we do find fewer off-task interactions later in the program, suggesting that the need for these interactions to negotiate the collaboration is reduced.

C. A. F. Hass, F. Genz, M. B. Kustusch, P. A. Ouimet, K. E. Pomian, E. C. Sayre, and J. P. Zwolak, Studying Community Development: A Network Analytical Approach, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Hass.

Differences in student performance on physics conceptual inventories have been studied with respect to gender and race/ethnicity. The current study expands this literature by exploring differences between first generation college students and rural/non-rural students on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) using a large sample (N = 3325). Hierarchical linear regression was used to explore the effects of gender, race/ethnicity, first-generation status, and rural status. Significant differences in FMCE post-test scores were found by gender (14%), race/ethnicity (7%), first generation status (4%), and rural status (5%). Prior preparation, measured by ACT/SAT math scores, explained much of the performances by race/ethnicity and first generation status, but did not explain the differences in post-test scores by gender or rural status. No significant interactions between the different demographic features were measured.

R. Henderson, C. Zabriskie, and J. Stewart, Rural and First Generation Performance Differences on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Henderson.

The Learning Assistant (LA) model supports instructors in implementing research-based teaching practices in their own courses. In the LA model undergraduate students are hired to help facilitate research-based collaborative-learning activities. Using the Learning About STEM Student Outcomes (LASSO) database, we examined student learning from 112 first-semester physics courses that used either lecture-based instruction, collaborative instruction without LAs, or LA supported instruction. We measured student learning using 5959 students’ responses on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) or Force Concept Inventory (FCI). Results from Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) indicated that LA supported courses had higher posttest scores than collaborative courses without LAs and that LA supported courses that used LAs in laboratory and recitation had higher posttest scores than those that used LAs in lecture.

X. Herrera, J. M. Nissen, and B. Van Dusen, Student Outcomes Across Collaborative-Learning Environments, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Herrera.

This paper describes a framework for how students apply linear algebra to quantum mechanics based on a survey of 61 students at various levels. The framework divides mathematics into calculational and value-assigning parts in contrast to storytelling parts, which are concerned with the relationships between objects. We apply this to student understanding in the context of linear algebra and quantum mechanics, and give some implications for instruction.

C. Hillebrand-Viljoen and S. Wheaton, How students apply linear algebra to quantum mechanics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Hillebrand-Viljoen.

The ways in which students organize knowledge about entities, such as photons and electrons, (or their ontologies) influence their learning of quantum phenomena. In prior work, we have described different types of dynamic ontologies seen in collective student reasoning; here we extend this analysis to individual written responses to Modern Physics homework, exam, and survey questions about canonical quantum mechanics topics. We present a refined framework that describes unitary, parallel, and blended ontological structures, and then examine students’ patterns of use of ontological structures across entities (e.g., photon or electron) and topic areas (double slit, Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and tunneling). Analysis of seven students’ responses demonstrate their flexible use of ontologies in individual written work. Through this analysis, we raise questions for future studies about how the wording and framing of the prompts impacts students’ ontological reasoning.

J. R. Hoehn, J. D. Gifford, and N. D. Finkelstein, Dynamics of students’ ontological reasoning across contexts in modern physics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Hoehn.

Informal educational programs that integrate the arts with sciences technology engineering and mathematics, or STEAM, are growing in prominence, including within informal physics. There are learning and social benefits that can come from blending physics with arts through STEAM education. One benefit that drives this work is the ability of STEAM programs to shift the exclusive culture of typical science learning environments, which is especially relevant to typical physics settings. However, there is room in the literature to understand the different ways we can integrate arts and STEM. This work presents two models for a design-based informal STEAM program that integrates performance art and physics content. We analyze artifacts, video and interview data from a ”performing physics” program that was designed and run in the fall of 2015. We use this analysis to inform a second model of the program that will be run at the end of this summer.

S. Hyater-Adams, N. D. Finkelstein, and K. A. Hinko, Performing Physics: An Analysis of Design-Based Informal STEAM Education Programs, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Hyater-Adams.

We explore students’ sources of self-generated evidence and their meta-cognition when they solve physics and non-physics questions. Our sample comprises 50 freshmen taking or having taken introductory physics. Each student participated in a one-hour interview to complete five open-ended reasoning questions taken from published instruments. Two questions are non-physics that deal with correlation of variables. The three physics questions pertain to the topic of energy. Results indicate that for the non-physics questions, the students mainly used given information in the task as source of evidence. They realized that everyday experiences or assumptions were informal ideas and hence assigned them less weight in generating the evidence. For the physics questions, the students did not realize that they used informal ideas. They packaged informal knowledge in the form of formal physics knowledge. These outcomes may be explained by the ease with which the students dealt with the context of the questions coupled with a high cognitive load associated with processing multiple pieces of information when students tackled qualitative questions.

B. Ibrahim and L. Ding, How Freshmen Generate Evidence for Reasoning in Physics and Non-physics Tasks?, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Ibrahim.

Little research in physics education has explored the experiences of postsecondary students with disabilities (SWDs). Perspectives on disability vary in the extent to which they locate disability within the individual or within society. We conducted interviews with SWDs to explore their perspectives on disability and their experiences in STEM-specific courses. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, we identified how the participants’ experiences of impairment impacted their learning, often resulting in use of accommodations, such as extra test time. While accommodations allowed the participants to demonstrate content mastery, accommodation use also made them susceptible to disability stigma from peers and instructors who held an individual view of disability. Participants expressed that these feelings of stigma led them to value confidentiality. We argue that instructors who hold a social perspective of disability are in a better position to address barriers in the learning environment and to support SWDs.

W. James, C. Bustamante, K. Lamons, and J. J. Chini, Beyond Disability as Weakness: Perspectives from Students with Disabilities, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.James.

As part of a project studying student experiences in quantum mechanics (QM), we collected two streams of data. We asked students to generate autobiographical video, audio, and written blogs and participate in open-format interviews while taking the first semester of an upper-division QM course. We also interviewed former students about their experiences in QM. In asking students to generate data on their own, we intended for students to have the freedom to generate their own critiques and appraisals of the class content and culture, including how it interacts with their experiences learning physics in other classes and their experiences outside of physics. While exploring preliminary themes, we present one student’s experiences as informed by her use of “outside resources” (online solutions and examples, a class group-chat, and out-of-class study groups). We discuss research and instructional implications, specifically, how interactions with outside resources may be gendered and affect her emotions, moral stances, epistemology, and physics self-efficacy.

B. J. Johnson, E. R. Sohr, and A. Gupta, How social-media and web-accessible learning resources influence students’ experiences in a quantum physics course: A case study, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Johnson.

Engaging students with well-designed clicker questions is one of the commonly used research-based instructional strategy in physics courses partly because it has a relatively low barrier to implementation. Moreover, validated robust sequences of clicker questions are likely to provide better scaffolding support and guidance to help students build a good knowledge structure of physics than an individual clicker question on a particular topic. Here we discuss the development, validation and in-class implementation of a clicker question sequence (CQS) for helping advanced undergraduate students learn about addition of angular momentum, which takes advantage of the learning goals and inquiry-based guided learning sequences in a previously validated Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT). The in-class evaluation of the CQS using peer instruction is discussed by comparing upper-level undergraduate students’ performance after engaging with the CQS with previous published data from the QuILT pertaining to these concepts.

P. Justice, E. Marshman, and C. Singh, Development and validation of a sequence of clicker questions for helping students learn addition of angular momentum in quantum mechanics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Justice.

Self-efficacy, or the belief in one’s capability to succeed in a particular task, course, or subject area, has been shown to influence students’ learning outcomes and career decisions. Previous studies have shown that female students have lower self-efficacy than males in physics courses. However, few studies have focused on gender differences in self-efficacy at equal performance levels, which also vary by gender. We examined the self-efficacy by gender at matched achievement levels in introductory physics courses and found large self-efficacy differences. Implications of the self-efficacy differences for similarly performing males and females are discussed.

Z. Y. Kalender, E. Marshman, C. D. Schunn, T. J. Nokes-Malach, and C. Singh, Large gender differences in physics self-efficacy at equal performance levels: A warning sign?, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Kalender.

Students of physics, even at the undergraduate level, often perceive common sense and the use of mathematical formalisms in problem solving as disconnected activities. We present an ethnographic account of a case study, a year-long research apprenticeship of an 11th grade physics student. The analysis examined the development of the student’s understanding a mathematical equation as a model for a physical phenomenon, his use of that mathematization as a tool and as an object for sense making, and how these were nurtured by the mentor. Our analysis suggests that this process can be paralleled to the development of reading comprehension and that it involves the deciphering of the explicit and implicit meaning of the equation. We also show that using physics equations in this manner is not intuitive, and requires an epistemological change that needs to be necessitated for students.

S. Kapon and M. Schvartzer, Nurturing sensemaking of, through, and with a mathematical model, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Kapon.

We discuss an investigation of student difficulties with determining the number of distinct many-particle stationary states for a system of non-interacting identical particles. Here we focus on a system in which there are a fixed number of available single-particle states and a fixed number of particles but the total energy of the system is not fixed. The investigation was carried out in advanced quantum mechanics courses by administering free-response and multiple-choice questions and conducting individual interviews with students. We find that upperlevel undergraduate and graduate students share many common difficulties related to these concepts. Many students struggled to determine the number of distinct many-particle stationary states and make connections between the number of distinct many-particle stationary states and the number of many-particle stationary state wavefunctions possible with the given constraints. Additionally, we found that many students had difficulty with mathematical sense-making in the context of quantum mechanics.

C. Keebaugh, E. Marshman, and C. Singh, Student difficulties with the number of distinct many-particle states for a system of non-interacting identical particles with a fixed number of available single-particle states, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Keebaugh.

Use of YouTube videos by STEM instructors is common. Many instructors suggest those videos to their students and sometimes require them to watch. However, little is known about students’ voluntary use of YouTube videos to learn topics taught in their high school and/or college science courses. In this study, we surveyed 596 undergraduate, US college students of different majors, who took physics laboratory courses of different levels. Our findings are that many students do consult YouTube videos to learn about the physics topics they encounter in the classroom. We also found that this practice was much more prevalent amongst college students than amongst high school students. Further analysis of the data revealed some of the key reasons behind students’ tendency towards and against voluntary use of YouTube videos to learn those topics.

R. Khan, W. W. Cobern, B. Adams, and J. R. Amadeu Filho, STEM Students’ Voluntary Use of YouTube to Learn Science Topics Taught in High School and/or College, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Khan.

Prior research has shown that students struggle to indicate whether vector field plots have zero or non-zero curl or divergence. In an instruction-based eye-tracking study, we investigated whether visual cues (VC) provided in the vector field plot can foster students’ understanding of these concepts. The VC were only present during instruction and highlighted conceptual information about vector decomposition and partial derivatives. Thirty-two physics majors were assigned to two groups, one was instructed with VC about the problem-solving strategy, and one without. The results show that students in VC-condition performed better, responded with higher confidence, experienced less mental effort, and rated the instructional quality better than students instructed without cues. All results were statistically significant. Furthermore, VC-students performed better on a transfer task about the curl concept. The superior performance of students in VC-condition can be attributed to saccadic eye-movements which are in line by correct application of the visual strategy and which were supported by the visual cues. The outcomes strongly confirm multimedia design principles and reveal a direct link between processing explicit instructions and its application in subsequent tasks in the domain of problem solving.

P. Klein, J. Viiri, and J. Kuhn, Visual understanding of divergence and curl: Visual cues promote better learning, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Klein.

Finland is often seen and admired as an equity and education-focused country. They have policies that champion gender equity and a world-renowned K-12 education system, with students ranking among the top on international metrics. However, little is known on whether these policies and early education experiences support gender equity in postsecondary education and beyond, particularly in fields that struggle to support women. The few studies that exist indicate that despite having aptitude and national policy that seeks to create gender equity, women may not pursue physics careers. As part of a larger project, we present findings from a study on Finnish physics students enrolled in Finnish universities. Results indicate that students in this study have experiences and attributes that contribute to persisting in physics. When examining these data for gender, we found that women are no more likely to consider leaving physics than men. We also found that female PhD students tend to be interested in non-academic careers more than men.

A. V. Knaub and R. S. Barthelemy, Persistence and career choices of female Finnish university physics students, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Knaub.

Most pre-to-post-instruction results of the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) indicate a decline in students’ beliefs and attitudes about learning physics. However, by comparing post-instruction CLASS responses with retrospective responses, we have found that such results can be affected by response-shift bias due to students’ changing self-evaluation metric. Response-shift bias has an overall negative impact on pre-to-post results. We also find that, when asked to predict their end-of-semester responses, students’ predictions of their development were overall positive and were generally met. We discuss the implications of these findings for the interpretation of CLASS results and future explorations of this phenomenon.

W. B. Lane and R. Y. Adhikari, Evaluating the presence of response-shift bias in the CLASS with a two-pass survey, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Lane.

This paper presents our preliminary work towards being able to describe productive conversations in the context of faculty talking about teaching in a Faculty Online Learning Community (FOLC) as well as facilitator moves that lead to productive conversations. We present an analysis of a short video clip from a particularly productive FOLC meeting in which a rich discussion of pedagogical issues occurs. In order to understand why this conversation was productive, we describe the types of talk present and the function each type of talk served. Drawing from the literature on teacher workgroup conversations and using an emergent coding scheme, we identify four types of teaching talk: Reflection, Replay, Philosophy, and Rehearsal as well as three facilitation moves: Agency, Withholding, and Elaboration present in the conversation. We consider how teaching talk and facilitation moves are connected and offer guidance for those engaging in facilitation of either online or in-person faculty learning communities.

A. C. Lau, M. H. Dancy, C. R. Henderson, and A. Rundquist, Describing and Facilitating Productive Teaching Talk in a Faculty Online Learning Community, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Lau.

From a department being resistant to change to students not buying into computational activities, the challenges that are faced with integrating computation into the undergraduate physics curriculum are varied. The Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergraduate Physics (PICUP) aims to expand the role of computation in the undergraduate physics curriculum. The research presented in this paper is part of a larger project examining the role of the PICUP workshop in facilitating both the integration of computation into classrooms and developing a supportive community to support this integration. An important part of providing the necessary supports for integration is understanding and categorizing the problems members of this community of integrators face when integrating computation in their courses. Through individual and group interviews, we discuss the barriers to integration that new and experienced community members of PICUP have experienced in the past or perceive could exist in the future.

A. Leary, P. W. Irving, and M. D. Caballero, The difficulties associated with integrating computation into undergraduate physics., 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Leary.

Special-case analysis—setting parameters to special values and checking that the answer is consistent with previously known results or physical intuitions—is a common strategy for reflecting on the correctness and meaning of answers to physics problems. We interviewed eleven calculus-based introductory physics students to learn about their use of such reflection strategies. Six of the students were enrolled in a reformed course where students were prompted to reflect on their homework solutions. Checking special cases was specifically suggested in the homework instructions as a reflection strategy. Five students were in a different course that did not prompt reflection on homework. During the interviews, none of the students performed a special-case analysis or were familiar with the strategy. We suggest that students need explicit instruction on how to do a special-case analysis if they are expected to perform it while reflecting on answers to physics problems.

M. Lenz, P. J. Emigh, and E. Gire, Surprise! students don’t do special-case analysis when unaware of it, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Lenz.

We studied the learning of high-school physics teacher-leaders in a national Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) program that operates using a "Fan Model": the teacher-leaders' PLC is led by a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science, while they simultaneously lead regional PLCs of physics teachers all over Israel. The learning sequence of one learner-centered activity was chosen as the context for this study. We developed a theoretical framework: Physics Knowledge for Teaching and Leading (PKTL), which we used for a micro-level discourse analysis, together with the Knowledge Integration (KI) perspective. The results show that the evidence-based learning of a new learner-centered activity fostered the learning of physics and a rich array of other aspects of teacher-leaders' knowledge. The teacher-leaders’ PLC turned out to be a meaningful, supportive, and enriching learning environment. We suggest that our program can serve as an effective model for the professional development of both teacher-leaders and teachers in regional PLCs.

S. Levy, E. Bagno, H. Berger, and B. Eylon, Physics Teacher-Leaders' Learning in a National Program of Regional Professional Learning Communities, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Levy.

Recently, there has been increased attention to improving laboratory instruction at all levels. At the introductory level, research results have shown differing levels of success based on the nature of the desired learning outcomes. In response to these findings, the University of Colorado’s introductory physics lab course was transformed to improve students’ development of experimental skills and experimental physics epistemology. We describe the details of the transformation process and initial self-reported learning gains from the first implementation of the transformed course. Students report a preference for lab notebooks over lab reports and an improvement in their ability to keep a lab notebook.

H. J. Lewandowski, D. R. Bolton, and B. Pollard, Initial impacts of the transformation of a large introductory lab course focused on developing experimental skills and expert epistemology, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Lewandowski.

Our study reports on a field test examining the impact of the Physics through Evidence: Empowerment through Reasoning (PEER) curricular suite on high school students’ conceptual physics understanding. The PEER suite holistically supports K-12 physics teachers’ implementation of student-centered reform pedagogies that engage students in developing scientific principles from evidence. Components of the suite include NGSS-aligned curricular materials, targeted professional development with intentional fostering of professional communities, and assessment of multiple dimensions. Seven physics teachers field-tested PEER during the 2016-2017 school year and were compared to three physics teachers using a traditional approach. Findings indicate that PEER classes had higher pre/post gain scores in their conceptual understanding of physics than traditional classrooms. These preliminary results suggest that holistic approaches towards supporting physics education reform may be effective in facilitating shifts in students’ conceptual understanding of physics.

W. E. Lindsay, V. K. Otero, and S. N. Belleau, PEER suite: A holistic approach to supporting inductive pedagogy implementation, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Lindsay.

Student engagement with interactive simulations is affected by the prompts and activities teachers choose to couple with such simulations. In this early work, we introduce a prototype dashboard to visualize and evaluate student engagement generated by activities that leverage interactive simulations. Engagement in this study is gauged by factors such as the time spent in the activity, the rate and pattern of clicks, and the simulation elements used by students. The dashboard employs several approaches to visualize student mouse activity data, displaying either individual student interactions or aggregated information of an entire group. To test the dashboard’s usability, we evaluate student engagement resulting from a homework activity that focused on factors that affect stored energy in a capacitor and used the PhET simulation “Capacitor Lab: Basics”. The results show that the dashboard’s visualizations help provide a general idea of how students interact, describe their engagement, and are a promising tool for guiding activity design.

D. B. López-Tavares, K. Perkins, S. Reid, M. Kauzmann, and C. Aguirre-Vélez, Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Lopez_Tavares.

Using data from over 14,000 student responses, we rank incorrect responses on the Force and Motion Concept Evaluation (FMCE). We develop a hierarchy of responses using item response theory and the McNemar-Bowker chi-square test for asymmetry. We use item response theory (IRT) under the assumption that students who score well have a greater understanding of physics than those who do not; therefore, responses that have a greater likelihood of being selected by those who score well are considered better responses. We use the McNemarBowker chi-square test (MB) under the assumption that student understanding is more likely to increase than decrease after an introductory mechanics course. Therefore, more dominant transitions from one answer to another from pretest to posttest indicate that one answer is better than another. We present the results from the IRT and MB analyses, highlighting both agreement and disagreement between the hierarchies of responses generated by each.

K. J. Louis, B. J. Ricci IV, and T. I. Smith, Determining a hierarchy of correctness through student transitions on the FMCE, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Louis.

A ball on a stick is a common and simple activity for teaching the phases of the Moon. This activity, like many others in physics and astronomy, gives students a perspective they otherwise could only imagine. For Moon phases, a third person view and control over time allows students to rapidly build a mental model that connects all the moving parts. Computer simulations of many traditional physics and astronomy activities provide new features, controls, or vantage points to enhance learning beyond a hands-on activity. Virtual reality provides the capabilities of computer simulations and embodied cognition experiences through a hands-on activity making it a natural step to improve learning. We recreated the traditional ball-and-stick moon phases activity in virtual reality and compared participant learning using this simulation with using traditional methods. We found a strong participant preference for VR relative to the traditional methods. However, we observed no difference across conditions in average levels of performance on a pre/post knowledge test.

J. H. Madden, A. S. Won, J. P. Schuldt, B. Kim, S. Pandita, Y. Sun, T. J. Stone, and N. G. Holmes, Virtual Reality as a Teaching Tool for Moon Phases and Beyond, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Madden.

The present work is part of a broad programme aimed at understanding how students think about data obtained from measurement, including measurement uncertainty, at a more fine-grained level than that obtained from the Physics Measurement Questionnaire. More specifically, to what extent do measured student shifts from a point to a set paradigm come about due to actual conceptual change or are they the result of recognizing familiar situations that can successfully be processed according to appropriate prescriptions. In order to probe these finer grained aspects of understanding a process of developing a suitable questionnaire was initiated. The first phase of the process involved piloting individual, specific questions. The present paper will discuss the questions that were developed and piloted with a group of students after an introductory lab course. The focus of the paper will be on the level of informativeness of the responses that were obtained.

N. Majiet and S. Allie, Student understanding of measurement and uncertainty: probing the mean, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Majiet.

We discuss an investigation of student difficulties with the corrections to the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom for the intermediate field Zeeman effect using the degenerate perturbation theory. The investigation was carried out in advanced quantum mechanics courses by administering free-response and multiple-choice questions and conducting individual interviews with students. We find that students share many common difficulties related to relevant physics concepts. In particular, students often struggled with mathematical sense-making in this context of quantum mechanics which requires interpretation of the implications of degeneracy in the unperturbed energy spectrum and how the Zeeman perturbation will impact the splitting of the energy levels. We discuss how the common difficulties often arise from the fact that applying linear algebra concepts correctly in this context with degeneracy in the energy spectrum is challenging for students.

E. Marshman, C. Keebaugh, and C. Singh, Student difficulties with the corrections to the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom for the intermediate field Zeeman effect, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Marshman.

We examined how introductory physics students’ attitudes and approaches to problem solving compare to those of introductory astronomy students’, using a previously validated survey, the Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving (AAPS) survey. In addition, we compared the performance of the introductory physics and astronomy students on the factors which were identified in a factor analysis in the original validation study. We found that introductory astronomy students’ overall average AAPS score was significantly more favorable than that of introductory physics students (p < 0.01), and the effect size was large (Cohen’s d = 0.81). We also found that introductory astronomy students’ scores were more favorable in all clusters of questions except for one. We also found that introductory physics and astronomy students were equally capable of solving two isomorphic problems posed to them, and that the majority of introductory physics and introductory astronomy students reported that the problem posed in the astronomy context was more interesting to them. Interviews suggest that the context of astronomy in problem solving may be more interesting for students and could be one possible explanation for the more favorable AAPS scores amongst introductory astronomy students.

A. J. Mason, M. Good, and C. Singh, Surveying physics and astronomy students’ attitudes and approaches to problem solving, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Mason.

As part of ongoing research in student use of math in upper-division physics, we examine student understanding of Fourier analysis. Fourier series are used in a variety of physics contexts and provide the first example of non-Euclidian vector spaces for many students. This study extends previous work in which we highlighted the procedural and conceptual difficulties students have when thinking about Fourier series. Using the concept image framework, as described by Tall and Vinner, we probe how students think about the constant coefficient in front of the Fourier series representation of a function and what it means when graphing the series. We also investigate whether students use the odd or even properties of a function to eliminate terms in the Fourier series. Data were collected at a large four-year university, including nine years of written data from an intermediate-level Math Methods course as well as several interviews.

M. Mays and M. E. Loverude, Student Interpretation of Coefficients in Fourier Series, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Mays.

During the middle school years, interest in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) falls off, especially among Black and Latinx students and women. In underserved districts, a small percentage of students graduate prepared for college and even less are prepared for undergraduate STEM coursework. Beginning in the 2009-10 academic year, we implemented an informal STEM program for upper elementary and middle school students from a nearby underserved district. Students chose from STEM offerings including hands-on engineering and computer technology courses, coding courses, and physics courses taught through hands-on activities and video games. We found that participants are similar in ethnicity, poverty, and residency, but outperform non-participants in a variety of New York State standardized measures of achievement while participating in the program and years after leaving. For example, program participants outperform non-participants in high school assessments in physics, chemistry, and math. They are also over-represented in advanced science classes, and in receiving diplomas with advanced designation - a key indicator of preparedness to pursue a STEM major in college.

M. W. McColgan, R. J. Colesante, and K. Robin, Short- and long-term impacts of an informal STEM program, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.McColgan.

Communication is cited as an important scientific skill in institutional standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards and the American Association Physics Teachers laboratory guidelines; however, there are few suggestions on how to support students in developing these communication skills in science. As a possible mechanism for helping students improve their communication skills, we present a scaffolded feedback system, which has been built into the reformed, introductory E&M course. At the beginning of the semester, students receive feedback from an instructor each week about their individual understanding, their group collaboration, and their problem solving process in class. By the end of the semester, students are asked to reflect and write this feedback for themselves. From a case study, we demonstrate the impact of the weekly feedback system on changing and improving a student’s communication in this course.

D. R. McPadden, P. C. Hamerski, M. D. Caballero, and P. W. Irving, Feedback as a mechanism for improving students’ scientific communication skills, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.McPadden.

We have begun the development and validation of a rubric for the assessment of problem-solving process in introductory physics courses. The initial rubric consisted of 12 criteria based on research in expert-like problem solving practice and aspects of Cooperative Group Problem Solving (CGPS) pedagogy. In contrast to recent work on problem-solving assessment for use in research and curriculum development, this rubric was specifically designed for instructor use in the assignment of grades and for student use as a scaffold. After assessment of seven problems across content in motion and force, exploratory factor analysis identified 3 factors that we have categorized as: (1) framing, (2) physics formalism, and (3) planning and executing. These factors roughly align with our initial theory of the construct, suggesting evidence for criterion-related validity. Tau-equivalent reliability (N = 256) was found to be 0.80, and inter-rater reliability was high.

J. C. Moore and T. Crouch, Development and validation of a pedagogy-specific problem-solving process rubric, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Moore.

Many students who have completed a full year of calculus continue to demonstrate a weak understanding of the role of the infinitesimal in an integral. This lack of understanding has implications for learning in introductory calculus-based physics, where students must integrate contributions from spatially-distributed sources. Symbolically, a student who constructs such an integral in terms of small chunks of sources, like dm or dq, will need to relate their infinitesimal to a small chunk of space, like dx. In order to better understand how students use the integration infinitesimal, we collected and analyzed written solutions from 39 upperdivision physics majors who solved for the electric field at an asymmetric point in space above a homogeneously charged bar. We have identified several categories of ways students handled the infinitesimal when constructing an integral. We present evidence, supporting prior work, that a small segment understanding of the infinitesimal leads students to a correct translation from dq to dx.

G. Mulder, P. J. Emigh, and E. Gire, How students describe infinitesimal sources and infinitesimal spaces in integrals, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Mulder.

Cognitive load theory (CLT) describes the usage of working memory resources during problem solving. CLT is a tripartite scheme that serves as a theoretical framework to motivate the design of instructional materials. Intrinsic load is directly related to learning objectives, while extraneous load refers to the resources wasted by attending to irrelevant information, and germane load is affiliated with generative processing. A semi-structured interview was conducted with N=13 participants to validate a cognitive load survey that was provided to students upon completion of a physics exam to determine the subjective cognitive load that students experienced while solving the exam questions. The survey consists of eight statements designed to delineate the different types of load. Interview participants were asked to group statements into any of three piles based on thematic similarity, and answer questions that probed their understanding of the statements. Participants overall grouped survey items as per the triarchic model proposed by CLT, thus validating the survey.

J. Munsell, T. Zu, and N. S. Rebello, Validating a survey for self-reporting cognitive load, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Munsell.

This work presents a content analysis of an online discussion forum accompanying a face-to-face introductory physics course. Content analysis is a quantitative method for analyzing text that uses a coding scheme to gain insight into student discussions. We explore the effects of “anchor” tasks, small weekly activities to help students engage with each other. The goal of this analysis was to examine how the distributions of codes are impacted by anchor versus non-anchor tasks, and different types of anchors. The result of this work was that the coding scheme was able to detect some differences between anchor and non-anchor threads, but further work should be done to observe behaviors that would require a more in-depth analysis of the text. This research is significant for physics education research (PER) because there is little PER using content analysis or studying online talk. This is a step towards identifying patterns in conversations between physics students and the tools that may help them have on topic conversations essential for their learning. Identifying such tools can aid instructors in creating effective online learning environments, and this project introduces “anchor” tasks as instructor tools for building a learning community.

C. Myers, A. L. Traxler, and A. Gavrin, Content analysis of instructor tools for building a learning community, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Myers.

We present the experiences of Sam, who represents a contrasting case in the context of students commonly reporting that physics is not connected to their everyday life experiences. Sam is majoring in the life sciences and articulates moments where she uses physics to reason through everyday phenomena. Sam is a contrasting case for two reasons: (1) her attitudes and beliefs contrast with those of many other life science students who happily report never thinking of physics outside the classroom, and (2) whose abilities to see physics around her directly challenge a large body of work around the capability of life science students in perceiving the relevance of physics. We explore the ways in which courses can support students like Sam to find physics relevant to their everyday experiences and also describe areas of Sam’s life outside the classroom that have contributed to her sense that physics is relevant to her everyday life.

A. Nair and V. Sawtelle, An uncommon case of relevance through everyday experiences, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Nair.

Prior work has shown that women are underrepresented and underperform in physics compared to men. A number of factors have been identified as contributing to these gaps such as stereotypes, prior knowledge, and student motivation, but less work has tested the relations between them. We have collected motivational data and performance outcomes on students in introductory physics courses over the past several years. In the current work, we investigate how students’ prior preparation and motivation relate to their learning outcomes and the gender gap. The results show that students’ prior preparation and self-efficacy beliefs mediate the relation between gender and learning outcomes. Identifying factors that impact learning outcomes in physics courses is important for developing and implementing pedagogies and interventions to help all students learn and eliminate the gender gap.

T. J. Nokes-Malach, Z. Y. Kalender, E. Marshman, C. D. Schunn, and C. Singh, Prior preparation and motivational characteristics mediate relations between gender and learning outcomes in introductory physics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Nokes-Malach.

Many physics instructors aim to support student sensemaking in their classrooms. However, this can be challenging since instances of sensemaking tend to be short-lived, with students often defaulting to approaches based on answer-making or rote mathematical manipulation. In this study, we present evidence that specific recurring questions can serve a key role in the sensemaking process. Using a case-study of two students discussing an E&M thought experiment, we show how students’ entry into sensemaking is marked by the articulation of a particular question, based on a perceived gap or inconsistency in understanding. and how this question recurs throughout their subsequent explanations, arguing that these recurrences may serve to stabilize and extend the process.

T. O. B. Odden and R. S. Russ, Recurring questions that sustain the sensemaking frame, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Odden.

We are designing and testing ways to build and sustain geographically-distributed, topic-specific instructional communities. Our work centers on the Living Physics Portal, a virtual space for introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS) instructors. Here, we show initial evidence that a series of facilitated, synchronous "curriculum swaps" can help newcomers to see themselves as more central participants in an instructional community and may lead to higher levels of future engagement.

A. R. Olmstead and C. Turpen, “Curriculum swaps” as a pathway into a geographically-distributed instructional community, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Olmstead.

Physics departments are increasingly working to improve diversity in graduate programs by using more holistic strategies in their admission and retention practices. However, completion rates for traditionally underserved groups are still problematic. By understanding and accounting for faculty and student divergence on challenges faced in retention, graduate programs will be better equipped to enact change. In this study of two graduate programs (one physics and the other astrophysics), faculty and graduate students were asked why graduate students leave their program, and to identify ways to reduce attrition. While the goal of improving retention was shared between faculty and graduate students, their visions for how retention could be improved were not aligned. Faculty believed that retention could be improved by reforming admissions practices to select for students with attributes critical for success in graduate school, such as resilience. In contrast, the graduate students noted more systemic or socio-cultural factors as impacting retention.

L. M. Owens, B. M. Zwickl, S. V. Franklin, and C. W. Miller, Misaligned Visions for Improving Graduate Diversity: Student Characteristics vs. Systemic/Cultural Factors, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Owens.

There has been a growing push in universities to increase student participation and discussion as an integral part of the learning process. At least 77 universities have adopted the Colorado-Boulder Learning Assistant Program which trains undergraduate students to facilitate group problem-solving and discussion during class. Prior research on LA-supported clicker question discussions found that when LAs explained answers to students, as they did in 50% of interactions, group discussion ended. This study further examines LA-student interactions in the context of an introductory physics course. Analysis of LAs’ talk moves and questioning patterns revealed that although LAs did not explain answers to students, they favored asking for evidence or reasoning and funneling; these strategies direct students to particular answers as opposed to encourage collaborative sensemaking.

A. Pak, M. Mangini, C. Green, and T. Sikorski, Talk moves, argumentation, and questioning patterns in LA-supported group problem solving, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Pak.

In quantum mechanics, one is often interested in the expectation value (or average) of different quantities. It is possible to find expectation values for many different physical systems, for example the energy or position of a particle in the infinite square well, the z-component of spin for an electron, or the angular momentum of an electron in a hydrogen atom. In addition to the different physical contexts where the expectation value can be calculated, there are several methods one can use to solve for the expectation value. Depending on the information given in the problem, it might be easiest to solve using an integral, matrix mathematics, or a finite summation. In this work we analyze student responses to expectation value exam questions in several different physical contexts from several institutions, with a goal of determining which calculation methods and representations students choose most frequently and if some methods are more likely to result in correct answers.

G. Passante, H. R. Sadaghiani, S. J. Pollock, and B. P. Schermerhorn, Students' choices when solving expectation value problems, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Passante.

When assessing student work, graders will often find that some students will leave one or more problems blank on assessments. Since there is no work shown, the grader has no means to evaluate the student’s understanding of a particular problem, and thus awards zero points. This practice punishes the student behavior of leaving a problem blank, but this zero is not necessarily an accurate assessment of student understanding of a particular topic. While some might argue that this grading practice is “fair” in that students know that they can’t receive points for answers they don’t submit, we share evidence that different student groups engage in blank-leaving behavior at different rates and are therefore unequally impacted. We analyze 10 years of UC Davis introductory physics course databases to show that different groups of students skip problems and entire exams at different rates. We also share some implications for grading practices.

C. A. Paul, D. J. Webb, M. K. Chessey, and J. Lucas, Pondering zeros: Uncovering hidden inequities within a decade of grades, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Paul.

In order to support equitable science education, it is vital to understand how in/equity arises in a classroom. Because power dynamics are inextricably linked to in/equity, we investigated the way in which student status hierarchies affect in/equity in small student groups. We conducted a mixed methods case study analysis of a small group of rising college freshmen participating in a summer science program for students with traditionally under-represented identities. Our case study covers six sessions of one small group. The analysis shows that overall the established status hierarchy of the group contributed to a pattern of inequitable student interactions. The only significant deviation from this pattern occurred when an instructor intervention disrupted the status hierarchy of the students, which resulted in greater equity for one session. These results suggest that instructor interventions can have a profound impact on student power dynamics and the quality of small group interactions.

L. Payne and P. Hutchison, Intervening in status hierarchies to disrupt inequity, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Payne.

Laboratory courses are key components of most undergraduate physics programs. Lab courses often aim to achieve the following learning outcomes: developing students’ experimental skills, engaging students in authentic scientific practices, reinforcing concepts, and inspiring students’ interest in physics. Some of these outcomes can be measured by the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS), a research-based assessment on students’ views about experimental physics. We used E-CLASS at the University of Colorado Boulder to measure learning outcomes during a course transformation in which views about experimental physics were reflected in the learning goals. We collected over 600 student responses per semester from the large introductory laboratory course, both before and after implementing the course transformation. While we observed no statistically significant difference in overall post-instruction E-CLASS scores before and after the transformation, in the transformed course, student responses to three E-CLASS items that related to the goals of the transformation were more favorable than in the original course.

B. Pollard and H. J. Lewandowski, Transforming a large introductory lab course: impacts on views about experimental physics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Pollard.

Student understanding of quantum mechanics is a topic of increasing interest to physics education researchers. One goal is to investigate differences in performance in various popular instructional paradigms. Towards this end, we have modified an existing, validated, conceptual multiple-choice assessment to include questions explicitly framed in two "contexts": spin states (typically using Dirac notation) and position (spatial wave functions represented in position space.) We discuss the development of new questions, and present preliminary results on student performance on questions which contrast related conceptual ideas. Our data come from "spinsfirst" instructional contexts. This effort serves as an initial validation for the new questions, provides insights into differing responses, and forms a basis for future work to allow instructors to tune assessment questions to best match and inform their own instructional environment choices.

S. J. Pollock, H. R. Sadaghiani, A. Quaal, and G. Passante, Designing, validating, and contrasting conceptual quantum mechanics questions for spin states and spatial wave functions, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Pollock.

In addition to research and classes, physics students may choose to participate in informal physics teaching experiences; however, these programs are understudied as part of the physics student experience. We investigate university educators’ (UEs) negotiation of physics identity after they participate in an informal program for K-12 students as part of the Science Theatre student group at Michigan State University. We hypothesize that that the UEs’ science identity is reshaped by the interactions and experiences they have in these programs, especially an intensive week-long trip to the Upper Peninsula. Pre- and post- interviews were collected with Science Theatre participants who went on the spring break trip. In analyzing this data, we demonstrate the efficacy of using a Community of Practice framework to understand UEs’ experiences as they negotiate their memberships in the outreach and scientific communities.

B. Prefontaine, C. Fracchiolla, M. Vasquez, and K. A. Hinko, Intense Outreach: Experiences Shifting University Students’ Identities, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Prefontaine.

As educational technologies become increasingly important in K-12 physics education, it is important to understand why and how teachers choose to adopt certain technologies. We examined ~ 2000 responses from a survey of high school teachers on how they used PhET interactive simulations (mostly in physics) and what value they felt it provided their students. The analysis helps inform what aspects of an educational technology support or hinder its adoption. First, the teachers valued flexibility. They used simulations in multiple ways for a variety of learning goals, primarily: understanding content, science process, and motivation. Second, they often chose implementations in which students control the simulation. Finally, they noted the value of specific affordances: visualization, seeing and controlling what’s normally not possible, and manipulation.

A. M. Price, K. Perkins, N. G. Holmes, and C. E. Wieman, How and why do high school teachers use PhET interactive simulations?, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Price.

Research on institutional change says that effective change agents are able to flexibly reason with multiple perspectives on change, depending on their local context and their goals. However, little is known about what this flexible reasoning looks like. In this exploratory work, we conducted and analyzed interviews in which faculty discussed departmental change. This work is part of an ongoing study to understand how to support departmental change through Departmental Action Teams (DATs). Our preliminary analyses suggest that faculty have multiple context-dependent ways to reason about change. This work will lead to a better understanding of how productive lines of reasoning can be leveraged in faculty communities that are trying to create change.

G. M. Quan, J. C. Corbo, C. Ngai, D. L. Reinholz, and M. E. Pilgrim, Research on university faculty members’ reasoning about how departments change, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Quan.

While laboratory instruction is a cornerstone of physics education, the impact of student behaviours in labs on retention, persistence in the field, and the formation of students’ physics identity remains an open question. In this study, we performed in-lab observations of student actions over two semesters in two pedagogically different sections of the same introductory physics course. We used a cluster analysis to identify different categories of student behaviour and analyzed how they correlate with lab structure and gender. We find that, in lab structures which fostered collaborative group work and promoted decision making, there was a task division along gender lines with respect to laptop and equipment usage (and found no such divide among students in guided verification labs).

K. N. Quinn, K. L. McGill, M. M. Kelley, E. M. Smith, and N. G. Holmes, Who does what now? How physics lab instruction impacts student behaviors, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Quinn.

Research has shown that students’ responses to conceptual questions correlate with their eye movements. However, to what extent is it possible to predict whether a particular learner might answer a question correctly by monitoring their eye movements in real time? To answer this question, we used spatial-temporal eye-movement data from about 400 participants, as well as their responses to four conceptual physics questions with diagrams. Half of these data were used as a training set for a machine learning algorithm (MLA) that would predict the correctness of students’ responses to these questions. The other half of the data were used as a test set to determine the performance of the MLA in terms of the accuracy of the prediction. We will discuss the results of our study with specific attention to the prediction accuracy of the MLA under different conditions.

N. S. Rebello, M. H. Nguyen, Y. Wang, T. Zu, J. Hutson, and L. C. Loschky, Machine learning predicts responses to conceptual tasks using eye movements, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Rebello.

Models of physical systems are used to explain and predict experimental results and observations. When students encounter discrepancies between the actual and expected behavior of a system, they revise their models to include the newly acquired observations, or change their apparatus to better represent their models. The Modeling Framework for Experimental Physics describes the process of matching measurements and observations to models by making revisions to resolve discrepancies. As part of a larger effort to create assessments of students’ modeling abilities in the context of upper-division electronics courses, we used the Modeling Framework to develop and code think-aloud problem-solving activities centered on troubleshooting an inverting amplifier circuit. We observed that some participants iteratively and continuously made measurements and revisions if they could not immediately propose a cause for an observed discrepancy. This pathway has not been previously discussed in the Modeling Framework. In this paper, we discuss two episodes where students undergo this process to converge on a proposed cause post hoc. We conclude by discussing implications for a modeling assessment based on the observed modeling behavior

L. Ríos, B. Pollard, D. R. Dounas-Frazer, and H. J. Lewandowski, Pathways to proposing causes for unexpected experimental results, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Rios.

In interviews about efforts to create inclusive departmental and instructional practices, physics faculty express a number of different goals for inclusion. These goals include: students feeling welcome or successful, students having access to physics culture and practices, and faculty disrupting existing systems of oppression that permeate physics classroom spaces. Throughout their interviews, faculty name a number of practices that serve each goal. Some of these goals and associated practices focus on the interpersonal and individual, serving to ensure fairness and hospitality, whereas other goals and practices overtly acknowledge the systemic marginalization of women and people of color in physics, framing physics education as an opportunity to disrupt such systems.

A. D. Robertson, W. T. Hairston, and R. E. Scherr, Belonging, Success, Access, and Disruption: Physics Faculty Goals for Inclusive Learning Environments, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Robertson.

This study investigated student difficulties reading equipotential diagrams and the effect a visual change to these diagrams had on students’ ability to interpret these diagrams. Equipotential diagrams are often drawn with a uniform line thickness and color. We modified the equipotential diagrams to use color variation and line thickness to indicate the sign and strength of the potential. These changes, which are consistent with theories of visual attention and grounded cognition, exploit students’ innate ability to perceive color and line thickness variations to communicate the electric potential. Students compared electric potentials between indicated points on given traditional or modified diagrams. Results show that these students, even after instruction, responded with a distance only electric potential rule. In addition, we found that the modified diagrams did not have the predicted positive effect on students’ ability to rank electric potentials; we suspect this is because students’ rule for electric potential did not account for charge sign.

R. Rosenblatt, R. Zich, A. Sammons, and J. Cermak, Investigating introductory student difficulties reading equipotential diagrams, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Rosenblatt.

Learning Assistants (LAs) are peer-educators in undergraduate courses who take a pedagogy seminar concurrently with teaching. In our Learning Assistant pedagogy course, we engaged LAs in roleplaying interactions between a quiet student, an overbearing student, and an LA. Afterwards, the whole class discussed the roleplay activity. Drawing on tools from discourse analysis, we attend to how roleplay actors navigate speech, turns-of-talk, and physical orientation. We show that the LA playing the role of the overbearing student, drawing on his emotionally-charged embodied experience in the roleplay, articulated insights about how the coupling of linguistic, metalinguistic, and emotional qualities in those interactions affected the power dynamics and emotions embedded in interactions.

H. C. Sabo, J. Radoff, A. Elby, A. Gupta, and C. Turpen, Role-playing as a tool for helping LAs sense-make about inequitable team dynamics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Sabo.

As part of ongoing research to better understand how students relate Quantum Mechanics concepts to formalisms, we are studying student understanding of expectation values as well as the variety of mathematical representations they use for formalizing them in two different teaching paradigms. Analyzing students’ written responses to a series of open-ended research questions has given us some insight into students’ common interpretations of this concept, as well as the frequency of the various mathematical formalisms they use to represent expectation values. The results show some common patterns between students in Spin First (SF) and Position First (PF) curricular, as well as some differences.

H. R. Sadaghiani, G. Passante, and S. J. Pollock, Student understanding of quantum mechanical expectation values in two different curricula, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Sadaghiani.

We present a case study featuring a first-year bio-science university student using computation to solve a radioactive decay problem and interpret the results. In a semi-structured cognitive interview, we use this case to examine the process of sensemaking in a computational science context. We observe the student entering the sensemaking process by inspecting and comparing computational outputs. She then makes several attempts to resolve the perceived inconsistency, foregrounding knowledge from different domains. The key to making sense of the model for this student proves to be thinking about how to implement a better model computationally. This demonstrates that integrating computation in physics activities may provide students with opportunities to engage in sensemaking and critical thinking. We finally discuss some implications for instruction.

O. P. Sand, T. O. B. Odden, C. Lindstrøm, and M. D. Caballero, How computation can facilitate sensemaking about physics: A case study, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Sand.

Exams are intended to give faculty information about what students know, and where they need more support. But traditional analyses that get shipped with the exam results received from the university scoring office focus on the exam items, not students’ ideas. Moreover, one of our goals for students is building their cognitive network of physics concepts. With sets of contextually related questions, we can analyze students’ cognitive network as applied to a particular context. We report on the effectiveness of existing tools in identifying patterns in student responses on both individual and group exams.

T. M. Sault, H. G. Close, and S. F. Wolf, Student Cognition in Physics Group Exams, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Sault.

Every person has abilities across a multidimensional spectrum; abilities can vary within a person across these dimensions as well as between people along the same dimensions. This paper introduces a preliminary framework for conceptualizing dimensions of ability which we call ability profiles. Our purpose in developing this framework is not to categorize other people, but rather to support research into existing structures that privilege those with strengths in particular dimensions or create a barrier for those with limitations in certain dimensions. Such an analysis is useful for developing inclusive and accessible curricular materials and practices. Through literature reviews, we have developed a framework that describes large-grain dimensions of ability: physical, visual, hearing, cognitive, health, and emotional-behavioral. This paper will introduce ability profiles and the dimensions of ability, describe the relationship between the framework and specific diagnoses, and demonstrate utility of the framework for the physics classroom.

E. M. Scanlon and J. J. Chini, Ability Profiles: A Framework for Conceptualizing Dimensions of Ability, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Scanlon.

The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) conducted a study of eight diverse thriving physics teacher education programs, defined as programs at large universities that typically graduate five or more physics teachers in a year. The study identified common characteristics of such model programs to support other institutions in emulating them. These characteristics are embodied in a new tool, the Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis (PTEPA) Rubric. This paper documents the development and validation of the PTEPA Rubric as a tool for self-analysis and research. We also document the approach to serve as a potential guide for others who wish to develop evaluative rubrics for complex projects.

R. E. Scherr and S. V. Chasteen, Development and validation of the Physics Teacher Education Program Analysis (PTEPA) Rubric, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Scherr.

Students’ expectations about a class (their ‘frames’) affect how they interpret, approach, and accomplish tasks. However, little is known about students’ framing of lab activities. During the first lab of a sequence designed to teach students about modeling and critical thinking with data, students test a simple model of a pendulum that breaks down with improved measurements. Using in-lab video and follow-up interviews, we identified students’ frequent use of a model-verifying frame that substantially interferes with the instructional goals. We present an analysis of two students who approach the lab with a model-verifying frame and later shift their frames to accommodate goals aligned with instructional intention. As instructors transition labs to open-inquiry experiences, an activity that directly challenges the model-verifying frame may be productive for shifting students to frames that support their engagement in authentic experimentation.

E. M. Smith, M. M. Stein, and N. G. Holmes, Surprise! Shifting students away from model-verifying frames in physics labs, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Smith.

In this work, we attempted to predict student performance on a suite of laboratory assessments using students’ interactions with associated instructional videos. The students’ performance is measured by a graded presentation for each of four laboratory presentations in an introductory mechanics course. Each lab assessment was associated with between one and three videos of instructional content. Using video clickstream data, we define summary features (number of pauses, seeks) and contextual information (fraction of time played, in-semester order). These features serve as inputs to a logistic regression (LR) model that aims to predict student performance on the laboratory assessments. Our findings show that LR models are unable to predict student performance. Adding contextual information did not change the model performance. We compare our findings to findings from other studies and explore caveats to the null-result such as representation of the features, the possibility of underfitting, and the complexity of the assessment.

R. Solli, J. M. Aiken, R. Henderson, and M. D. Caballero, Examining the relationship between student performance and video interactions, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Solli.

Many institutions are changing the focus of their introductory physics labs from verifying physics content towards teaching students about the skills and nature of science. As instruction shifts, so too will the ways students approach and behave in the labs. In this study, we evaluated students’ lab notes from an early activity in an experimentation-focused lab course. We found that about 30% of student groups (out of 107 groups at three institutions) recorded questionable research practices in their lab notes, such as subjective interpretations of results or manipulating equipment and data. The large majority of these practices were associated with confirmatory goals, which we suspect stem from students’ prior exposure to verification labs. We propose ways for experimentation-focused labs to better engage students in the responsible conduct of research and authentic scientific practice.

M. M. Stein, E. M. Smith, and N. G. Holmes, Confirming what we know: Understanding questionable research practices in intro physics labs, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Stein.

Augmented reality (AR) learning scenarios with see-through smartglasses create a wearable education technology providing active access to various additional information without distracting from the physical interaction with reality. We already have introduced such an AR version of a standard physics experiment of introductory lab courses on heat conduction in metals, using real physical data from external sensors for analyzing and displaying thermal phenomena in real-time. Besides a direct feedback, ensuring that students get an immediate impression of the effects of the experimental parameters, this scenario is also able to visualize invisible physical processes, using false-color representations to show the temperature of the apparatus. In a previous study conducted in an introductory STEM laboratory, we were able to show that such an AR learning environment indeed is suitable to foster learners’ conceptual understanding of thermal phenomena. In the current paper we focus on the question how learners can benefit from such a scenario by influencing cognitive load (CL). In a second study we use the cognitive load scale (CLS) to discriminate the different types of learners’ CL. We confirmed the structure of the scale by a factor analysis, finding three factors corresponding to the three types of CL, each with high reliability. Moreover, we were able to show that with our AR scenario extraneous load could significantly be reduced, compared to a non augmented traditional setup.

M. P. Strzys, M. Thees, S. Kapp, and J. Kuhn, Smartglasses in STEM laboratory courses – the augmented thermal flux experiment, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Strzys.

Written communication of scientific ideas is an important skill often honed through report-writing in physics laboratory courses. I present a series of tutorials that I developed to support students in learning to produce well-written and professionally-formatted laboratory reports. The tutorials include typesetting in LATEX (with BibTeX), graphing in MATLAB, preparing diagrams using Inkscape, and writing abstracts, introductions, and conclusions. I evaluated student reports and found no statistical difference in the quality of reports written before or after the tutorials were introduced. Responses on end-of-course questionnaires, however, show that students overwhelmingly favor the tutorials and find them helpful in supporting their learning.

K. Sullivan, Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Sullivan.

The Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) has been utilized to measure learning gains in electricity and magnetism (E&M) physics courses, where “correct” vs “incorrect” responses are typically used for analysis. However, such comparisons do not necessarily identify specific changes in student reasoning from pre- to post-instruction. To address this issue, we have generated network-like graphs for each question: Responses at pre- and post-test are represented by nodes connected by edges representing the change in student response choice. We demonstrate the visualizations using data from CSEM responses from over 2500 students at Cornell University across 12 semesters of an introductory E&M course. We demonstrate a vector analysis method that can categorize response patterns and quantify the way students change their responses. We show the potential use of these methods for both instructors as well as for answering deeper research questions.

R. Tapping, G. Lepage, and N. G. Holmes, Visualizing patterns in CSEM responses to assess student conceptual understanding, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Tapping.

Student use of mathematics in physics is an area of current interest in both PER and the Research in Undergraduate Math Education (RUME) community. In particular, the function concept has been widely studied in RUME but has received less attention in PER. Using a grounded approach, this study probes the ability of introductory physics students to (1) interpret graphical representations of position vs. time functions and their corresponding derivatives and to (2) translate the graphical representation into a meaningful symbolic representation. Data were collected through think-aloud interviews and analyzed using a conceptual blending framework [1]. We created what we believe to be an "ideal expert blend" of math and physics mental spaces against which the student responses were compared. We focus on case studies of two students whose approaches differed and examine how blending influenced responses to a novel graphical representation.

H. Taylor and M. E. Loverude, “So it’s the same equation...”: A blending analysis of student reasoning with functions in kinematics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Taylor.

We present analysis of an exemplary case of rich and extended pedagogical reasoning about energy representations among physics faculty participating in the Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking Faculty Online Learning Community (FOLC). Our analysis is driven by the question, "What drives and sustains this prolonged and substantive pedagogical discussion?" We argue that this discussion was partially sustained through two factors: (1) the substantive confusion (for students and educators) that it generated and (2) the rich coordination of conceptual resources it involved. Some of this rich coordination of conceptual resources seems enabled by the common curriculum used among the educators in this FOLC. We suggest that these factors create opportunities for faculty to deepen their pedagogical content knowledge and critical reflectiveness.

C. Turpen, F. Goldberg, A. Corrales, and E. Price, Confusion and representational practices as factors that sustain rich pedagogical discussions within faculty online learning communities, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Turpen.

Despite improved college accessibility, female students continue to be underrepresented in physics, mathematics, and computer science. More so, the gender gap widens from enrollment to graduation as female students transition out of the majors more frequently than men. While there exist several theoretical frameworks modeling persistence and retention, a common theme amongst them involves the process by which students respond to challenges. Accordingly, this research explores the responses of students to academic performance within their major and overall curriculum. In particular, this study makes use of mathematical models to explore differences in persistence at a large state institution according to academic performance within their major, overall technical curriculum, and non-technical course work. This research represents a contribution over prior works that limited consider to overall GPA when analyzing retention.

A. E. Vela, J. J. Chini, A. Baekey, and J. Walsh, Variations in Patterns of Persistence, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Vela.

Thermodynamic potentials (or free energies) are different energies that can describe the same system using different sets of independent variables. While the flexibility to consider one system in multiple ways is powerful, deciding which variables to treat as independent—and therefore which thermodynamic potential to use—is challenging for students. As part of a larger study investigating student reasoning about independent variables in thermodynamics, we interviewed five thermodynamics experts to learn how they make decisions about independent variables and thermodynamic potentials. This paper outlines the variety of approaches these experts used to determine appropriate independent variables and thermodynamic potentials for given situations.

M. Vignal, R. R. Siegel, P. J. Emigh, and E. Gire, Expert reasoning about independent and dependent variables in thermodynamics, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Vignal.

Despite the significant amount of time undergraduate students spend in introductory physics labs, there is little consensus on instructional goals and accepted diagnostic assessments for these labs. In response to these issues, we have developed the Physics Lab Inventory of Critical thinking (PLIC) to assess students’ proficiency with critical thinking in a physics lab context. Specifically, the PLIC aims to evaluate students’ skills in making sense of data, variability, models, and experimental methods and to assess the effectiveness of lab courses at developing these skills. Here, we discuss two parts of the validation process using 3374 student responses collected from 12 institutions during the 2017-2018 academic year. As a part of our validation process, we evaluate the concurrent validity of the instrument, namely, the impact of physics maturity and lab design on student performance.

C. Walsh, K. N. Quinn, and N. G. Holmes, Assessment of critical thinking in physics labs: concurrent validity, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Walsh.

There has been a push in physics education to incorporate computation into the classroom in a meaningful way; however, there is still much to learn about how combining computational work with traditional laboratory work can support student learning. This scenario is especially relevant to a studio classroom where lecture and lab activities are integrated. For an introductory physics for the life sciences studio course, we have developed an empirical microscope lab to complement a computational activity that models the diffusive motion of particles in solution. The microscope lab was designed for students to develop and test their own hypotheses about microbead solutions experiencing diffusion, while the computational exercise served as a model for visualizing diffusion on the microscopic level. Taking a resource theory perspective, we compare the empirical and computational activities by analyzing student responses to pre-lab, post-lab, and final exam questions. We find that students perceive the two in-class activities as “realistic” or “idealized,” and we present affordances and constraints of studying diffusion by computational and empirical means.

D. P. Weller, K. A. Hinko, and V. Sawtelle, Investigating complementary computational and empirical activities for students learning diffusion, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Weller.

In collegiate engineering curricula in the US, physics and mathematics are treated as foundational with all students taking physics and mathematics in both semesters of freshman year and additional mathematics courses in later semesters. Using academic data from the cohorts of students in introductory physics since 2009, we investigated the correlation between the performance of undergraduate engineering majors in introductory physics and mathematics courses and their performance in subsequent engineering courses. We find an interesting relationship between the best predictors of performance, advanced mathematics courses, and the physics sequence.

K. M. Whitcomb, Z. Y. Kalender, T. J. Nokes-Malach, C. D. Schunn, and C. Singh, How do introductory physics and mathematics courses impact engineering students’ performance in subsequent engineering courses?, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Whitcomb.

Students in studio classes, a student-centered approach to teaching physics, may exhibit resistance to the reformed strategies used in this class format. Instructors of these classes may try to decrease resistance by increasing student agreement with the class format. What should instructors talk about, and how should they hold the conversation to effectively gain student agreement? Based on student interview responses, we report on the student perspective for effective means of gaining agreement. We describe the discussion topics and modes of discussion (e.g. lecture, class discussion) which students consider effective practices for gaining their agreement. First, we find that student agreement with reformed pedagogies at the start of the semester was primarily influenced by their experiences and opinions developed from prior classes and their agreement throughout the semester was primarily influenced by their experiences in their current physics class. When asked what would potentially be an effective strategy to gain student agreement, student and instructor responses suggested an evidence-based class discussion. However, instructors indicated they might not have evidence-based material to reference in this type of conversation.

M. Wilcox and J. J. Chini, Selling the Studio Style to Students: a Qualitative Study, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Wilcox.

In an effort to counter the systemic marginalization of Black students in physics, we consider the role performing arts plays in the positive development of science identity. In this work, building on previous studies of physics and racial identities, and studies that demonstrate the positive role of arts for underrepresented groups in STEM, we collect and analyze interviews of thirteen Black physicists. We identify themes that relate to the ways in which Black physicists participate in the performing arts, and map those themes onto the previously developed Critical Physics Identity (CPI) framework. We find that the performing arts can have positive impacts for Black physicists' identities by serving as a material resource, and can activate ideational resources, which support relational resources or enhance a person's sense of performance/ competence.

T. Williams, S. Hyater-Adams, K. A. Hinko, C. Fracchiolla, K. Nordstrom, and N. D. Finkelstein, The Intersection of Identity and Performing Arts of Black Physicists, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Williams.

It is well known that plane waves in electricity and magnetism (E&M) are misunderstood by students. Particularly, the traditional visual representation of these plane waves is misleading, and students are confused by the waves’ three-dimensionality. A possible improvement has been designed using an animated vector field. Graduate physics students were presented two different visual representations of E&M plane waves. The students were asked to describe what each visual represents in detail. Students’ reactions to those two representations are compared and the content delivered in each visualization is assessed, suggesting that the advantages of the animated vector field may be significant.

M. Wilson and R. J. Beichner, A Comparison of Visual Representations of E&M Plane Waves, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Wilson.

There remains a great deal of research to do on improving the transfer experience for students transitioning from two-year colleges to four-year colleges. In this paper, we describe data collected from interviewing current students at a large Midwestern research university who are members of a cohort program which will be adapted for transfer students to join. This cohort program is designed to give students – intending to major in the natural sciences, and predominantly from underrepresented backgrounds – support in academics, research experiences, and the social experience of integrating into the university. The interview protocol elicited discussion of these students’ self-efficacy to complete their science degrees, navigate the academic requirements, and continue in their chosen life paths, specifically drawing out mastery, vicarious learning, and social persuasion experiences. We will discuss how student experience in the cohort program may support developing self-efficacy in the transfer process.

L. A. H. Wood, A. Little, and V. Sawtelle, Researching experiences in a cohort program to influence transfer self-efficacy, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Wood.

Women in physics continue to be an underrepresented group, in part due to negative stereotypes and adverse environments that result from a masculine perception of physics. To address this, we explore and highlight feminine perspectives of success in physics. We focus on success because the term is often used by researchers to frame academic achievements; however, not much work explores how different people conceptualize success. For this study we conducted semi-structured interviews of women at various stages of education and careers in physics. One interview question specifically elicited a participant-constructed metaphor of success in physics. The interview data was then examined with metaphor analysis for structural metaphors, which gives us insight into the characteristics of success that are salient to the individual. For example, with the metaphor of a caramel apple one participant highlighted the difficulty (through the apple’s tartness) and overall satisfaction of physics (through the caramel’s sweetness).

B. Zamarripa Roman and J. J. Chini, Success is a puzzle: Sorting out the pieces with metaphor analysis, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Zamarripa_Roman.

The conceptual meaning behind the equals sign depends on its use and can show the cultural significance of different practices in solving physics problems. We use Sherin’s symbolic forms to investigate the conceptual and cultural meanings of the equals sign across physics contexts. In this study we build and validate a rubric to classify physics students’ use of the equals sign in written homework as assignment, causality, definitional, balancing, calculate, or hybrid. We then analyze students’ solutions in their written homework in an upper-division electrostatics course and compare them to textbook solutions.

D. Zohrabi Alaee, E. C. Sayre, and S. V. Franklin, Meanings of the equals sign in upper-level undergraduate problem solving, 2018 PERC Proceedings [Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018], edited by A. Traxler, Y. Cao, and S. Wolf, doi:10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Zohrabi_Alaee.