PERC 2021 Abstract Detail Page
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| Abstract Title: | Students’ productive strategies when generating graphical representations: An undergraduate laboratory case study |
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| Abstract: | Generating graphical representations is an essential skill for productive student engagement in physics laboratory settings. However, there is a dearth of literature highlighting the strategies students use while working to generate graphs using their own experimental data. More recently, as students more frequently engage in open-ended physics lab courses, they experience additional freedom to decide what data to include in graphs and what types of graph(s) would allow for appropriate sensemaking towards answering experimental questions. This paper presents a case study analysis of a student group's lab investigation to call attention to how students enact various productive strategies when working towards generating graphical representations in an introductory physics laboratory course. Results of this case study analysis identify three productive strategies students enact when working to generate graphs in lab settings, each of which is related to aspects of representational competency (RC) and are emblematic of experimental scientists' own strategies: 1) identifying (potential) covarying quantities; 2) choosing representative data subsets suitable for representation; and 3) iteratively reducing data and generating graphs to assess graph's viability in answering research questions. Our analysis also shows how students frequently refer back to their experimental goals when deciding what strategies to enact to generate graphs. This case study helps shed light on undergraduate students' productive strategies when generating graphs in inquiry-based laboratory courses and provides preliminary evidence that students' enacted productive strategies display similarities to those of professional experimental scientists. |
| Abstract Type: | Contributed Poster Presentation |
| Session Time: | Poster Session 1 Room C |
| Poster Number: | 1C-14 |
| Contributed Paper Record: | Contributed Paper Information |
| Contributed Paper Download: | Download Contributed Paper |
Author/Organizer Information | |
| Primary Contact: |
Jason M May University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 |
| Co-Author(s) and Co-Presenter(s) |
Lauren Barth-Cohen, University of Utah Adrian Adams, University of Utah |
