No abstract

We discuss a study in a first year college introductory physics course for physical science and engineering majors that shows that women, on average, feel less recognized by their physics instructors than men as students who can excel in physics. We also discuss how this lack of perceived positive recognition pertaining to physics can adversely affect their self-efficacy and performance in the course. We recommend that physics instructors not be parsimonious in their praise of students and make a conscious effort to positively recognize their students for their effort and progress whenever an opportunity arises. Interviews with female students suggest that instructors should be careful not to give unintended messages to students, e.g., by praising some students for brilliance or intelligence as opposed to their effort because praising a student for brilliance can convey to other students that they do not have what is required to excel in physics. Interviews also suggest that when students ask instructors for help on physics problems, if instructors inadvertently label those problems as "easy", "trivial" or "obvious", it can also make students feel disparaged. The perception of being belittled by these kinds of unintended comments by instructors as well as a lack of positive recognition for good effort and progress have the potential to most adversely impact students from underrepresented groups including women.

Research-validated clicker questions as instructional tools for formative assessment are relatively easy to implement and can provide effective scaffolding when developed and implemented in a sequence. We present findings from the implementation of a research-validated Clicker Question Sequence (CQS) on student understanding of the time-development of two-state quantum systems. This study was conducted in an advanced undergraduate quantum mechanics course for two consecutive years in virtual and in-person classes. The effectiveness of the CQS discussed here in both modes of instruction was determined by evaluating students’ performance after traditional lecture-based instruction and comparing it to their performance after engaging with the CQS.

No abstract

In this study, we adapted a prior identity framework to investigate how students' perception of the inclusiveness of the learning environment (including sense of belonging, peer interaction and perceived recognition) in an introductory physics course predicts their course grades and physics motivational beliefs (including self-efficacy, interest and identity) at the end of this course. We found signatures of inequitable and non-inclusive learning environment in that female students' mean scores for sense of belonging, peer interaction and perceived recognition were all lower than male students' in the course. In addition, we found that female students had lower average course grades than male students. Using structural equation modeling, we found that students' perception of the inclusiveness of the learning environment predicts their self-efficacy, interest, identity and grades at the end of the course even after controlling for students' gender, motivational beliefs and grades in a previous course as well as their high school GPA and SAT math scores. In particular, students' perceived recognition, e.g., by instructors and teaching assistants, played a major role in predicting students' physics identity, and students' sense of belonging in physics played an important role in explaining the change in students' physics self-efficacy. Our findings can be helpful for creating an inclusive and equitable learning environment in which all students can excel.