Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2018
Volume 63, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2018; Columbus, Ohio
Session H10: Current Research in Physics Education |
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Sponsoring Units: GPER FEd Chair: Paula Heron, University of Washington Room: A216 |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
H10.00001: Examining Concurrent Representation Choices Using Network Analysis Daryl McPadden, Eric Brewe As part of a larger study of students’ representation choices in Modeling Instruction (MI), this work focuses on what representations students use concurrently during problem solving. MI is a set of active learning curricula for introductory physics with explicit class time devoted to understanding, interpreting and using multiple representations as part of the model building process. In this study, 120 students from two sections of the electricity and magnetism course (MI–EM) in Spring 2016 completed a survey of 25 physics problem statements pre- and post- instruction, covering both Mechanics and EM content. Rather than asking students to solve every problem, students were asked to simply list which representations they would use. Using network analysis, we determined what representations students frequently rely on together, what representations feed into others, and what representations serve as “connectors” between the various representations. Ultimately, these results have implications for further curriculum development and refinement. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
H10.00002: Exploring relevance using the perspective of interacting systems Abhilash Nair, Vashti Sawtelle National policy recommendations and major requirements position physics reasoning and content knowledge as being essential and relevant to students earning a degree in STEM or a career in the health sciences. Meanwhile, research has documented that students typically demonstrate an unfavorable shift in attitudes toward physics and leave the physics classroom stating that physics is less connected to the world than when they started the course. Students’ unfavorable responses to items on these measures are often interpreted as students not perceiving the relevance of physics to the different facets of their lives: the real world, their everyday life, their personal interests, or their future careers. The juxtaposition of policy with students experiences positions research on relevance as a critical need in physics education research. We present new research on understanding relevance of physics by taking a systems-view to characterize connections and relationships between physics and students' lives that are not captured by current theory. Utilizing case studies of students in an introductory physics for the life-sciences course, we present how a systems-view of students’ connections to physics develops a richer account of the ways in which students may find physics relevant. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
H10.00003: Abstract Withdrawn
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Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
H10.00004: Frequent Testing to Improve Performance in Introductory Physics at the University of Illinois Tim Stelzer, Gary Gladding, Brianne Gutmann, Morten Lundsgaard Introductory physics is a roadblock for many aspiring engineers at the University of Illinois. The overall attrition rate in our introductory mechanics and E{\&}M courses is approximately 15{\%}, however that rate doubles for some under-represented populations. We introduced biweekly tests into our physics 100 preparatory course to provide students with earlier and more accurate assessments of their current understanding. This talk will describe the design of these activities, and their impact on performance. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
H10.00005: Defining, Establishing and Ensuring Fairness on Concept Inventories Rebecca Lindell, Rachel Henderson, John Stewart, Adrienne Traxler While psycometricians developed procedures for establishing fairness of assessment inventories over 20 years ago, it was only recently that establishing fairness has become of such importance that the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing released by AERA and APA (will be verifying which professional societies) now encourages that all educational and psychological tests should be reliable, valid and fair. In this talk, we seek to answer three large questions that concept inventory developers and users need to be aware of concerning fairness: 1) How do we define what it means to be a fair instrument, 2) How do we determine if an instrument is fair and 3) How de we ensure that instruments we develop are fair? We will accomplish this by reviewing the standards as well as the standard methods for establishing and ensuring fairness. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
H10.00006: Exploring the FCI using Multi-dimensional Item Response Theory John Stewart, Cabot Zabriskie, Seth DeVore Despite its wide adoption and use over the past 25 years, the factor structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) remains an active topic of research. Techniques such as exploratory factor analysis (EFA) have hinted that a multi-dimensional structure may exist, but published structures have not been reproduced. Exploratory factor analysis using multi-dimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) was used to identify a factor structure different from previously published studies. Correlation analysis showed much of the identified structure could be accounted for by correlations resulting from blocked questions, repeated questions types, and correlations through the total score on the instrument. Using the solutions of faculty and graduate students, we developed a theoretical model of the knowledge structure of the FCI. This model was then refined using MIRT. The refined model was shown to be significantly better than the original model proposed by the developers of the FCI. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
H10.00007: Synthesis Problems: How to help student to solve physics problems with multiple concepts. Andrew Heckler, Ryan Badeau, Bashira Ibrahim, Lin Ding The ability to solve physics problems that require multiple concepts from across the physics curriculum, or `synthesis' problems, is often a goal of physics instruction. Here we discuss student difficulties with synthesis problems for introductory and second year physics courses, and some ways to help students to improve their performance. Students have difficulties with synthesis problem that are different and beyond the difficulties they show with single-concept problems. We show that students have difficulties with multiple concept recognition and joint application, and these difficulties interact with the variation of the underlying mathematical difficulty of the solution path. We also show that synthesis problems that employ concepts sequentially are significantly easier than problems that must employ concepts simultaneously. Using carefully designed worked examples and guiding students through self-explanations and analogical comparisons of the structure can significantly improve performance. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2018 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
H10.00008: Introductory student interpretation of validity checks of expressions John Thompson, Abolaji Akinyemi In addition to gaining conceptual understanding and procedural or computational facility, physics students are expected to acquire skills related to evaluating solutions to problems, whether expressions or numerical results. We provided introductory physics students with figure and an expression for the speed of a block on a ramp with friction. Students were asked how they would check whether the expression obtained was reasonable. We obtained 214 written responses and 12 interview responses. Interviews both shed light on some written responses and provided some additional approaches. Our results suggest that most introductory students misinterpreted the task, proposing either to rederive the expression from the initial conditions or to compare the expression with other sources, e.g., peers or an authority. Data analysis using epistemic framing, in particular frames from Bing and Redish, shows that students are using novice-like framing, namely calculation and invoking authority, rather than expert-like framing such as physical mapping. [Preview Abstract] |
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