This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Exploratorium, the self-described “museum of science, art and human perception,” in San Francisco, California and the 10th anniversary of the launching of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places and Pursuits. The moment offered me an opportunity to reflect on my own professional journey, which began at the Exploratorium, coincided with a growth spurt of field knowledge-building and has included experiences that inform how I think about the potential and challenges ahead.

J. Bell, Informal STEM education: From personal to professional, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.plenary.Bell.

Informal learning offers opportunities for physics – opportunities that I hope the physics education research (PER) community can co-define and engage with. This commentary piece is a personal reflection on this topic. It reflects, and builds on, my Physics Education Research Conference (PERC) 2019 presentation. Grounded in my personal experiences with informal physics education, my PERC presentation asked those present to collectively consider the values, practices, and people they associate with successful informal learning. Attendee comments are presented and discussed in ways that I hope the PER community will identify with and respond to. They suggest myriad opportunities that informal learning offers physics – opportunity to i) engage diverse groups of people in doing physics; ii) for physicists as a community; iii) to advance the field.

S. Bergin, Reflections on informal physics education, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.plenary.Bergin.

In order to investigate student ability to use — and communicate — correct and complete reasoning, we examine written explanations from students in introductory university physics courses who have been prompted to answer a conceptual physics question and to “explain.” Rather than focusing on context-specific reasoning difficulties, we examine the variation in what, to students, may constitute satisfying explanations, paying attention to what is present beyond what might score points on an instructor’s rubric. We present six different types of explanations with examples that illustrate the breadth of student responses. This broad view of student explanations has the potential to guide instruction aimed at the development of student explanation and argumentation skills in ways that leverage and are responsive to how students initially explain their reasoning.

A. T. Alesandrini and P. R. L. Heron, Types of explanations students use to explain answers to conceptual physics questions, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Alesandrini.

Ethnic and Racial Minorities (ERM) and women are underrepresented in classrooms and the field of physics. We can work to address this disparity by empowering students to change the physics culture within their own spheres of influence. Students in introductory, calculus-based physics classes from both two and four-year institutions participated in lessons from the Underrepresentation Curriculum, a freely available curriculum designed to bring social justice conversations to the classroom. Post unit, students brainstormed ideas about how to raise awareness of, and ultimately remove this inequity. We coded students’ responses grouping analogous key words and phrases. Our analysis showed that students from both institutions generated similar sets of propositions. Their responses included having intentional conversations about equity issues and actively learning about their own biases. By following students’ suggestions, we can create a more inclusive and diverse physics community.

A. Arielle-Evans, K. S. Bretl, A. Ross, and A. R. Daane, Introductory physics students’ insights for improving physics culture, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Arielle.

There are currently few education research footholds to help instructors build on the strengths and interests of physical science majors when teaching astronomy courses. In this paper, we describe what we learned from interviews with members of the Astronomy Club at Texas State University. We conducted and analyzed interviews with eight students that focused on their interest in astronomy and participation in astronomy-related activities at Texas State. We focus on Club activities and how students benefit from their participation in those activities to identify what is culturally relevant to our student body. We find that students experience enjoyment, feel a sense of community, and develop professional skills through their participation in the Astronomy Club. We describe how this work was motivated by and ties in to a larger pedagogical framework of culturally relevant instruction, and consider how these results can inform the design of astrophysics courses.

D. F. Barringer, A. R. Olmstead, and A. Maldonado, Benefits of a student-led astronomy club: lessons to inform instructional design, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Barringer.

In this paper, we report the preliminary results of an investigation into introductory physics students' conceptual resources for understanding the principle of superposition. We analyzed 368 written responses to a conceptual question that asked students about situations for which the principle of superposition is useful/relevant. We identified four recurring resources related to superposition: (1) localization; (2) independence; (3) quantifiability; and (4) additiveness. Our objective is to support educators by drawing attention to these resources and by suggesting how they can be taken up alongside students to enhance instruction.

L. C. Bauman, L. M. Goodhew, and A. D. Robertson, Students’ use of conceptual resources for understanding superposition, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Bauman.

Helping more university students, especially under-represented minorities, complete STEM degrees and enter the STEM workforce has proven to be difficult. Those most at risk benefit least from innovations addressing only pedagogy or curriculum. Research suggests that we must influence students’ self-efficacy: their belief that they can overcome setbacks and ultimately succeed. We present the results of a four-year NSF-funded project to develop and test a brief, scalable classroom intervention for improving students’ STEM self-efficacy by teaching growth mindset and success attribution. We developed and validated a questionnaire to measure STEM self-efficacy, growth mindset, and perceived academic control. Using a quasi-experimental design with a control treatment, at three universities with very different student demographics (total N = 853), HLM analysis shows that our intervention significantly increases students’ growth mindset but not their self-efficacy or perceived academic control.

I. D. Beatty, S. J. Sedberry, W. J. Gerace, J. E. Strickhouser, M. A. Elobeid, and M. J. Kane, Improving STEM self-efficacy with a scalable classroom intervention targeting growth mindset and success attribution, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Beatty.

Public engagement is an important component of the operation of many physics organizations, such as physics departments. However, unlike in formal education settings, relatively little research has been done on pedagogical approaches in informal physics education; commensurately little research has been done on the methods and means of training the facilitators who engage in that pedagogy. Following up on a previous study that characterized modes of pedagogy in informal physics educators, we present here preliminary results from a detailed study on the ways in which volunteers in a physics outreach program at the University of Colorado understand and operationalize these pedagogical modes, and the ways in which our volunteer training methods promote or inhibit volunteers’ efficient uptake and utilization of these teaching tools. We find that volunteers’ conceptions of these pedagogical modes tends not to persist robustly from their preparation at the start of program participation, and that other factors, such as practiced pedagogical behaviors gleaned from formal learning environments, may play a large role in UEs’ enacted pedagogies in PISEC. From these findings, we begin to form the basis for changes to the ways in which we support and prepare our volunteers, with implications for informal programs at large.

M. B. Bennett, B. L. Fiedler, and N. D. Finkelstein, What factors influence pedagogical methods in informal learning spaces?, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Bennett.

In response to the growing emphasis on computational thinking in recent multi-state education standards, as well as the ever-changing applicability of computation in both educational and professional realms, we are developing a survey which evaluates the attitudes of students exposed to computational learning activities in their high school physics classrooms. We administered a pilot questionnaire in classrooms with computation integrated into their physics curricula and conducted a thematic analysis on student responses. Several expected themes (identified previously from teacher interviews) and emergent themes (emerging from open-ended responses to the survey) arose in our analysis. This work focuses on three main themes: the applicability of physics ideas in coding, computational thinking practices, and the usefulness of computation. We provide an in-depth discussion of response variation and its impact on future survey development. This work lays the foundation for the development of a robust and validated survey that assesses students’ opinions, expectations, and attitudes towards learning computation in their science classes.

T. E. Bott, D. P. Weller, M. D. Caballero, and P. W. Irving, Student-identified themes around computation in high school physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Bott.

This paper analyzes two examples of whiteboard meetings from a college calculus-based introductory physics course taught using University Modeling Instruction. In this pedagogy, students work in small groups to create a solution to the same problem on 2' × 3' whiteboards. They then sit in a large circle with their whiteboards held facing in and conduct a student-led whole-class discussion (“board” meeting) to reach a consensus. One example is given of a conversation where students overcame sharp disagreements to eventually reach whole-class consensus and another example is given where they did not. We examine how social positioning contributed to students either successfully examining and resolving different ideas or failing to do so. Initial results from two different “board” meetings tentatively support the idea that meetings where “experts” soften their position by “hedging” more frequently are better able to overcome sharp initial disagreements to reach consensus on their own. Our analysis suggests that the way students position themselves in discussions may open or close the collaborative space to productive sense-making.

D. T. Brookes, B. E. Hinrichs, and J. L. Nass, Social positioning correlates with consensus building in two contentious large-group meetings, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Brookes.

Electricity and Magnetism Projects and Practices in Physics (EMP-Cubed), a section of introductory, calculus based physics, is designed around problem based learning. Students spend each class working in groups on a single complex physics problem. Some of these problems are computational in nature—students start with code from a visual computer program that runs without accurately accounting for the physics, and they spend the class period applying the physics concepts correctly in the program. Here we present an interview study that investigates the relationship between students’ prior computational experiences and their experience with computational activities in EMP-Cubed. This investigation demonstrates the ways by which prior coding experience can impact how students make sense of computation within physics.

J. N. Bumler, P. C. Hamerski, M. D. Caballero, and P. W. Irving, How do previous coding experiences influence undergraduate physics students?, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Bumler.

Science and engineering (S & E) programs frequently claim that they teach undergraduate students how to be good problem solvers. However, there has been little research to-date that demonstrates this, in no small part due to the fact that measuring problem-solving is quite difficult. Our recent work characterized experts’ problem-solving as carrying out a series of several dozen decisions made in solving novel problems; these decisions are remarkably consistent across S & E disciplines. Based on this, we developed a template for an assessment that measures students’ problem-solving skills by posing questions that require them to make a subset of these expert decisions in suitable contexts. Preliminary results show that the assessment captures a wide range of problem-solving skills among students, and exposes key weaknesses in problem-solving. Most importantly, the data show that students’ predictive frameworks—their mental models of a system’s key features and the relationships between them-are less robust than experts’, limiting students’ ability to make predictions and explain observations while problem-solving. We provide detailed results from a pilot-test of this assessment in the context of chemical engineering design, which applies many concepts from physics. These results point to a general deficiency in undergraduate S & E programs: students are not being given the opportunity to practice expert decision-making, and thus do not develop robust predictive frameworks by the end of their undergraduate programs.

E. Burkholder, A. M. Price, M. Flynn, and C. E. Wieman, Assessing problem-solving in science and engineering programs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Burkholder.

In electricity and magnetism (E&M) courses, students have difficulties understanding the concept of electric field. Because of its abstract nature, students can only understand the concept of electric field through the use of representations, such as the algebraic notation, the vector field representation and electric field lines diagrams. We aim to analyze how students understand the concept of electric field when converting from electric field lines diagrams to the vector field plot and to the algebraic notation. We conducted a study with 64 introductory engineering physics students after their E&M course. Students answered a question shown with an electric field lines diagram and were asked to convert to either the vector field plot or the algebraic notation. We analyzed students’ answers based on how they recognize the magnitude and direction of the field in the diagram and convert to the desired representations. The results suggest that most students have difficulties interpreting the electric field lines diagram.

E. Campos, G. Zavala, K. Zuza, and J. Guisasola, Students’ conversion from electric field line diagrams to other representations, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Campos.

In this project we investigate a phenomenon that we name emergent explicit group regulation (EER). In our video data, college freshmen are engaged in small group scientific activities promoting metacognition. Three activities of different types (reading discussion, hands-on model building, and outdoor experimentation) were analyzed qualitatively to identify and characterize EER. We developed a framework of EER to analyze the whole data set of activities, looking for patterns in student group regulation. We found instances of EER involving a context that regulation is “needed”, an emergent student regulator, discourse and action of regulation, and effects on learning, such as understanding a topic, making progress on the project, or getting more accurate measurement. Implication for instruction will be generated to better facilitate student metacognition in small group activities.

Y. Cao, A. Mari, P. A. Ouimet, A. N. Thompson, and J. R. Sermon, Emergent explicit group regulation in small group scientific activities, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Cao.

We report on our investigation of a retrospective pre-test to measure faculty attitude change towards the use of active learning after the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop (NFW). The purpose of the study is to explore alternative methods of evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions aimed at attitude change. In the current study, we focus on faculty attitudes that would support change in teaching practice. Using traditional pre/post surveys, we find that only knowledge of and skill using active learning are substantively increased by the workshop. We administered a retrospective pre-test, where participants retrospectively rate their pre-workshop attitudes on the post-workshop survey. The rationale for this approach is that participants do not start with a common understanding of what “active learning” entails, and the workshop provides a normalizing experience so participants shift their understanding of active learning (termed response shift bias) as well as potentially generating gains in positive attitudes towards active learning. Using the retrospective pre-test, we see attitudinal gains for most items, but pre-test and retrospective pre-test results are poorly and inconsistently correlated. Preliminary interviews are suggestive of response shift bias, but only for some items. We can conclude that the validity of pre-workshop attitude ratings is questionable, but because of a conflation of response shift bias with other reporting biases (such as social desirability) and respondent characteristics, further research is needed to indicate whether retrospective pre-testing is an improved approach.

S. V. Chasteen and R. Chattergoon, A comparison study of pre/post-test and retrospective pre-test for measuring faculty attitude change, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Chasteen.

An earlier study using sequences of online learning modules found that a significant fraction of undergraduate students were unable to solve similar new problems after learning from an online problem solving tutorial. The current study examines the effectiveness of two methods to improve students’ subsequent problem solving performance. First, an “on-ramp” module designed to help students develop proficiency in relevant basic skills was added prior to the tutorial. We found that students’ performance on subsequent modules improved significantly over the previous year, and in one of the two sequences we found evidence to support that the improvement was due to the addition of the on-ramp module rather than other irrelevant factors. Second, a new “transfer” module was added after the tutorial and before the final quiz module in which half of the students were given a compare-contrast task and the other half were asked to answer tutorial-style scaffolding questions. On the subsequent quiz module, we did not find significant performance differences between the two conditions, nor did students’ performance significantly improve over the previous year. The study demonstrated that mastery-style online homework can serve as an efficient and flexible method for evaluating the effectiveness of new instructional designs.

Z. Chen, K. M. Whitcomb, M. W. Guthrie, and C. Singh, Evaluating the effectiveness of two methods to improve students' problem solving performance after studying an online tutorial, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Chen.

To understand how physics faculty design and teach their Introductory Physics for Life Sciences (IPLS) courses, we analyzed interviews with faculty to learn about their ideas about their students. We focused specifically on the narratives faculty use to reason about their students as future professionals and how that related to their learning goals for such courses. We found that faculty reason about their students’ needs when describing curricular design decisions in a range of ways, including with a strong sense of personal responsibility towards students’ preparation, justification about what students have an interest in or will need in the future, and imagined relations between the faculty’s self and professionals in the students’ field of study. To better support physics faculty in teaching interdisciplinary physics courses, we aim to help faculty become more aware of their stances toward their students. This analysis suggests ways of broadening the narratives that faculty use to understand their life science students.

M. K. Chessey, A. M. Madsen, and C. Turpen, Instructors’ justifications regarding curricular design: Assumptions about life sciences students and their role in physics courses, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Chessey.

Many factors enter into the decision to teach high school physics: scholarships and salary, working conditions and hours, professional preparation and support, job satisfaction, etc. Another element is how teaching might contribute to one’s sense of meaning and purpose in life. To investigate the dynamic interplay between the path of teaching and the human spirit, I developed the "Journeys" interview protocol, which adapts archetypal forms from the hero’s journey (Campbell, 1949) to the journey of earning a degree in physics and pursuing teacher certification; I used this protocol as a basis for discussion with four future physics teachers who are Noyce Scholars at Texas State University. This paper describes the development and content of the protocol and some of the initial results from interviews.

H. G. Close, Meaning and purpose in the pursuit of physics teaching careers, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Close.

Active learning is broadly shown to improve student outcomes as compared with traditional lecture, but more work must be done to distinguish outcomes between different types of active learning. We collected self-reported student social network data at early and late-semester times in a Peer Instruction classroom. The subsequent networks are modeled using exponential random graph models (ERGMs), which are a family of statistical models used with relational data, like social networks. We discuss preliminary findings using this method for a Peer Instruction class. The best-fit ERGM predicts long “chains” of student edges, such as might arise from students talking along rows in the lecture hall. ERGMs appear to be a promising method for quantifying network topology in active learning classrooms.

K. Commeford, E. Brewe, and A. L. Traxler, Characterizing active learning environments in physics: network analysis of Peer Instruction classroom using ERGMs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Commeford.

As a part of a larger study of Writing-to-learn (WTL) in introductory physics, we present the effects of the peer review process on student understanding of energy systems. This study looks at student writing from two consecutive semesters, Fall 2018 with 670 students, and Winter 2019 with 603 students. In one of our three WTL activities, students were asked to list the entities that would be included in the energy system of a pumped water storage facility. In our analysis, we looked at both the peer feedback that a student received and the peer work which they read. From the Fall 2018 results, we have found that the students revise their energy systems more often after receiving a peer review comment advising a change to the energy system. We have further found that the written feedback students receive from members of the instructional team directly correlates with how students revise their energy system. However, the analysis of our Winter 2019 data does not support these same conclusions. Our results present the complex, but significant, role that a peer review process plays in building students’ understanding of energy systems.

R. P. Dalka and T. McKay, Investigating the mechanisms of peer review, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Dalka.

We investigated student perceptions of cold calling on their feelings of anxiousness and how graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) alleviated these feelings when students shared their ideas publicly in the context of tutorial and laboratory sessions. Physics and chemistry GTAs who led active-learning tutorials and labs practiced cold calling paired with error framing with avatar-students in a mixed-reality simulator at the beginning of the semester. Then, we observed the GTAs teaching real students in their actual classroom. We recruited eleven students from sections led by GTAs who were observed to use cold calling in their classroom to participate in semi-structured interviews. Several students reported that cold calling increased their feelings of anxiousness. However, students also reported that GTAs used strategies paired with cold calling that reduced their feelings of anxiousness, such as acknowledging student responses as valuable and remembering student names. We discuss implications for professional development on active learning strategies.

C. M. Doty, A. A. Geraets, T. Wan, E. K. H. Saitta, and J. J. Chini, Student perspective of GTA strategies to reduce feelings of anxiousness with cold-calling, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Doty.

At large research universities in the USA, introductory physics labs are often run by graduate student teaching assistants (TAs). Thus, efforts to reform introductory labs should address the need for effective and relevant TA professional development. We developed and implemented a research-based professional development program that focuses on preparing TAs to effectively support inquiry-based learning in the lab. We identify positive effects by examining three possible ways in which the professional development might have impacted TAs and their work. First, we examine lab TAs’ written reflections to understand the effect of the program on TAs’ ways of thinking about student learning. Second, we observe and categorize TA-student interactions in the lab in order to investigate whether TA behaviors are changing after the professional development. Third, we examine students’ attitudes toward experimental science and present one example case in which students’ attitudes improve for those TAs who ‘buy in’ to the professional development. Our results suggest lab TA professional development may have a tangible positive impact on TA performance and student learning.

D. Doucette, R. Clark, and C. Singh, All aboard! Challenges and successes in professional development for physics lab TAs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Doucette.

In many upper-division lab courses, instructors implement multiweek student-led projects. During such projects, students may design and carry out experiments, collect and analyze data, document and report their findings, and collaborate closely with peers and mentors. To better understand cognitive, social, and affective aspects of projects, we conducted an exploratory investigation of student ownership of projects. Ownership is a complex construct that refers to, e.g., students’ willingness and ability to make strategic decisions about their project. Using data collected through surveys and interviews with students and instructors at five institutions, we developed a preliminary model for student ownership of projects. Our model describes ownership as a relationship between student and project. This relationship is characterized by student interactions with the project during three phases: choice of topic, execution of experiment, and synthesis of results. Herein, we explicate our model and demonstrate that it maps well onto students’ and instructors’ conceptions of ownership and ideas presented in prior literature.

D. R. Dounas-Frazer, L. Ríos, and H. J. Lewandowski, Preliminary model for student ownership of projects, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Dounas-Frazer.

In University Modeling Instruction, small groups work on a problem and then hold a student-led wholeclass discussion (“board” meeting) to develop consensus. In practice, some students regularly contribute more to these discussions than others, and end of course evaluations indicate not all students value them. To better understand those two phenomena, we had students in a university modeling classroom write about their experience after a particularly contentious board meeting. Because this highly participationist pedagogy requires students to be social while learning, we modeled the UMI classroom using Wegner’s “Communities of Practice”. In particular, to analyze student responses, we developed a preliminary code based on Wegner’s social ecologies of identity framework describing student identities of participation and non-participation situated in the context of different modes of belonging within a community of practice. Student responses were sorted into three broad categories based on their descriptions of their experience during the board meeting. We developed our preliminary code by analyzing one student response from each of the three different categories. Initial coding of these three students’ responses reveals a rich description of their different experiences during a contentious board meeting in the UMI classroom. Our intention is to continue coding the remaining student responses to further develop a robust description of this particular contentious board meeting. In building this descriptive model of student participation, we seek to develop a predictive model to inform professional development for instructors who teach with this pedagogy.

J. L. Durden and B. E. Hinrichs, Do I belong here?: Describing identities of participation and non-participation in a contentious "board" meeting, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Durden.

Understanding how quantities in multivariable relationships covary is crucial for studying thermodynamics. To study how students reason about multivariable covariation, we asked junior-level physics majors to consider an ideal gas and the corresponding contour graph of temperature vs. volume and pressure. We asked these students to identify how the temperature changes (a) when the volume changes and (b) when the pressure changes, without specifying how the other variable changes. We found that students used three kinds of reasoning: (1) referencing the features of the provided graph, (2) using physical knowledge about the gas, and (3) specifying a change in the third variable. Almost all students, regardless of the type of reasoning they used, answered that the temperature could only change in one way. These results suggest that instruction focusing on the different ways thermodynamic variables can change together might help students develop more sophisticated covariational reasoning skills.

P. J. Emigh, R. R. Siegel, J. W. Alfson, and E. Gire, Student reasoning about multivariable covariation in thermodynamics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Emigh.

Informal physics environments present opportunities for youth to voluntarily engage with physics in a collaborative space. However, individual children’s educational backgrounds, expectations, and motivations impact their engagement with the group learning activities and educational tools in informal physics learning. We initiate an investigation into the variables of agency, support, and technology that contribute to children’s dynamic epistemic framing of a virtually simulated learning environment within an afterschool physics environment. Specifically, we consider the use of PhET interactive simulations in the PISEC afterschool physics program by middle-school students and their college-aged mentors. We analyzed video of a group of three learners and their mentor as they use a simulation and transition into a physical experiment based on the simulation. We analyzed each individual’s actions and vocalizations to identify their framing using a two-dimensional framing axis. Further, we determined when these frames appeared to be aligned or misaligned between group members during the activity, transitions between alignment and misalignment, and investigated what malleable factors (e.g. technology use, mentor pedagogy, program structures) are contributing to these shifts in alignment. Initial analysis shows malleable factors such as UE pedagogy and environment affordances (e.g. technology, spatial orientation), as well as their intersection with non-malleable factors (e.g. youth social motivations) for future investigation.

B. L. Fiedler, M. B. Bennett, N. E. Johnson, and E. B. Moore, Coordinating epistemic frames in informal physics: Agency, support, and technology, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Fiedler.

This study investigates patterns in students’ learning and problem-solving behavior as they proceed through a sequence of 10 mastery-based online learning modules and how these patterns correlate with overall course outcome. Students' interaction with each module, as measured by analyzing the platform log data, was categorized into nine different states. The student population was divided into top, middle and bottom cohorts based on their total course credit, and we visualized each cohort’s distribution among the nine states over the 10 modules using a series of parallel coordinates graphs. We found that the patterns of interaction were mostly similar on the first six modules, but are significantly different on modules 7-10. For the later modules, the top cohort mostly concentrated on the state corresponding to high problem-solving effort after learning, while the majority of the bottom cohort did not access the learning materials after multiple failed attempts.

G. Garrido, M. W. Guthrie, and Z. Chen, How is students' online learning behavior related to their course outcomes in an introductory physics course?, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Garrido.

For both instructors and researchers there is interest in student “sense making” and specifically on mathematical sense making. Here, we introduce a framework that distinguishes between the object of the sense making (mathematical or physical) and the tool used for sense making (formal mathematics or conceptual physics), thus foregrounding focus and mechanism in student problem solving. We situate this framework in both a general discussion of sense making and of mathematical sense making in particular, and then apply it to data from a focus group. This analysis highlights a particular mode of sense making, where a conceptual understanding of a physical system is used as a tool to understand a mathematical object. While we begin to demonstrate its utility in describing the individual moves that students make, as well as the coordination and sequencing of these moves, when engaged in a larger mathematical sense making activity, we anticipate that the framework will also provide a guide for the design and development of curricula that support these sense making moves.

J. D. Gifford and N. D. Finkelstein, Categorizing mathematical sense making and an example of how physics understanding can support mathematical understanding, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Gifford.

Different physics problem types, i.e., the same physics scenario posed as a problem in different ways, can emphasize different learning goals for students and can be used in diverse situations to meet various instructional goals. We examined graduate teaching assistants’ (TAs’) views about broken-into-parts introductory physics problems within the context of a semester-long TA professional development course. The TAs were asked to list the broken-into-parts problem type pros and cons of, rate its instructional benefit and the level of challenge it might produce for their students, and describe when and how often they would use such problems if they had complete control of teaching a class. We find that TAs reported the broken-into-parts problem type to be the most instructionally beneficial of all the problem types and would use a broken-into-parts problem type often and in a variety of ways (e.g., homework assignments, exams, and quizzes). Written explanations and interviews suggest they preferred to use a broken-into-parts problem type more often because of the guidance such problems offer. While providing guidance to students is an appropriate instructional approach, our findings from interviews suggest many TAs may be motivated to assign broken-into-parts problems out of a desire to make the problem-solving process easy and/or less stressful for students, especially because they felt introductory students may not be capable of breaking a problem into sub-problems on their own. The instructional benefits of gradually removing the scaffolding support to help students develop self-reliance in solving problems appeared to be overlooked by most TAs. This lack of awareness or reflection on the important role that removing scaffolding support gradually and providing adequate challenge can play in helping introductory students develop self-reliance and become independent, expert-like problem-solvers has implications for the professional development of TAs.

M. Good, E. Marshman, C. Singh, and E. Yerushalmi, Strong preference among graduate student teaching assistants for problems that are broken into parts for their students overshadows development of self-reliance in problem-solving, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Good.

In this paper, we refine and substantiate an initial observation that different styles of conceptual physics questions (i.e., questions that ask students to explain a phenomenon versus questions that ask students to predict an outcome and explain their reasoning) elicit different kinds of conceptual resources in students’ responses. We analyze the responses that students from three universities gave to written questions about reflection of mechanical pulses. Some responses draw on rules, principles, or procedures; other responses use ideas about force, energy, and motion to reason about wave phenomena. In this preliminary study, we investigate the frequency of each kind of response. We find that a question which asks students to predict the outcome of an experiment regarding mechanical wave reflection more commonly elicits ideas about rules, principles, and procedures, while a question that describes the outcome of a wave propagation experiment and asks students to explain the phenomenon more commonly elicits ideas about forces, energy, and motion.

L. M. Goodhew, A. D. Robertson, P. R. L. Heron, and R. E. Scherr, Students' context-sensitive use of two kinds of conceptual resources for mechanical wave reflection, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Goodhew.

We compared students’ learning behavior when completing identical online calculus-based physics homework assignments organized in two ways. One was designed for mastery learning where content is divided into smaller units, and students are required to attempt the assessment once before accessing the content. Students can proceed to the next unit after passing the assessment either before or after studying the content. The second is a conventional design in which students first study a set of instructional materials equivalent to several mastery units then complete multiple assessment problems at once. Our major findings are: 1. in the mastery condition, students solved more problems correctly either immediately after studying the instructional content, or on attempts before accessing the instructional content; 2. for students who solved similar numbers of problems correctly, the mastery condition students spent significantly less time studying compared to the traditional condition students; and 3. students who did not pass mastery units on their initial assessment attempts spent similar amounts of time studying as traditional condition students.

M. W. Guthrie and Z. Chen, Comparing student behavior in mastery and conventional style online physics homework, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Guthrie.

Special relativity is both exciting and challenging in that it requires developing new intuitions about relativistic situations. How can we help students make sense of special relativity when their intuitions are classical? This paper will discuss student sensemaking about special relativity in a sophomore-level course designed to explicitly teach and support physics sensemaking. The course particularly emphasizes two sensemaking strategies: visualization with spacetime diagrams and the development of rules of thumb. Rules of thumb, like “proper time is the shortest time,” serve as footholds when solving problems in special relativity. Specifically, we present an analysis of students’ use of rules of thumb in their written solutions to homework problems. We found that students draw upon time rules, length rules, and relativity rules to solve the Twin Paradox. We also discuss how rules of thumb fit with other theoretical constructs.

K. T. Hahn, P. J. Emigh, and E. Gire, Sensemaking in special relativity: developing new intuitions, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Hahn.

MOXI is an interactive science center focused on physics topics such as forces, energy, sound, light, and magnetism. MOXI’s exhibits and education program are informed by Physics Education Research (PER) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). As a result, MOXI is an outstanding laboratory for research on how people learn physics through interactive experiences and how best to support this learning. However, conducting research in public spaces with diverse audiences differs from classroom based research. These differences provide both opportunities and challenges. Effective research and program design requires multiple types of expertise including content, research design, and informal environments. In MOXI’s first two years of operation, we have conducted research across a wide variety of participants and topics through a research-practice partnership (RPP) model. This paper focuses on establishing RPPs and methodological considerations when conducting research in informal science education settings such as interactive science centers.

D. B. Harlow and R. K. Skinner, Museum-based physics education research through research-practice partnerships (RPPs), 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Harlow.

Prior research indicates that one barrier to pursuing a STEM degree is lack of alignment between perceptions of a STEM career and personal goals. The Careers in Physics lesson developed for the STEP UP project directly addresses this. In the lesson, students explore the profiles of modern day physicists and the many career options available to physics majors. Students then connect physics to their own career aspirations. In this study, students’ career goals are analyzed under the framework of agentic and communal goals. Data collected include student open-ended survey responses, survey items, and student work such as a career profile in which students envision themselves achieving their career goals with a physics degree. We found evidence that this lesson effectively communicates that a career in physics can fulfill intrinsic agentic and communal goals, goals which are more strongly endorsed by female students.

T. B. Head, R. M. Lock, R. Khatri, Z. Hazari, and G. Potvin, Student response to a careers in physics lesson, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Head.

The Michigan State University Physics & Astronomy Department has recently transformed its algebra-based, introductory physics laboratory curriculum. This transformed, two-course sequence, Design, Analysis, Tools, and Apprenticeship (DATA) Lab, emphasizes the development of experimental skills and laboratory practices and provides students with an authentic physics laboratory experience. Here, we will discuss the overall impact of the transformation on how students perceive experimental physics through the two course sequence: mechanics (Lab I) and electricity, magnetism and optics (Lab II). In both courses, data were collected pre- and post-instruction via the Colorado Learning Attitudes and Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS); the results will be presented at the course-level and longitudinally. In both courses, the DATA Lab transformation had a positive impact on overall E-CLASS scores. Students in the traditional-to-traditional course sequence demonstrated an overall decline in their overall views about experimental physics. Students enrolled in the transformed-to-transformed course sequence showed an initial increase in their E-CLASS scores and they remained stable throughout the second half of the course sequence. Students in the traditional-to-transformed sequence experienced a significant increase in their E-CLASS scores; however, it only occurred during the second half of the two-course sequence.

R. Henderson, K. Funkhouser, and M. D. Caballero, A longitudinal exploration of students’ beliefs about experimental physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Henderson.

The literature in student problem-solving abilities in PER has pointed out that novices tend to focus on the surface features of a problem, instead of the underlying principles. In Electricity and Magnetism (E&M) courses, students can confuse the concepts of electric and magnetic fields, which are often represented in problems with similar surface features. It is important to compare the students’ performance on these type of problems to evaluate their understanding of these topics. With this aim, we conducted a study to explore students’ performance in E&M open-ended problems presented with similar surface features. We applied two versions of a questionnaire, one with electricity and one with magnetism problems, to 322 introductory E&M students. In this study, we present some results focusing on a comparison between students’ understanding of electric and magnetic fields in questions regarding electric charges in uniform fields, both at rest and in motion.

E. Hernandez, E. Campos, P. Barniol, and G. Zavala, The effect of similar surface features on students’ understanding of the interaction of charges with electric and magnetic fields, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Hernandez.

This study examines the correlation of physics conceptual inventory pretest scores with post-instruction achievement measures (post-test scores, test averages, and course grades). The correlation for demographic groups in the minority in the physics classes studied (women, underrepresented racial/enthic students, first generation college students, and rural students) were compared with their majority peers. Three conceptual inventories were examined: the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) (N = 2450), the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) (N = 2373) and the CSEM (N1 = 1796, N2 = 2537). While many of the correlations were similar, for some of the demographic groups, the correlations were substantially different. There was little consistency in the differences measured. In most cases where the correlations differed, the correlation for the group in the minority was the smaller. As such, pretest scores may not predict course performance for some minority demographic groups as accurately as they predict outcomes for majority students. The pattern of correlation differences did not appear to be related to the size of the pretest score. If pretest scores are used for instructional decisions that have academic consequences, instructors should be aware of these potential inaccuracies and ensure the pretest used is equally valid for all students.

D. S. Hewagallage, J. Stewart, and R. Henderson, Differences in the predictive power of pretest scores of students underrepresented in physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Hewagallage.

To facilitate both learning about forces and coordinating forces with the system schema, force symbols in University Modeling Instruction carefully represent forces as detailed descriptions of interactions. For example, ^→F^g_E→B represents the gravitational force by Earth on a ball, where “g” represents gravitational (i.e. the type of interaction), “E” represents Earth, → represents “by” and “on”, and “B” represents ball. Although students are taught to say ^→F^g_E→B as “gravitational force”, audio data from student-led whole-class discussions shows over 40% percent of the time ^→F^g_E→B was referred to as “force gravity” instead. Symbols for contact force, such as ^→F^c_H→B, were similarly referred to as “force contact” rather than “contact force” over 40% of the time. Because language plays a crucial role in learning physics, several years ago, as an experiment, the notation was changed from ^→F^g_E→B to ^g  →F_E→B to make it more closely match how it is to be read. After this notation switch, student use of “force gravity” dropped to less than 2%, while use of “force contact” completely disappeared. While we make no claims that helping students read symbols more effectively facilitates their learning about forces, it is clear that the simple change in notation was extremely effective at solving the reading problem.

B. E. Hinrichs and D. M. Swanson, Changing the notation that represents a force changes how students say it, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Hinrichs.

As part of a larger study of how problem-solving, communication, and teamwork are integrated into STEM education, we examined how industrial work experience impacts faculty teaching practices around those same competencies. We conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 92 educators in four broad fields, including energy, healthcare, computing, and advanced manufacturing. Educators’ industrial experience ranged from no prior experience to a decade or more of industrial experience, which largely depends on STEM field. This paper will report findings from preliminary analysis with six educator interviews in energy and advanced manufacturing. Industry work experience greatly influenced educators’ perceptions of the competencies as well as teaching strategies. Instructors with rich industry experience often include more descriptive examples of industrial applications when defining those skills, use industrial-specific tasks to inspire the design of classroom activities, and utilize their industry work experience to help formulate course structure.

D. Hu, B. M. Zwickl, and C. Carusone, Impact of industry experience on faculty teaching practices in STEM, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Hu.

In this exploratory study, guided by dual process theories of reasoning, we used a low-stakes diagnostic test in a large introductory calculus-based physics course to test the effectiveness of using multiple-choice question pairs to improve student performance on conceptual multiple-choice questions. As part of this study, we measured students’ tendency to engage analytic reasoning via the Cognitive Reflection Test, a three-item questionnaire embedded in a start-of-term diagnostic. These pairs of questions used a common question stem to ask about different but related concepts that students often conflate, such as acceleration and force in the context of a collision. Focusing on three questions from previously piloted question pairs, and controlling for measures of student knowledge and tendency to engage analytic reasoning, we used mixed-effects logistic regression techniques to observe that students who received the question as part of a pair were 7.2 times (95% confidence interval [4.8, 10.9], p < .001) more likely to answer the question correctly relative to having the question alone. Furthermore, the intervention was more impactful for students with a lower tendency to engage analytic reasoning. These results have implications for the design of short-answer physics questions in learning and assessment situations.

J. Ives and J. B. Stang, Using cueing from question pairs to engage students in reflective thinking: An exploratory study, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Ives.

Characterizing the landscape of informal physics learning is a necessary and important endeavor that requires an in-depth study of the different types of existing programs. In this project we focus on informal programs sponsored by physics departments in academic institutes and physics national labs. We seek to understand the structural elements and cultural practices within the diverse array of informal physics spaces. Thus, we are developing a framework based on organizational theory that is contextualized for informal physics programs. We have collected data using survey and interview protocols for different informal physics activities. Here, we present an in-depth case study in which we have analyzed a “science cafe”-style event facilitated by volunteers from a physics and astronomy department. Applying organizational theory to the data set allows us to determine the fine-grained details of the program and the interconnections between the key elements of programming, personnel, resources, audience and institution. We further characterize and discuss the challenges the program faces from the facilitator’s perspective. From these findings, we will be able to look at larger data sets in the national study.

D. Izadi, J. Willison, K. A. Hinko, and C. Fracchiolla, Developing an organizational framework for informal physics programs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Izadi.

Historically, non-disabled individuals have viewed disability as a personal deficit requiring change to the “disabled” individual. However, models have emerged from disability activists and disabled intellectuals that emphasize the role of disabling social structures in preventing or hindering equal access across the ability continuum. We used the social relational proposition, which situates disability within the interaction of impairments and particular social structures, to identify disabling structures in introductory STEM courses. We conducted interviews with nine students who identified with a range of impairments about their experiences in introductory STEM courses. We assembled a diverse research team and analyzed the interviews through phenomenological analysis. Participants reported course barriers that prevented effective engagement with course content. These barriers resulted in challenges with time management as well as feelings of stress and anxiety. We discuss recommendations for supporting students to more effectively engage with introductory STEM courses.

W. James, K. Lamons, R. Spilka, C. Bustamante, E. M. Scanlon, and J. J. Chini, Hidden walls: STEM course barriers identified by students with disabilities, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.James.

The use of computer simulations in physics education is a growing and evolving practice. In this paper, we report the results of a two-year study on the development and analysis of computer simulations and supporting instructional materials for the topic of momentum conservation. In an algebra-based, studio physics course for life science students at a large, private, R1 institution, the designed simulation was implemented into a traditional, two-cart collision lab activity in place of hands-on equipment using a quasiexperimental design. Learning outcomes were measured over two years by comparing student performance on written post-lab exercises, midterm and final exam scores, and pre- and post-test scores of the Energy and Momentum Conceptual Survey (EMCS). In assessing student mastery of the subject matter, we found no significant differences on written assessments for momentum-related learning outcomes between students using only the simulation in the experimental group, and students using only hands-on lab equipment in the control group. Our results continue to add to the growing body of evidence for better understanding the use of computer simulations in place of hands-on equipment for lab activities in physics.

M. Jariwala, E. Allen, and A. Duffy, Investigating simulation use on student learning outcomes in introductory physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Jariwala.

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 Larmor precession of spin, 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 traditional lecture-based instruction and after engaging with the CQS.

P. Justice, E. Marshman, and C. Singh, Development, validation and in-class evaluation of a sequence of clicker questions on Larmor precession of spin in quantum mechanics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Justice.

Research suggests that self-efficacy is one of the central factors predicting students’ engagement, participation and retention in STEM fields. Physics is one of the STEM fields in which women are severely underrepresented. Prior research has found that there is a gender gap in conceptual assessments and sometimes even in the final exam favoring men. Women also report lower self-efficacy than men in physics. The origins of these gender disparities are complex, not well understood, and include systemic societal biases and stereotypes that disadvantage women from a very young age both in and out of classroom. Since self-efficacy can impact performance and vice versa, lower physics self-efficacy than men can disadvantage women in physics classes. We studied female and male students’ self-efficacy and its relation to learning outcomes in calculus-based introductory physics courses in which women are severely underrepresented. In particular, we discuss an investigation examining students’ self-efficacy scores across gender and investigate the extent to which self-efficacy mediates learning outcomes for male and female students, controlling for students’ relevant prior academic preparation such as AP Physics or SAT scores. We found that gender differences in course grade were partially mediated by students’ prior knowledge and gender effect became non-significant factor after we include students’ pre self-efficacy scores. This study can be helpful in catalyzing design and structuring of the physics classroom environment and curriculum to improve the self-efficacy and learning of all students, particularly those from traditionally disadvantaged groups such as women.

Z. Y. Kalender, E. Marshman, C. D. Schunn, T. J. Nokes-Malach, and C. Singh, Investigating the role of prior preparation and self-efficacy on female and male students’ introductory physics course achievements, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Kalender.

Over the past year, the Physics and Astronomy Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU) has implemented a pedagogical training course for incoming graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). While it has been widely accepted that students’ sense of belonging in the classroom can be influenced by many factors, our focus is to better understand what students themselves feel contributes most to their sense of belonging and what role GTAs might play in it. We have collected attitudinal surveys from students in the introductory physics sequence for life science majors that pertain to students’ perceptions of belonging and relationship to their lab instructor. We have identified an emergent set of factors from student testimonies, showing a number of indirect influences GTAs may have on students’ sense of belonging in lab. We found students tend to cite interpersonal relationships with their group and the labwork itself as major contributors to their sense of belonging in Physics I while Physics II students prioritize interpersonal relationships with both their group and the class as a whole. Our goal is to develop a set of student-centered approaches from this data that will ultimately provide insight for future lab instructors to help create an inclusive and accessible laboratory environment.

C. Kepple and K. Coble, Investigating potential influences of graduate teaching assistants on students’ sense of belonging in introductory physics labs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Kepple.

3D plastic surface models have been used to help students explore mathematical concepts related to functions of two variables. In order to understand how students interact with these models and their associated contour maps, we present analysis of three small groups of students working on an instructional activity designed to help students explore the relationship between gravitational potential energy and force for an Earth-satellite system. Students most often used the surface to examine functional behavior, discuss derivatives, and compare characteristics of the surface. Students often referred to the surface model in their explanations by pointing, gesturing, and tracing (without marking). Students held and drew on the surface less often, and rarely used the contour map. These results indicate that students may need additional support in using the contour map and encouragement to use props to visualize gradient vectors and viewing the surface from different vantage points.

A. Kimbrough, P. J. Emigh, J. W. Alfson, and E. Gire, Teaching gravitational potential energy: Student interaction with surface manipulatives, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Kimbrough.

Peerwise is an online peer learning community in which students can author, answer, and give feedback on each other’s multiple-choice questions. We describe the implementation of Peerwise in a junior-level quantum mechanics course over seven iterations, with 1369 student-generated questions in total. We describe measures of student engagement in terms of answering questions to prepare for course assessments and the improvement of questions. We discuss factors in the implementation that may have impacted engagement, including the timing of submissions, support for authoring high-quality questions, instructions on commenting and minimal requirements on authoring and commenting.

A. Kohnle, Using student-generated content to engage students in upper-division quantum mechanics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Kohnle.

Faculty Online Learning Communities (FOLCs) are unique professional development environments built to support instructors as they adopt research-based teaching strategies and curricula. FOLC participants meet via a video conferencing platform to discuss their teaching challenges and to generate solutions. In order to capture the breadth and depth of learning that can occur by participating in a FOLC, and to identify connections between facilitation moves, discursive structures, and learning opportunities, we have developed a taxonomy to characterize the opportunities to learn (OTLs) in a FOLC meeting. In this paper we will preview the taxonomy, presenting its main components, and provide an overview of its development based on meetings from a FOLC centered around the Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (NGPET) curriculum. Using an excerpt from a NGPET-FOLC meeting, we demonstrate how the taxonomy can be used as an analytical tool. We end with a discussion of the potential applications for this taxonomy.

A. C. Lau, A. Corrales, F. Goldberg, and C. Turpen, A framework for classifying opportunities to learn in Faculty Online Learning Communities: A preview with sample application, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Lau.

Undergraduate majors’ attitudes and perceptions about physics can strongly influence their development of a physics identity, persistence, and pursuit of physics-related careers. To explore students’ attitudes and perceptions, we surveyed 178 physics majors nationally. To analyze this data, we used descriptive statistics and emergent methods of qualitative analysis. While data collection is ongoing, preliminary results show themes of physics majors’ value for hard-work, broadly applicable problem-solving skills, and the rewarding quest for a meaningful application of their knowledge. Furthermore, we found that students position physics as a creative and communicative endeavor when provided with opportunities to do research and lab-work that values these aspects. This rich analysis of students’ attitudes and perceptions about physics can help educators better align learning opportunities with students’ needs and prepare students for a long-term and broadly applicable pursuit of physics.

A. E. Leak, K. Williamson, D. L. Moore, and B. M. Zwickl, On being a physics major: student perceptions of physics difficulties, rewards, and motivations, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Leak.

The large introductory physics lab course at the University of Colorado Boulder, which serves primarily engineering and physical science majors, was recently completely redesigned to align with new explicit learning goals. One of the learning goals of the new course was to have students enjoy working on physics experiments and to see value in experimental physics as a discipline. Additionally, we wanted to make the student workload consistent with a one credit course. To help achieve these goals, we created custom interactive videos that were viewed by the students before the lab to help them prepare for the lab activities. We present design principles for creating these videos, as well as data regarding student engagement and perceptions of this part of the course.

H. J. Lewandowski, B. Pollard, and C. G. West, Using custom interactive video prelab activities in a large introductory lab course, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Lewandowski.

This study investigates the association between involvement with sustained professional development (PD) and students’ physics learning for teachers engaging with the Physics through Evidence, Empowerment through Reasoning (PEER) curricular suite. PEER supports high school teachers attempting to align their instruction with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) through collaborative engagement with curricular materials, sustained PD, and three-dimensional assessments. Using data collected from 21 teachers and employing hierarchical linear modeling, we examine whether variation in PD participation is predictive of students’ gains on a conceptual examination of physics learning. Findings indicate that attending a PEER PD session was associated with a 1.46% positive difference in average gain scores, when controlling for teacher characteristics. PD attendance also explained 49.48% of between-teacher variation in conceptual gains. These results emphasize the efficacy of sustained PD for increasing student learning in NGSS-aligned courses.

W. E. Lindsay, S. Widman, and M. Garcia, The association between sustained professional development and physics learning, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Lindsay.

The Next Gen Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum was designed for physical science courses for future elementary teachers. However, this curriculum may also be used in general education conceptual science courses. The materials are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and use a guided-inquiry approach. Next Gen PET is currently being implemented at many universities nationwide. We examine the impact of this curriculum on students’ science identities at a subset of these universities. The identity framework consists of three dimensions. Recognition is the extent to which a student believes that parents, peers, and professors view them as a science person. Interest describes their enjoyment of science. Finally, performance/competence represents a student’s belief in their abilities to understand science and complete science related tasks. The shift in science identities was measured with items adapted from a previously developed physics identity instrument. We found positive shifts in the science identities of students enrolled in face-to-face courses targeted at pre-service teachers using the Next Gen PET curriculum, but a slight negative shift in the science identity of students enrolled in an online course targeted at non-science majors which did not use the Next Gen PET curriculum.

R. M. Lock, B. Van Dusen, S. Maier, and L. Zeng, Impact of the Next GEN PET Curriculum on science identity, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Lock.

There is a serious shortage of secondary science and math teachers across the United States. Part of this shortage can be attributed to a lack of research-based recruitment materials. To this end, we have developed written and visual materials for recruiting future teachers as part of the Get the Facts Out (GFO) project. We began by working with a marketing expert to develop tag lines, sentences, and other written material based on our research on perceptions of the teaching profession. Over the past year, we have tested these materials with faculty and students at several demographically and geographically diverse US universities. Our findings provide insights into optimal recruitment strategies and highlight the potential need for unique recruitment materials based on location, demographics, and target audience.

S. L. Logan, R. L. Pearson III, and W. K. Adams, GFO copywrite: development and testing of written and visual materials for recruiting STEM teachers, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Logan.

With the growing integration of computational modeling in introductory physics curricula, educators face an increasing need to understand how students read and compose programming code so as to better support those students’ learning. In this paper, I will discuss Conceptual Blending as a framework for modeling how we read physical, mathematical, and logical meaning into the structural and grammatical features of programming code; modeling how features of the programming representation can affect student reasoning, both productively and counter-productively; and informing instructional interventions. After a discussion of the framework, I will present a case study to help illustrate how conceptual blending can help interpret student difficulties.

B. R. Lunk, Using Conceptual Blending to model how we interpret computational models, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Lunk.

Mixed-methods research focused on identifying guest behavior was conducted at four focal exhibits at MOXI, the Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation in southern California. Teams researching two exhibits, Turn Tables and Keva Planks, were additionally interested in assessing whether modifications or manipulations to the physical exhibit impacted guest stay time. The team examining Turn Tables, a set of rotating tables, found that adding a graphic to the exhibit had a significant impact on engagement with increasing complexity (p < .05). Researchers investigating Keva Planks, which are small wooden planks guests can use to make structures, assessed how the presence of a museum floor facilitator or existing structures at the exhibit influenced stay time and engagement, and found a statistically significant difference in mean stay time in the case of both facilitator and structure present compared with only a structure present (p < .05). The final two studies used mainly qualitative observations to identify guest behaviors when interacting with exhibits. The team studying Magnetic Islands, a small magnetic structure guests can attach washers to, documented three engagement types: basic playing, building structures, and exploring magnetism. Findings indicate that when children engaged with peers rather than visiting the exhibit alone, they exhibited more complex engagement types. The final study focused specifically on the behaviors of young children to characterize the ways they chose to engage with the Light Patterns exhibit, a large color peg board covering an entire will. Findings suggest children exhibited many different behaviors at Light Patterns that demonstrated evidence of engagement with STEM practices. This research contributes to topics about Research Practitioner Partnership (RPP) models, mixed-methods research, museum facilitation, learning affordances in museum spaces, and the impact of exhibit design on the museum guest experience.

M. Macias, K. Lucas, J. Nation, E. Arevalo, J. Marckwordt, and D. B. Harlow, Magnetism, light, structures, and rotational motion: Mixed-methods study of visitors engaging with four exhibits at a science museum, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Macias_M.

Problem-solving is emphasized in introductory physics courses to equip students with tools that hopefully transfer to their future lives and careers. The EMPOWER project interviewed undergraduate STEM majors from computing, manufacturing, nursing, energy, and physics about their perspectives on problem-solving. Sixty-nine student focus groups were conducted, totaling 239 students. All students emphasized the importance of problem-solving in their discipline of study, but no single practice of problem-solving was applicable for all students. Most problem-solving perspectives were unique to each discipline (e.g., perseverance was emphasized in physics, empathy in nursing), while some perspectives were emphasized across several STEM fields (e.g., teamwork). Transferable problem-solving practices were often used alongside specialized practices to handle the unique challenges of each discipline. Findings suggest shifting away from framing problem-solving as a solitary transferable skill and toward framing problem-solving as an integrated set of context-dependent practices.

V. Macias, J. Poirier, B. M. Zwickl, and S. L. Rothwell, Transferability and specialization: analyzing STEM students’ perspectives of problem-solving, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Macias_V.

PhysPort is a professional development website for physics faculty to develop their teaching through research-based resources. As part of PhysPort's ongoing research efforts, we conducted interviews with 23 physics faculty from diverse instructional and institutional contexts in the US. From our interviews, we sought common experiences, motivations, and pain points to develop personas—person-like constructs—of physics faculty in the US. Our research focuses on the perspectives of the key users of our site, and thus we take a user-centered perspective rather than a researcher-centered perspective. We developed personas, which are person-like constructs that are developed based on salient characteristics of actual users, that enable designers to create resources to meet actual user needs without designing for the idiosyncrasies of specific users. We present our set of six personas of physics faculty members: a faculty member who is new to improving his teaching; one who takes up his department's practices; one who wants her teaching to feel good; one who is comfortable in her teaching; one who is continuously improving; and one who solves big problems in her department. These personas of physics faculty making changes to their teaching can be used more broadly to improve the design and development of professional development resources and activities for physics faculty.

A. M. Madsen, S. B. McKagan, L. E. Strubbe, E. C. Sayre, D. Zohrabi Alaee, and T. Huynh, User-centered personas for PhysPort, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Madsen.

We discuss an investigation exploring students’ reasoning about the inverse-square law using the perspectives of dual processing. We find that students in both introductory mathematics and physics courses have difficulties with the law when it is presented in multiple representations. More than half of the students who provided incorrect responses to the written surveys inappropriately based their reasoning on various cues in the questions without engaging in genuine conceptual thinking. One common reasoning students provided was based on the inverse relationship rather than the inverse-square relationship between two variables. We suggest that the reason for this could be due to the students’ choice of an intuitive and automatic processing (system 1) over a controlled and conscious processing (system 2) while responding to the questions.

D. B. Marsh and R. R. Bajracharya, Analyzing students’ reasoning about the inverse-square law through the lens of dual processing theories, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Marsh.

Previously, students' self-expressed learning goals, defined in the context of a problem solving self-diagnosis exercise that served as a pre-lab activity, were studied as a potential variable that might be related to various course measurements (overall grade, FCI and CLASS pre-post scores) of an introductory algebra-based physics course population primarily consisting of life science majors. In this study, the same student population (218 total students) was polled for students' opinion about what aspects of the course pertained to their majors. Approximately 23% of the course population (50 students) explicitly stated a belief that the course had little or nothing to do with their majors; the other students named a specific physics topic, overall usefulness, or an aspect of the course closely related to well-known PER topics (e.g., problem solving or conceptual understanding), etc. We investigate the belief that the course is irrelevant to one's major as another potential mindset variable, alongside task-specific learning orientations, that influences pre-post course measurements.

A. J. Mason, Learning goals and perceived irrelevance to major within life science majors in introductory physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Mason.

Studies show that invention activities, where students invent a general rule from provided resources before receiving direct instruction on the target topic, are particularly beneficial for learning outcomes. For most common implementations of invention activities, students are provided with instructor-designed contrasting cases with which to invent their rule. Alternatively, students could use an interactive simulation where they then have the agency to explore and collect observations on their own. While this provides a promising opportunity for developing more robust inquiry skills, it also introduces substantial challenges for the students that, in addition to learning about the domain, need to learn about expert ways of doing science. In this work, we compare different support structures that seek to mitigate these issues. Specifically, we incorporate a collaborative support structure and further provide students with either a short list of general rules to disprove or a list of important features that students are prompted to incorporate in their rule. We show that these support structures are not sufficient to make the exploration of students in our simulation-based invention activities as productive as with using contrasting cases.

J. Massey-Allard, I. Roll, and J. Ives, Supporting productive exploration in invention activities: are simulations too challenging?, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Massey-Allard.

In this paper, we describe both propositional and narrative frameworks to design and evaluate IPER programs. While a propositional framework provides a way to report on outcomes and is of interest to funders, a narrative framework provides insight into the lives of students and how a program fits into their life story. We have found that listening to students and understanding their lives provides insight into how to design a program that keeps students engaged, growing, and returning to the program year after year. Understanding the student narrative is essential and precedes the design of effective STEM programs.

M. W. McColgan, R. J. Colesante, and L. Clark, IPER programs: a narrative framework for program development, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.McColgan.

Students today face a reality of ever-increasing chaos. A sense of personal direction can be difficult to attain, especially in the murk of pursuing a degree as rigorous and attention-demanding as physics. Our project aims to frame the pursuit of a physics degree as a hero’s journey (Campbell, 1949) in order to design discussion points for undergraduates to consider their experiences from an archetypal view. Our intent is to connect students with timeless and emergent mythological forms that are images of a universal psychology. In this paper, we coordinate stages of the hero’s journey with various subjective experiences from undergraduate STEM students, as reported in "Talking About Leaving", (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997), with supplements from the theory of optimal experience "flow", (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Our ultimate goal is to help students understand their experience studying physics in ways that promote productive, responsible, proud, and mentally healthy engagement within their academic and social lives.

G. R. Mestas and H. G. Close, Framing the Pursuit of a Physics Degree as a Hero's Journey, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Mestas.

Participation in informal physics programs as a facilitator has an effect on a person’s identity within their own discipline. This paper discusses a case study, based on Lave and Wenger’s Community of Practice framework, with analysis of three interviews of facilitators of an Irish informal learning program for eight to twelve-yearolds that aims to combine physics and music. The facilitators are university students in Music Education, Science Education, and Physics; an interview of a facilitator from each field was used. We look to see how the differing backgrounds of each interviewee affects their science identity within the various communities they are a part of. The identity code Nexus of Multimembership is studied in detail leading to a discussion of the importance of acknowledging multimembership in informal physics programs.

C. Mullen, C. Fracchiolla, B. Prefontaine, and K. A. Hinko, Why it should be ‘and’ not ‘or’: Physics and music, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Mullen.

The Next Generation Science Standards have incorporated engineering standards, requiring K-12 teachers to teach engineering. Unfortunately, teachers are ill-prepared and have little comfort to introduce these unfamiliar complex topics into their classrooms. The University of California at Santa Barbara and MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation partnered up to tackle this problem and bring physics-related engineering activities to teachers through the MOXI Engineering Explorations program. A key challenge has been creating activities so that they are effective learning opportunities for first graders (6 years old) through sixth graders (12 years old). Here, we present design guidelines for adapting activities for younger and older children. This framework is also useful for other physics outreach programs that work with wide a range of age levels.

A. Muller, T. Connolly, R. K. Skinner, and D. B. Harlow, Design-based research project to develop a science and engineering education program linking field trip experiences to classroom experiences., 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Muller.

This work uses recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) to analyze the online forum discussion between students in an introductory physics course. Previous network and content analysis found differences in student conversations occurring between semesters of data from an introductory physics course; this led us to probe which concepts occur and persist within conversations. RQA is a dynamical systems technique to map the number and structure of repetitions for a time series. We treat the transcript of forum conversations as a time series to investigate and apply RQA techniques to it. We characterize the forum behaviors of high and low scoring students, such as their percentage of recurring topics and persistence of discussing a topic over time. We quantify how high scoring and low scoring students use online discussion forum and test whether different patterns exist for these groups. This work is the first adaptation of recurrence quantification methods from the field of psychology for physics education research. Using RQA, there was not a general, observable difference in how the two different groups, high- and low-scoring students, used the forum; however, there were differences when focusing in on and comparing one high-scoring student and one low-scoring student. This technique has the potential for analyzing other PER data such as interviews or student discussions.

C. Myers, E. Fox, A. L. Traxler, and A. Gavrin, Quantifying the linguistic persistence of high and low performers in an online student forum, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Myers.

The American Physical Society calls on its members to improve the diversity of physics by supporting an inclusive culture that encourages women and people of color to become physicists. Becoming a physicist demands a set of beliefs about what it means to learn and do physics. Rather than physics courses and degree programs supporting students in developing these beliefs, evidence shows that physics education filters out students without sufficient beliefs. To better understand the role of beliefs in the lack of diversity in physics, we investigated the intersectional nature of race/racism and gender/sexism in inequities in student beliefs towards learning and doing physics using a critical quantitative intersectionality framework. The analyses used hierarchical linear models to examine students’ beliefs as measured by the Colorado learning attitudes about science survey. The data came from the LASSO database and included 1248 students in 29 calculus-based mechanics courses. Like prior studies, we found that beliefs either did not change or slightly decreased for most groups. Results identified large differences across intersecting race and gender groups. White students, particularly White men, tended to have more expert-like beliefs than any other group of students. Physics instruction must address these educational debts to move toward an inclusive culture supportive of diverse students and professionals.

J. M. Nissen and B. Van Dusen, Educational debts incurred by racism and sexism in students’ beliefs about physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Nissen.

Prior research on underrepresentation of women in physics has focused on gender differences in various attitudes and beliefs students have with regards to physics. One open area of investigation pertains to the foundations of students’ identities in physics, which can be a particularly powerful driver of career decisions. We present an investigation involving approximately 500 students in introductory level calculus-based physics courses, a context in which less than one third of the students are women. Students completed a motivation survey at the end of their first semester’s physics course. We used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test a modified physics identity framework, specifically examining whether the relation between gender and physics identity was mediated by motivational factors such as self-efficacy, interest, and perceived recognition. The results showed that students perceived recognition was a particularly important factor influencing self-efficacy and interest, which in turn mediated the relation between gender and physics identity.

T. J. Nokes-Malach, Z. Y. Kalender, E. Marshman, C. D. Schunn, and C. Singh, How is perception of being recognized by others as someone good at physics related to female and male students’ physics identities?, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Nokes-Malach.

The societal implications of technology developed through physics research are not always clear. Physicists need to use ethical reasoning skills to maneuver through morally ambiguous situations. For this reason, curricula for physics students should also be geared towards developing these skills. Research can be found on the effects of structured ethical discussions in similar fields like engineering education, however, little research can be found on their effects in physics education. Our research focuses on how students interpret and apply an ethical framework to discussions about the development of the atomic bomb and to current STEM research. Our preliminary analysis shows that students conflate certain ethical principles and/or avoid their negative implications, which in turn leads to a misapplication of the principles. However, students also demonstrate a range of productive approaches to applying these ethical principles which contribute to the development of strong ethical arguments.

E. Ochoa-Madrid, A. R. Olmstead, and B. Gutmann, Characterizing physics students’ ethical reasoning after a unit on the development of the atomic bomb, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Ochoa-Madrid.

Computation holds great potential for introducing new opportunities for creativity and exploration into the physics curriculum. At the University of Oslo we have begun development of a new class of assignment called computational essays to help facilitate creative, open-ended computational physics projects. Computational essays are a type of essay or narrative that combine text and code to express an idea or make an argument, usually written in computational notebooks. During a pilot implementation of computational essays in an introductory electricity and magnetism course, students reported that computational essays facilitated creative investigation at a variety of levels within their physics course. They also reported finding this creativity as being both challenging and motivating. Based on these reflections, we argue that computational essays are a useful tool for leveraging the creative affordances of programming in physics education.

T. O. B. Odden and M. D. Caballero, Computational Essays: An Avenue for Scientific Creativity in Physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Odden.

Computational problem solving practices are beginning to be the center of many introductory physics courses. Specifically, at MSU, students regularly work on computational problems situated in physics that involve minimally working programs. Currently, very little research has been done on minimally working programs in regards to problem difficulty. From problem-based literature, the paper will use the traits of Complexity and Structuredness from Jonassen et al. Complexity is used to create a framework of problem difficulty applicable to minimally working programs while Structuredness is used to study possible epistemological conflicts between curriculum intention and design.

D. Oleynik and P. W. Irving, Scientific Practices in Minimally Working Programs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Oleynik.

Faculty members involved in graduate admissions decisions have to determine who will be offered admissions to their respective graduate programs. In this study, we interviewed faculty at four institutions who currently serve or have served on their program’s graduate admissions committee. The focus of this study was twofold: first, to explore what qualities faculty value in graduate students and second, to identify what sources of evidence faculty utilize in determining if a student possesses a desired quality. Results from these interviews showed that while qualities such as content knowledge and programming skills were valued, non-cognitive qualities such as self-motivation, resilience, and self-learning were also highly desired. The faculty noted that while current admissions practices can easily identify if a student has taken certain coursework, they typically lack the means to quickly assess non-cognitive qualities, which must often be inferred from the contents of personal statements and letters of recommendation. These results suggest that transparency on the part of graduate programs to better advertise the qualities they desire will assist letter writers and students writing personal statements to increase the impact of their application materials.

L. M. Owens, B. M. Zwickl, S. V. Franklin, and C. W. Miller, Identifying qualities of physics graduate students valued by faculty, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Owens.

Setting up an integral based on a given physical system can be a significant barrier to success for students (Cui et. al. 2006). Prior research has shown that the way students think about integration (e.g. area under the curve, the antiderivative, or adding up pieces) before they start a problem has an effect on their success when they’re constructing the necessary integrals (Jones 2015a). We examined five introductory physics textbooks, documented each example of an integral, and coded them into four categories. Area under the curve is the understanding fostered by calculus courses, but it is the least productive and one of the least utilized by physics textbooks.

A. Pina and M. E. Loverude, Presentation of integrals in introductory physics textbooks, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Pina.

The EMPOWER project conducted 186 interviews with employers, faculty, and students across nursing, manufacturing, computing, energy, and physics. The interviews discussed the problems faced across different workplaces and how each tries to resolve them. Two different cultural approaches to problem-solving were found. One culture values proactively identifying anomalies deviating from the norm while another values exploring creative solutions. The presence of risk and/or expense of an operation leads preventive problem-solvers to construct hypothetical situations and attempt to solve problems before they happen. An exploratory culture fosters creative ideas and experimentation in low-risk environments where failure is an acceptable part of the problem-solving process. The two approaches have parallels to physics education. The problem-prevention culture, which requires analyzing and addressing hypothetical anomalies, is similar to theoretical practices in physics. The exploratory culture of encouraging creative solutions is similar to experimental or design work within physics.

J. Poirier, V. Macias, B. M. Zwickl, and S. L. Rothwell, Preventive and exploratory: two workplace problem-solving cultures, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Poirier.

Student understanding around measurement uncertainty is an important learning outcome in physics lab courses across the US, including at the University of Coloroado Boulder (CU), where it is among the major learning outcomes for the large introductory stand-alone physics lab course. One research tool for studying student understanding around measurement uncertainty, which we use in this course, is the Physics Measurement Questionnaire (PMQ), an open-response assessment for measuring student understanding of measurement uncertainty. Interpreting and analyzing PMQ data involves coding students’ written explanations to open-response questions. However, the preexisting scoring scheme for the PMQ does not fully capture the breadth and depth of reasoning contained in our students’ responses. Therefore, we created a new coding scheme for the PMQ based on responses from our students. Here, we document our process to develop a new coding scheme for the PMQ, and describe the resulting codes. We also present examples of what can be learned from applying the new coding scheme at our institution.

B. Pollard, R. Hobbs, D. R. Dounas-Frazer, and H. J. Lewandowski, Methodological development of a new coding scheme for an established assessment on measurement uncertainty in laboratory courses, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Pollard.

Stereoscopic virtual reality (VR) has experienced a resurgence due to flagship products such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and smartphone-based VR solutions like Google Cardboard. This is causing the question to resurface: how can stereoscopic VR be useful in instruction, if at all, and what are the pedagogical best practices for its use? To address this, and to continue our work in this sphere, we performed a study of 289 introductory physics students who were sorted into three different treatment types: stereoscopic virtual reality, WebGL simulation, and static 2D images, each designed to provide information about magnetic fields and forces. Students were assessed using preliminary items designed to focus on heavily-3D systems. We report on assessment reliability, and on student performance. Overall, we find that students who used VR did not significantly outperform students using other treatment types. There were significant differences between sexes, as other studies have noted. Dependence on students’ self-reported 3D videogame play was observed, in keeping with previous studies, but this dependence was not restricted to the VR treatment.

C. D. Porter, J. R. Brown, J. R. Smith, E. M. Stagar, A. B. Simmons, M. Nieberding, A. Ayers, and C. Orban, A controlled study of virtual reality in first-year magnetostatics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Porter.

Informal physics programs often have the aim of supporting and cultivating physics identities; however, a student is more than just a physicist. Students have multiple identities, including their racial, cultural, and gender identities, which we believe must be supported within their experiences in informal programs. Informal physics programs that intentionally blend physics learning with other areas of interest (art, music, sports, etc.) are supportive of more than a student’s physics identity. In this work, we theorize that blended informal physics programs can be examined using both Critical Race Theory and Critical Physics Identity frameworks to understand how program design possibly supports diverse identities. To demonstrate this hypothesis, we analyze an informal physics practitioner’s interview about a youth program involving both art and physics. We look at connections between the theoretical constructs from the two frameworks to understand how informal spaces can be designed to support multiple identities.

B. Prefontaine and K. A. Hinko, Supporting multiple identities in informal spaces: Examining design choice, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Prefontaine.

Student-generated physics problems are a way to encourage students to utilize concepts and to identify situations in which to use them. This study looks at three undergraduate physics sections at a university in Chile and how students generated and established their own problems in circular motion (CM) for high school students. By collecting and analyzing the work created by undergraduate student groups, we were able to identify the various physics concepts and characteristics students used when developing the situation of each problem, the content involved, and the question items designed for high school students. Through a description of the concepts and characteristics, we identify differences and similarities regarding kinematic concepts and problem characteristics across the three sections that undergo different sets of physics problems. This work may further our understanding of how students interpret and use the physics ideas taught at the undergraduate level, and the types of problems they are most familiar with depending on instruction.

J. Pulgar, A. Spina, C. Ríos, and D. B. Harlow, Contextual details, cognitive demand and kinematic concepts: exploring concepts and characteristics of student-generated problems in a university physics course, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Pulgar.

The Access Network consists of nine university-based sites from across the United States working to increase access, equity, and inclusion in the physical science community. While each site differs in their implementations, they share a commitment to five core principles: 1) fostering supportive learning communities, 2) engaging students in authentic science, 3) developing students’ professional skills, 4) empowering students to take ownership of their education, and 5) increasing diversity and equity in the physical sciences. The Access Network enhances the efforts of the sites in the network by cultivating intersite communication, especially facilitating the documenting and sharing of ideas across sites through a variety of network-level activities. In this paper, we articulate our network’s goals and activities, share evidence of some positive outcomes, and reflect on areas for future improvement.

G. M. Quan, B. Gutmann, J. C. Corbo, B. Pollard, C. Turpen, and Access Network, The Access Network: Cultivating Equity and Student Leadership in STEM, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Quan.

Historically, research on “underrepresented” students in physics is conducted primarily at Predominately White Institutions and has focused on two separate identities: gender or race. Because of this, the unique intersections experienced by Women of Color (WoC) has been largely ignored. In addition, research on the experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Queer (LGBTQ+) physicists in a collegiate setting is virtually non-existent. This paper will present common themes in the idea of who does physics through the lens of WoC and female LGBTQ+ physicists currently or recently enrolled in a Physics Program at a large Hispanic Serving Institution. Participants engaged in semi-structured interviews and were asked questions about their perceptions of their physics environments, available support systems, and how they described a physicist. The analysis employs the theory of Intersectionality and examines the narratives through a critical race and queer lens to fully understand the lived experiences of our participants.

X. R. Quichocho, J. Conn, E. M. Schipull, and E. W. Close, Who does physics? Understanding the composition of physicists through the lens of women of color and LGBTQ+ women physicists, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Quichocho.

Thermal physics is a core course requirement for most physics degrees and encompasses both thermodynamics and statistical mechanics content. However, the primary content foci of thermal physics courses vary across universities. This variation can make creation of materials or assessment tools for thermal physics difficult. To determine the scope and content variability of thermal physics courses across institutions, we distributed a survey to over 140 institutions to determine content priorities from faculty and instructors who have taught upper-division thermodynamics and/or statistical mechanics. We present results from the survey, which highlight key similarities and differences in thermal physics content coverage across institutions. Though we see variations in content coverage, we found 9 key topical areas covered by all respondents in their upper-division thermal physics courses. We discuss implications of these findings for the development of instructional tools and assessments that are useful to the widest range of institutions and physics instructors.

K. D. Rainey and B. R. Wilcox, Faculty survey on upper-division thermal physics content coverage, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Rainey.

A physics student’s identity is predicated on a multitude of factors, such as research, classes, and activities outside the classroom. Many students choose to participate in informal physics teaching programs during college; however, these programs are an understudied portion of a physics student’s experience. We hypothesize that university students’ science identity is reshaped by interactions and experiences they have in these programs. We focus on a student group that does demonstrations at local K-12 schools and organizations. Pre- and post- interviews were collected with undergraduate participants in this group who went on an intensive week-long trip to rural areas in the state. Here, we extend our previous work using a Communities of Practice framework to analyze these interviews. We operationalize students’ movement toward or away from central membership as well as look at the intersection of other physics, academic, and personal communities with the informal physics program community.

C. Rispler, B. Prefontaine, and K. A. Hinko, Understanding university students’ identity through engagement in informal physics programs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Rispler.

ISLE -based labs have been demonstrated to be an effective alternative to traditional lab activities, helping students develop scientific abilities when used in an ideal environment where lectures and recitations also reflect ISLE philosophy. In this study we used ISLE-based labs in a second-year physics course for engineering students in which the lectures and recitations remained traditional. We investigated the effect that ISLE-based labs had on student development under these conditions. We found that while students did not show as much growth as they had in previous studies under more ideal conditions, the students did show improvements in their scientific abilities over the course of one semester of instruction. We also investigated how the accuracy of feedback given to the students by the TAs related to student learning.

J. Rutberg, M. Malysheva, and E. Etkina, Impact of ISLE-based labs in courses with traditional lecture, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Rutberg.

As part of an effort to provide evidence for the reproducibility of educational studies for a variety of student bodies, we collected a year-long data set in introductory physics courses at Cal Poly Pomona (a primarily undergraduate and Hispanic-serving institution) to understand factors that affect students’ performance on the FCI (force concept inventory). This study also allows us to gain insights into possible gender or racial gaps in students’ performance. In this paper, we discuss background variables that predict students’ FCI scores at the end of the term. Weak correlation is found between students’ SAT score and FCI normalized gain, suggesting education research findings can be population dependent. Gender and racial gaps are found in students’ FCI performance, both at initial preparation and overall gain. There is a gender gap of 16% FCI pre-test and 17% of FCI post-test with a strong effect size (d=0.81). Caucasian students outperform Asian and Hispanic students on FCI pre, post and gain. No significant interaction is found between gender and race/ethnicity after controlling for course grade.

Q. X. Ryan, D. D. Agunos, A. Villasenor, H. R. Sadaghiani, and A. Small, Evaluating students’ performance on the FCI at a minority serving institution, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Ryan.

Physics is one of the STEM fields with the highest attrition rates and a lack of diversity in graduate education. The results of retention rates of underrepresented racial minority (URM) students from the American Physical Society- Bridge Program (APS-BP) indicate a potential correlation exists between experiencing a supportive departmental environment and retention. We examine whether physics graduate URM and non-URM students’ self-reports show meaningful differences in supportive components at their programs. We also examine students’ self-reports of experiencing supportive departmental components between institutions that are and are not affiliated with the APS-BP. This study was based on physics graduate students’ responses to a survey regarding their experiences of departmental structures. In this paper, we use 254 responses from U.S. citizen students enrolled at 20 research-intensive graduate programs. Performing multivariate analysis of variance and calculating effect sizes, we find URM students report experiencing supportive components in their programs at higher levels than non-URM students, except for financial support that includes having covered tuition for the entire program, and being offered health benefits. Looking at other available data in the larger survey to better understand this outcome, we find non-URM students receive graduate assistantships at a higher rate than URM students (89.7% vs. 62.5%, respectively), and URM students are more likely to either obtain a loan or self-support (working outside of campus) their graduate education compared to non-URM students (25% vs. 12%, respectively). Overall, our results suggest that physics graduate programs have practices in place to better support URM students on aspects related to their progress in the program, but are not paying similar attention to their financial needs. Finally, we find the APS-BP affiliated institutions provide more student support than non-affiliated institutions.

D. Sachmpazidi and C. R. Henderson, Experiences of departmental supports by physics graduate students: results from 20 research-intensive institutions, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Sachmpazidi.

Every person has abilities across a multidimensional spectrum; however, previous research has indicated that postsecondary faculty are unaware of how to support students with a broad range of abilities in their courses and receive little training about inclusive teaching strategies. On average, STEM faculty have demonstrated more negative views toward students with disabilities than instructors from other disciplines. As such, we want to better understand physics instructors’ beliefs about people with disabilities and their inclusive teaching practices. The Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory (ITSI) was developed to measure postsecondary instructors’ beliefs and practices related to disability and supporting people with disabilities across disciplines. Through a pilot administration of this survey, we found that STEM faculty experienced difficulties in responding to the survey. Thus, we modified the ITSI for use with STEM faculty. We present our modification process, describe specific modifications made to the ITSI, and discuss preliminary interview and survey data.

E. M. Scanlon and J. J. Chini, Physics instructors’ views about supporting learner variation: Modifying the Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Scanlon.

One of the purported benefits of teaching a spins-first approach to quantum mechanics is that it allows students to build up quantum mechanical ideas and learn postulates before moving to the more complicated mathematics used in the context of wave functions. In order to begin to explore this claim in a spins-first course, a survey was developed and administered as an extra credit activity at three different universities. All three universities teach spins-first quantum mechanics with interactive methods. This work compares students’ responses to identical questions about the relationship between and difficulty of math and physics from two administrations of the survey given at the ends of the spins and wave functions portions of the course. Results offer insight into students’ perspectives about the nature and difficulty of mathematics in these two paradigms of quantum mechanics.

B. P. Schermerhorn, A. Villasenor, D. D. Agunos, H. R. Sadaghiani, G. Passante, and S. J. Pollock, Student perceptions of math-physics interactions throughout spins-first quantum mechanics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Schermerhorn.

Existing research on underrepresented/minority students focuses mainly on gender or race/ethnicity and ignores the intersection of identities of women of color and the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) students. This research is also typically conducted at Predominately White Institutions. A large number of physics degrees earned by racial minorities have been earned from Minority Serving Institutions. This project examines the personal narratives of women of color, LGBTQ+ women, and women who exist at the intersection of these identities at Texas State, a Hispanic Serving Institution, to better understand the systems in place that helped them succeed through their physics degree. We define success to be recognition of self as a physicist and completion, or being near completion, of a physics degree. Participants reported that widely shared discussions around equity, department structures supporting collaboration, and a culture of teamwork helped them achieve success together.

E. M. Schipull, X. R. Quichocho, and E. W. Close, “Success Together”: Physics departmental practices supporting LGBTQ+ women and women of color, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Schipull.

A student’s academic self-efficacy is a variable that predicts student achievement and persistence in STEM, and substantial research has focused on developing and testing interventions to increase STEM self-efficacy. Results have been inconsistent: Some efforts produced desired outcomes while others show weak or null effects. What factors affect whether a self-efficacy intervention is successful? Based on our experiences with an NSF-funded project that developed and tested a classroom-based self-efficacy intervention in university Physics courses, we identify three critical research issues that shape and complicate STEM student self-efficacy research, ground them in the literature, and illustrate them in practice. They are: (1) defining and measuring self-efficacy, (2) accounting for context, and (3) understanding related psychosocial factors. We conclude with implications for future research.

S. J. Sedberry, I. D. Beatty, W. J. Gerace, M. A. Elobeid, and J. E. Strickhouser, Three critical issues that shape and complicate STEM self-efficacy intervention research: Reflections and analysis from an interdisciplinary research team, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Sedberry.

Physics demonstrations have a rich history both in and outside the classroom. Evaluations of physics demonstrations have traditionally focused on their ability to facilitate comprehension and retention of information; however, John Dewey’s theory of aesthetic experience allows us to instead examine them as meaningful interactions between demonstrators and audiences. In this work, we demonstrate the utility of aesthetic experience as a model for science communication by investigating an undergraduate student group that performs physics demonstrations at family science events. Using observations and interviews, we found that the performers were engaged in expressive acts alongside their intention to explain the physics content correctly. Thus, this work shows that the experience model of science communication has the ability to reveal the significance of these demonstrations and also may be applicable to many informal learning and public engagement interventions.

S. Seese, M. Halpern, and K. A. Hinko, Hidden value: Investigating the physics demonstration as aesthetic experience, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Seese.

Recent research in introductory physics labs suggests that most students judge the quality of a measurement based on a comparison with theory. To probe this dimension of students’ judgments based on authority, we sought to evaluate whether students’ responses about evaluations of measurement depended on contextual cues. We asked students which measurement of the acceleration due to gravity was ‘better:’ (1) one given with uncertainty and found by ‘you and your friend’ or ‘you and your research group’ or (2) a textbook value with no reported uncertainty but more significant figures. By deliberately structuring multiple possible forms of authority (e.g., precision, expertise, equipment, theory) we intended to draw out nuances in how students draw upon authority in evaluating the quality of measurements. Our results suggest that contextual cues may influence students’ judgments about measurement and the authority that they draw upon more than lab instruction aimed at developing students’ experimentation skills.

E. M. Smith, N. Chodkowski, and N. G. Holmes, Context of authority may affect students’ evaluations of measurement, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Smith_E.

The Physics Inventory of Quantitative Literacy (PIQL), a reasoning inventory under development, aims to assess students’ physics quantitative literacy at the introductory level. The PIQL’s design presents the challenge of isolating types of mathematical reasoning that are independent of each other in physics questions. In its current form, the PIQL spans three principle reasoning subdomains previously identified in mathematics and physics education research: ratios and proportions, covariation, and signed (negative) quantities. An important psychometric objective is to test the orthogonality of these three reasoning subdomains. We present results from exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and module analysis that inform interpretations of the underlying structure of the PIQL from a student viewpoint, emphasizing ways in which these results agree and disagree with expert categorization. In addition to informing the development of existing and new PIQL assessment items, these results are also providing exciting insights into students’ quantitative reasoning at the introductory level.

T. I. Smith, P. Eaton, S. W. Brahmia, A. Olsho, A. Boudreaux, C. DePalma, V. LaSasso, C. Whitener, and S. Straguzzi, Using psychometric tools as a window into students’ quantitative reasoning in introductory physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Smith_T.

Arnold Arons described an inadequate understanding of ratios as “one of the most serious impediments to the study of science” [1]. Yet ample math and physics education research demonstrates that STEM university students struggle with ratios. For example, students are familiar with the notion of “meters per second”, but many do not attribute meaning to the notion of “seconds per meter” [2]. This manuscript presents a simple technique dubbed “The Ratio Table” for helping students work algebraically with ratios, and make physical sense of units involving “per”. The technique was implemented and assessed through repeated pre- and post administration of a set of written questions. Results suggest that this relatively small intervention can boost student performance

P. Southey, The Ratio Table: a tool for understanding ratios, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Southey.

Measurements in quantum mechanics are often taught in an abstract, theoretical context. Compared to what is known about student understanding of experimental data in classical mechanics, it is unclear how students think about measurement and uncertainty in the context of experimental data from quantum mechanical systems. In this paper, we tested how students interpret the variability in data from hypothetical experiments in classical and quantum mechanics. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 students who had taken quantum mechanics courses and analyzed to which sources they attribute variability in the data. We found that in the quantum mechanics context, most students interpret any variability in the data as irreducible and inherent to the theory. While acknowledging the influence of experimenter error, limited resolution of measurement equipment, and confounding variables (like air resistance) in classical mechanics, many students did not recognize the influence of such effects in quantum mechanics. Some students expressed the view that there are inherently fewer confounding variables in Quantum Mechanics and the equipment used is more precise. We derive tentative implications for instruction and propose further research to test the influence of framing on the responses to our interview protocol.

M. M. Stein, C. White, G. Passante, and N. G. Holmes, Student interpretations of uncertainty in classical and quantum mechanics experiments, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Stein.

A central idea behind educational interactive simulations (sims) is that students’ learning and experience is shaped through their interactions with the simulation. Prior work has established that student interaction and engagement with sims is influenced by the instructional strategies used in sim-based lessons. This finding motivates the need for tools to record, analyze, and report on students’ interactions with sims during their learning experiences. In this paper, we investigate the capabilities of a new teacher dashboard for sims, specifically examining the dashboard’s ability to characterize and differentiate students’ engagement with two different instructional approaches in homework activities. One instructional approach invited students to discover essential variables via challenge-style questions, while the second asked students to make predictions and observations given specific actions in the sim. The experiment was conducted in college introductory physics courses and repeated for two sims, PhET's Energy Skate Park: Basics sim and Forces and Motion: Basics sim. The results demonstrate that the new teacher dashboard can successfully capture students’ interactions and help identify the differences in engagement across these activities. In this case, the dashboard showed students’ exploration of the sim elements and their total time of interaction increased in Challenge-style questions. We reflect on the capabilities of the dashboard and its role in instructional design.

D. B. López-Tavares, M. Kauzmann, and K. Perkins, Visualizing student engagement with simulations: a dashboard to characterize and differentiate instructional approaches, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Tavares.

Assessments of students’ attitudes and beliefs often rely on questions with rating scales that ask students the extent to which they agree or disagree with a statement. Unlike traditional physics problems with a single correct answer, rating scale questions often have a spectrum of 5 or more responses, none of which are correct. Researchers have found that responses on rating scale items can generally be treated as continuous and that unless there is good evidence to do otherwise, response categories should not be collapsed. We discuss two potential reasons for collapsing response categories (lack of use and redundancy) and how to empirically test for them. To illustrate these methods, we use them on the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey. We found that students used all the response categories on the CLASS but that three of them were potentially redundant. This led us to conclude that the CLASS should be scored on a 5-point or 3-point scale, rather than the 2-point scale recommended by the instrument developers. More broadly, we recommend the judicious use of data manipulations when scoring assessments and retaining all response categories unless there is a strong rational for collapsing them.

B. Van Dusen and J. M. Nissen, Criteria for collapsing rating scale responses: A case study of the CLASS, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Van_Dusen.

As part of a larger investigation into students' conceptions about buoyancy, we investigated the prevalence of the belief that the gravitational force on an object changes when the object is placed in a fluid. We also investigated the effect of describing the force as "weight" instead of "gravitational force." During the first phase of the study (Winter 2016 to Fall 2016), students at two different institutions were asked to identify the correct free-body diagram (FBD) for a ball floating in water, and then for the same ball held down while fully submerged under water. Half of the students were shown FBDs involving "weight," and the other half were shown FBDs involving the "gravitational force." During the second phase of the study (Fall 2017 to Spring 2019), students at one of the institutions were asked to explicitly compare the strength of either the weight or the gravitational force on the ball when it was falling, floating, and held submerged. This paper will report on the fraction of students who indicated that the weight or gravitational force differed between the scenarios and will discuss the effects of both the question asked and the wording used to describe the force.

D. J. Wagner and S. Harryman, Perceived effect on buoyancy of weight vs. gravitational force, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Wagner.

Validated formative assessment tools provide a reliable way to compare student learning across variables such as pedagogy and curricula, or demographics. Such assessments typically employ a closed-response format developed from student responses to open-response questions and interviews with students and experts. The validity and reliability of these assessments is usually evaluated using statistical tools such as classical test theory or item response theory. The suitability of individual questions on an assessment can be examined using either of these methods, but so far little attention has been given to evaluating the suitability of individual response choices available in each question. Here, we use mutual information, a tool rarely used in PER, to quantitatively evaluate the utility of response choices in an assessment. We use the Physics Lab Inventory of Critical thinking (PLIC) as an example to illustrate how assessment developers can use this method for their own assessments. The PLIC was designed to measure three latent constructs and we confirm this structure through a factor analysis. We calculate factor scores that represent performance on each of the proposed constructs and evaluate the suitability of individual response choices in terms of how much information they provide about these factor scores.

C. Walsh and N. G. Holmes, Assessing the assessment: Mutual information between response choices and factor scores, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Walsh_C.

As education increasingly uses online and digital learning tools and resources, an opportunity arises to study students’ learning behaviors and outcomes through data analytics. In this study we perform correlation data mining of individual student’s click-stream on both an Open Educational Resource site, BoxSand.org, and online homework on Mastering Physics. We combined exploratory and statistical analyses with a long-term goal of creating inferential and predictive models.

K. C. Walsh, M. Dumelle, and K. Williams, Tracking student engagement with open educational resources (OER) and online homework, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Walsh_K.

In this study, we characterized GTAs’ teaching practices in algebra-based introductory physics “mini-studios,” which combine student-centered recitation and inquiry-based labs. We documented both GTA and student actions using an observation protocol adapted from the Laboratory Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (LOPUS). We observed 72 mini-studio sessions led by 11 GTAs over two semesters. We used an agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis and identified three clusters that described the similarities and differences between individual sessions. Two clusters contained sessions characterized by more interactive GTAs but they varied in the amount of feedback, lecture and whole class questioning the GTA provided. In the third cluster, GTAs tended to wait for students to call on them before engaging. Student behaviors also varied between the clusters, suggesting correlations between student behaviors and GTA instructional styles, in contrast to previous findings with LOPUS in other contexts. We discuss implications of these findings for future research.

T. Wan, C. M. Doty, A. A. Geraets, E. K. H. Saitta, and J. J. Chini, Characterizing graduate teaching assistants’ teaching practices in physics “mini-studios”, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Wan.

Math modeling is an iterative process where students use their observations and reasoning abilities to create and refine predictions or explanations about a single referent system (e.g., a lab apparatus). However, modeling may be complicated by the presence of multiple problem representations in an activity (e.g., both a word problem and a video demo), in which case students have multiple referents to consider. To study students’ modeling behavior in these situations, we conducted think-aloud interviews with pairs of students around a kinematics activity. While creating process maps of students’ modeling, we found that tracking students’ “system focus” was critical to interpreting their reasoning and decisions. The model referent is no longer seen as a static object; instead, it is a dynamic object that changes in response to both structured prompts and spontaneous events. This concept gives rise to practical insights into activity design and implementation.

C. Webster and B. M. Zwickl, Tracking the referent system to understand students' math modeling processes, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Webster.

The traditional approach to studying student understanding presents a question and uses the student’s answer to make inferences about their knowledge. However, this method doesn’t capture the range of possible alternative ideas available to students. We use a new approach, asking students to generate a plausible explanation for every choice of a multiple-choice question, to capture a range of explanations that students can generate in answering physics questions. Asking 16 students to provide explanations in this way revealed alternative possibilities for student thinking that would not have been captured if they only provided one solution. The findings show two ways these alternatives can be productive for learning physics: (i) even students who ultimately chose the wrong answer could often generate the correct explanation and (ii) many incorrect explanations contained elements of correct physical reasoning. We discuss the instructional implications of this multiple-choice questioning approach and of students’ alternative ideas.

N. K. Weinlader, E. Kuo, B. M. Rottman, and T. J. Nokes-Malach, A new approach for uncovering student resources with multiple-choice questions, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Weinlader.

As an effort to integrate computational thinking into high school science classrooms across Michigan, we administered a year-long professional development series for physics teachers to learn how to program and utilize computer simulations as learning activities in their curricula. Near the end of their first year in the series, N=7 instructors were interviewed to explore their intended learning outcomes, design process, and implementation of computational activities. We conducted a thematic analysis on qualitative interview data to identify major themes from the teacher perspective. Herein, learning outcomes are articulated to investigate the professional development series’ effectiveness at helping teachers prepare activities aligned with science standards and their specific aims. Our analysis provides insight regarding the lack of specificity in learning outcomes, the absence of assessment on computational content, and difficulty navigating the space of crosscutting concepts around computation. This research informs the augmentation of computational physics professional development workshops, communicates recommendations for practitioners, and documents teachers’ intended learning outcomes when integrating computation in K-12 education spaces.

D. P. Weller, M. D. Caballero, and P. W. Irving, Teachers' intended learning outcomes around computation in high school physics, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Weller.

Network analytic techniques are particularly well suited to studying how students form groups, since interactions between people are affected by other interactions within the same community. Collaboration between students in class and out of class during a calculus-based, introductory physics course at a liberal arts college is described using networks. Students are represented by nodes, which are connected by edges, representing interactions between pairs of students. Both the nodes and the edges are associated with various covariates representing the characteristics of the student and the intensity of their collaboration. Exponential family random graph models (ERGMs), a network analytic technique analogous to logistic regression, are used to estimate the probability of the existence of a particular edge, based on the various covariates and the overall structure of the network. An extension to ERGMs, valued ERGMs, model the strength of the edges in addition to their existence. Both the binary and valued ERGMs found that reciprocal interactions, hierarchical interactions, and interactions within assigned groups are more likely to occur. The valued ERGM also found that students with higher course grades correlate with the strength of interactions that students report. There is some evidence that instructors may affect who students collaborate with outside of class.

J. E. Wells, Modeling student collaborations using valued ERGMs, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Wells.

Prior research has shown that self-efficacy can be a critical factor in student learning and performance in different STEM disciplines. Moreover, although past research has documented self-efficacy differences between female and male students in some STEM disciplines, there has not been research comparing these relations across disciplines. In order to better understand these relations and how self-efficacy and academic performance are related, we analyzed undergraduate engineering students’ physics, mathematics, engineering, and chemistry grades using large-scale institutional data and their self-reported self-efficacy using a validated survey in each of these disciplines to examine gender differences in engineering students’ self-efficacy and course grades. We find discipline-dependent trends in the relationship between self-efficacy and course grades, including a self-efficacy gender gap in physics which does not close by the fourth year in engineering along with a gender gap in physics course grade that favors men despite women engineering majors outperforming men in every other discipline. The troubling trends reported here should be addressed in order to make STEM learning equitable and inclusive.

K. M. Whitcomb, Z. Y. Kalender, T. J. Nokes-Malach, C. D. Schunn, and C. Singh, Inconsistent gender differences in self-efficacy and performance for engineering majors in physics and other disciplines: A cause for alarm?, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Whitcomb.

Historically, the implementation of research-based assessments (RBAs) has been a driver of education change within physics and helped motivate adoption of interactive engagement pedagogies. Until recently, RBAs were given to students exclusively on paper and in-class; however, this approach has important drawbacks including decentralized data collection and the need to sacrifice class time. Recently, some RBAs have been moved to online platforms to address these limitations. Yet, online RBAs present new concerns such as student participation rates, test security, and students’ use of outside resources. Here, we report on a pilot study addressing these concerns. We gave two upper-division RBAs to courses at five institutions; the RBAs were hosted online and featured embedded JavaScript code which collected information on students’ behaviors (e.g., copying text, printing). With these data, we examine the prevalence of these behaviors, and their correlation with students’ scores, to determine if online and paper-based RBAs are comparable. We find that browser loss of focus is the most common online behavior while copying and printing events were rarer.We found no statistically significant correlation between any of these online behaviors and students scores. We also found that participation rates for our upper-division population went up when the RBA was given online. These results indicates that, for our upper-division population, scores on online administrations of these RBAs were comparable to in-class versions.

B. R. Wilcox and S. J. Pollock, Student behavior and test security in online conceptual assessment, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Wilcox.

There are many informal physics education programs across the country. However, the available information about these programs varies widely and can be difficult to find. Without this knowledge, it is difficult for individual informal physics efforts to be understood as part of a broader national landscape of physics learning outside of the classroom. In this paper, we describe the development of study design and implementation to map the complex landscape of informal physics in the United States. We seek to determine the best ways to collect meaningful and comprehensive data from the wide-ranging and diverse formats of informal physics programs facilitated by academic institutions. Data was obtained from initial web searches for programs, surveys and interviews of program facilitators, and site visits of program events and activities. This data was analyzed along with participants’ feedback to produce iterations of the survey and interview protocol. We report on challenges and outcomes from our attempts to collect information about programs in Michigan as a test case for the national landscape. These methods can also be used in other informal education studies to gather program information.

J. Willison, D. Izadi, I. Ward, K. A. Hinko, and C. Fracchiolla, Challenges in study design for characterizing the informal physics landscape, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Willison.

This study reports the development, validation, and implementation of a practical exam to assess science practices in an introductory physics laboratory. The exam asks students to design and conduct an investigation, perform data analysis, and write an argument. The exam was validated with advanced physics undergraduate students and undergraduate students in introductory physics lecture courses. Face validity has been established by administering the practical in 65 laboratory sections over the course of three semesters. We found that the greatest source of variability in this exam was due to instructor grading issues and discuss the implications of this result for our ongoing assessment efforts.

S. F. Wolf, M. W. Sprague, F. Li, A. Smith-Joyner, and J. P. Walker, Introductory physics laboratory practical exam development: Investigation design, explanation, and argument, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Wolf.

Cognitive Load Theory is a very influential framework in educational psychology. There have been numerous efforts recently to develop and implement a differentiated way to measure the three major independent aspects of cognitive load, namely intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load to gain insight on how students learn from educational interventions. This study adapts a validated self-reported questionnaire to measure the three aspects of cognitive load on students completing administered in-class tutorials. It verifies the feasibility of such a measurement strategy in an authentic educational context. Collected data shows the adapted questionnaire measures intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load adequately. Further polishing is needed for the items addressing germane cognitive load.

X. Wu and D. Valente, Adapting differentiated cognitive load measurement in physics classroom, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Wu.

Among all of the first-year graduate students enrolled in doctoral-granting physics departments, the percentage of female and racial minority students has remained unchanged for the past 20 years. The current graduate program admissions process can create challenges for achieving diversity goals in physics. In this paper, we will investigate how the various aspects of a prospective student’s application to a physics doctoral program affect the likelihood the applicant will be admitted. Admissions data was collected from a large, Midwestern public research university that has a decentralized admissions process and included applicants’ undergraduate GPAs and institutions, research interests, and GRE scores. Because the collected data varied in scale, we used supervised machine learning algorithms to create models that predict who was admitted into the PhD program. We find that using only the applicant’s undergraduate GPA and physics GRE score, we are able to predict with 75% accuracy who will be admitted to the program.

N. T. Young and M. D. Caballero, Using machine learning to understand physics graduate school admissions, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Young.

In previous work guided by Feminist Standpoint Theory, we explored woman participants' metaphorical expressions for success in physics. However, some participants pointed out to the researchers that the (re)presentation of their metaphors in scientific prose was lacking the intended emotional expression. In this study, a participant (A.V.S.) joined the research team to interpret her metaphor about blowing a dandelion. Following Colby & Bodily's (2018) poetic analysis, we apply Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology in the interpretation process, which highlights the relationship between interpreters, the text and the metaphor author. Our poetic analysis also applies found poetry to (re)construct the transcript in ways that provide fresh insights and emphasizes the emotions embedded in the original expressions. This collaborative poetic analysis seeks to introduce qualitative methods to the physics education research community that tend to the emotional connotations of interview data and elevate participant perspectives with fidelity.

B. Zamarripa Roman, A. Vary Schwandes, and J. J. Chini, Attending to emotion in a metaphor for success in physics with poetic analysis, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Zamarripa_Roman.

Online practice exams have been important tools for students to prepare for their actual exams in our large introductory-level physics courses at the University of Illinois. Using data collected in the past few years, we found that, although students valued these online tools, their participation in the practice exams did not correlate with their actual exam performance. We also found that, with our old practice exam delivery format, students’ performance in the practice exams might not reflect their actual abilities and could give them an "illusion of understanding".

M. Zhang, A. Engel, T. Stelzer, and J. W. Morphew, Effect of online practice exams on student performance, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Zhang.

We report on the conversion of a general education sophomore-level astronomy course from traditional lecture-based methods to a more active-learning course. The course was reworked into an active-learning environment through the addition of concept-oriented group worksheets, hands-on experimental activities, and planetarium-based lessons. We reflect on the process of this transition and report on factors that led to the adoption of active learning, factors that supported the change, and barriers faced while implementing this change. We compare and contrast these findings with other case studies of instructional change and theories of adoption. In addition, student learning pre to post was measured with the TOAST and LPCI, and qualitative data was collected in the form of 35-minute semi-structured interviews with each student to investigate student learning, attitudes, and perceptions of the course as a whole.

R. Zich, A. Sammons, and R. Rosenblatt, A revision of a traditional astronomy course through active learning, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Zich.

Relating two quantities to describe a physical system or process is at the heart of “doing physics” for novices and experts alike. In this paper, we explore the ways in which experts use covariational reasoning when solving introductory physics graphing problems. Here, graduate students are considered experts for the introductory level material, as they often take the role of instructor at large research universities. Drawing on work from Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME), we replicated a study of mathematics experts’ covariational reasoning done by Hobson and Moore with physics experts [N. L. F. Hobson and K. C. Moore, in RUME Conference Proceedings, pp. 664-672 (2017)]. We conducted think-aloud interviews with 10 physics graduate students using tasks minimally adapted from the mathematics study. Adaptations were made solely for the purpose of participant understanding of the question, and validated by preliminary interviews. Preliminary findings suggest physics experts approach covariational reasoning problems significantly differently than mathematics experts. In particular, two behaviors are identified in the reasoning of expert physicists that were not seen in the mathematics study. We introduce these two behaviors, which we call Using Compiled Relationships and Neighborhood Analysis, and articulate their differences from the behaviors articulated by Hobson and Moore. Finally, we share implications for instruction and questions for further research.

C. Zimmerman, A. Olsho, S. W. Brahmia, M. E. Loverude, A. Boudreaux, and T. I. Smith, Toward understanding and characterizing expert physics covariational reasoning, 2019 PERC Proceedings [Provo, UT, July 24-25, 2019], edited by Y. Cao, S. Wolf, and M. B. Bennett, doi:10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Zimmerman.