Advising guidelines put together at the University of Arkansas as the undergraduate program grew and developed. Presented at the 2012 SPIN-UP conference in Austin and the PhysTEC leadership meeting at the AAPT summer meeting in Edmonton.

It is well documented that traditional introductory physics courses often fail to teach our students the basics. Indeed, these same courses often teach students things we don't want. Beyond the usual focus on pure content, there are extensive sets of attitudes and beliefs about science that we teach our students. Some of these messages are beneficial (e.g., that science is a coherent representation of the world) while others are detrimental (e.g., the notion that women cannot be strong physicists). While decades of physics education research have reformed classroom practices to improve conceptual mastery, these same practices often fail to improve student attitudes and beliefs about learning physics. This workshop presentation introduces the development and structure of a new instrument designed to probe students' beliefs about science and learning science, the Colorado Learning About Science Survey (CLASS). In addition to exploring the various dimensions of student beliefs that this instrument probes, it examines correlations between student beliefs and class performance, students' understanding of expert beliefs, and gender differences. It also covers issues of class environments and practices that support productive beliefs.

This 33-question research-based multiple-choice survey is designed to evaluate students' attitudes and approaches towards physics problem solving. The survey is based on investigations of responses from introductory physics students, graduate students, and faculty members. It expands upon the Attitudes towards Problem Solving survey (Marx and Cummings, 2007) to also consider approaches to problem solving and different levels of problem solving expertise. Statistical results have shown the survey to be reliable and valid. A summary of the construction and analysis of the survey is available in A. J. Mason and C. Singh, "Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving", PRST-PER, 6 (2), 020124 (2010). This survey is free for use by instructors in their classroom. The expert-like responses to the survey are enclosed.

This presentation at the 2006 PTEC conference emphasizes the need for teachers to understand content-specific pedagogical needs of there students. Topics include physics-specific issues such as pre-conceptions, knowledge construction, and student assessment. The teacher preparation program at Rutgers University is described.

This paper, presented at the 2002 Physics Education Research Conference, describes the process of creating diagnostic assessments to assist teachers in formatively assessing their students. The process begins with the learning targets and ends with the creation of web-delivered sets of questions designed to diagnose students' facets of thinking. Early analysis from our first year of implementation indicates students are reading and thinking about the questions in their assignment. The researchers found that that, for certain topics, students' facets of thinking are highly context dependent.

When education researchers describe newly developed curricular materials, they typically concentrate on the research base behind their design, and the efficacy of the final products, but do not highlight the initial stages of creating the actual materials. With the aim of providing useful information for faculty engaged in similar projects, we describe here our development of a set of in-class tutorials for advanced undergraduate electrodynamics students, and discuss factors that influenced their initial design and refinement. Among the obstacles to be overcome was the investigation of student difficulties within the short time frame of our project, and devising ways for students to engage in meaningful activities on advanced-level topics within a single 50-minute class period. We argue for a process that leverages faculty experience and classroom observations, and present several guidelines for tutorial development and implementation in upper-division physics classrooms.

Success in introductory college physics requires students to acquire not only the content knowledge of physics, but also the skills to solve problems using this knowledge. At the University of Minnesota, attempts are being made to teach problem solving successfully. One such attempt has an instructor explicitly teaching a strategy that emphasizes the qualitative analysis of a problem before the manipulation of equations. This class provides a unique case for examining the development of problem-solving skills. This interpretive case study will examine the development of the problem solving ability of students in two college introductory physics courses where cooperative-group problem solving was used. In one class there was an explicit problem-solving strategy used. In the other class, no additional attempt was made to teach problem solving. In general, the students in the course who were taught an explicit problem-solving strategy tended to develop their skills faster, but did not score any higher than the students in the more traditionally taught course by the end of the year. However, the students in the explicit problem-solving course consistently performed better on the multiple choice concept tests given during the year.

The Concise Data Processing Assessment (CDPA) was developed to probe student abilities related to the nature of measurement and uncertainty and to handling data. The diagnostic is a ten question, multiple-choice test that can be used as both a pre-test and post-test. A key component of the development process was interviews with students, which were used to both uncover common modes of student thinking and validate item wording. To evaluate the reliability and discriminatory power of this diagnostic, we performed statistical tests focusing on both item analysis (item difficulty index, item discrimination index, and point-biserial coefficient) and on the entire test (test reliability and Ferguson’s delta). Scores on the CDPA range from chance (for novices) to about 80% (for experts), indicating that it possesses good dynamic range. Overall, the results indicate that the CDPA is a reliable assessment tool for measuring targeted abilities in undergraduate physics students.

In this chapter, I introduce the notion of student epistemologies and expectations, their views about what counts as knowledge and learning in a given physics class and in physics more generally. I then review some of the ways in which researchers have studied these constructs and make suggestions about getting started on your own research. A major theme is that important theoretical questions about the cognitive structures and processes underlying student epistemologies — and how best to study them — are not yet settled. Researchers therefore need to try to uncover and articulate the theoretical assumptions implicit in their research methods.

The notion of students’ conceptual coherence is introduced in this thesis to clarify what is meant by conceptual understanding. Students’ conceptual coherence is divided into three aspects: contextual, representational, and conceptual framework coherence. The abilities required by the conceptual coherence are discussed as well as ways of evaluating it in the case of the force concept. A new research-based instructional approach to foster students’ conceptual coherence of the force concept and related kinematics is introduced and validated: it brings together interactive-engagement teaching methods and the research on students' difficulties with the target domain.

The physics department at the University of Colorado, Boulder has recently begun the transformation of its Classical Mechanics/Math Methods course, a middle-division course taken primarily by sophomore physics majors. We discuss the process of course transformation, including holding faculty meetings to create consensus learning goals and a conceptual diagnostic, and adopting, adapting and creating course materials and structures. We also report preliminary observations of student learning gains, student attitudes towards the transformation, and common student difficulties with the course material. We also discuss ongoing plans for the course transformation.

This workshop presentation covers the issues of student learning disabilities and the accommodations that students with these disabilities will require. Types of learning disabilities, ways to identify them, and their impact specifically in physics classes are covered. Case studies and questions for discussion are also presented.

We develop an Easy Java Simulation (EJS) model for students to experience the physics of idealized one-dimensional collision carts. The physics model is described and simulated by both continuous dynamics and discrete transition during collision. In designing the simulations, we discuss briefly three pedagogical considerations namely (1) a consistent simulation world view with a pen and paper representation, (2) a data table, scientific graphs and symbolic mathematical representations for ease of data collection and multiple representational visualizations and (3) a game for simple concept testing that can further support learning. We also suggest using a physical world setup augmented by simulation by highlighting three advantages of real collision carts equipment such as a tacit 3D experience, random errors in measurement and the conceptual significance of conservation of momentum applied to just before and after collision. General feedback from the students has been relatively positive, and we hope teachers will find the simulation useful in their own classes.

An overview of the research on solving tasks commonly used as “problems” in introductory physics courses is presented as an introduction to this domain of physics education research. This overview, which is not intended to be exhaustive, describes many aspects of the complex topic of investigating human problem solving to help identify issues of potential interest to researchers and instructors. The article identifies links between research in physics education and more general research on problem solving, and provides useful references. The article ends with a dozen open questions which the author believes deserve answers.

Self-efficacy, or a person's situation-specific belief that s/he can succeed in a given task, has been successful in a variety of educational studies for predicting behaviors such as perseverance and success (grades), and for understanding which behaviors are attempted or avoided. The focus of this study was to examine if classroom factors such as teaching strategies and classroom climate contribute to students' physics self-efficacy. 121 undergraduates in first semester, calculus-based introductory physics courses completed surveys assessing course experiences, self-efficacy and other outcome variables, and demographic information. Students in sections including a mix of teaching strategies did significantly better than students in the traditional section on outcome variables including self-efficacy. When individual strategies were examined, the strongest relationships were found between cooperative learning strategies and all sources of self-efficacy, and between climate variables and all sources of efficacy.

This web page contains links to published research articles relating to the Physics Education Technology Project (PhET). This project provides technology-based resources and information for physics education, most notably, simulations on a wide range of topics including Newton's Laws, electricity, waves, light, and quantum physics. The simulations are developed in conjunction with careful research to enhance their effectiveness as learning tools.

This item is a 2008 article in Science magazine that highlights research done by the Physics Education Technology Project on how students use interactive simulations to meet their learning needs. The article discusses research by the PhET project on the design and use of simulations in a variety of educational settings. Results indicate that concept mastery is measurably improved when students explore simulations in addition to traditional labs. In addition, use of simulations was correlated with higher student motivation and active involvement in the learning process. The PhET project provides technology-based resources and information for physics education, most notably, simulations on a wide range of topics. The simulations are developed in conjunction with careful research to enhance their effectiveness as learning tools.

This article contains information on researchers' efforts to find a simple mathematical model for classroom learning. The model used is based on the model used for magnetic alignments of atoms in metals. The article discusses some compliments and criticisms of the model.

For many students, learning can be accomplished most effectively through social interaction with peers, and there have been many successes in using a group environment to improve learning in a variety of classroom settings. What is not well understood, however, are the dynamics of student groups, specifically how the students collectively apprehend the subject matter and share the mental workload. This research examines recent developments of theoretical tools for describing the cognitive states of individual students: associational patterns such as epistemic games and cultural structures such as epistemological framing. Observing small group interaction in authentic classroom situations (labs, tutorials, problem solving) suggests that these tools could be effective in describing these interactions. There are many reasons why group work may run into difficulties, such as a lack or imbalance of knowledge, an inappropriate mix of learning styles, or a destructive power arrangement. This research explores whether or not inconsistent epistemological framing among group members can also be a cause of group failure. Case studies of group interaction in the laboratory reveal evidence of successful groups employing common framing, and unsuccessful groups failing from lack of a shared frame.

This article discusses the research into three questions aimed at improving instruction: 1. What is involved in understanding physics? 2. What do students bring to physics classes? 3. How do they respond to what they are taught? The authors discuss the physics education research community's findings with emphasis on two elements students need to master in order to become expert solvers of complex problems: concepts and appropriate cognitive attitudes.