Electronics lab instructors’ approaches to troubleshooting instruction

Self Cite

Laboratory courses represent a unique and potentially important component of the undergraduate physics curriculum, which can be designed to allow students to authentically engage with the process of experimental physics. Among other possible benefits, participation in these courses throughout the undergraduate physics curriculum presents an opportunity to develop students' understanding of the nature and importance of experimental physics within the discipline as a whole. Here, we present and compare both a longitudinal and pseudo-longitudinal analysis of students' responses to a research-based assessment targeting students' views about experimental physics -the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS) -across multiple, required lab courses at a single institution. We find that, while pseudo-longitudinal averages showed increases in students' E-CLASS scores in each consecutive course, analysis of longitudinal data indicates that this increase was not driven by a cumulative impact of laboratory instruction. Rather, the increase was driven by a selection effect in which students who persisted into higher-level lab courses already had more expert-like beliefs, attitudes, and expectations than their peers when they started the lower-level courses.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement or selection? A longitudinal analysis of students’ views about experimental physics in their lab courses

Wilcox

Lewandowski

2017

Self Cite

“…Most instructors described instances of students enacting revisions as part of the troubleshooting process [9]. We have previously shown that instructors think troubleshooting is extremely important [36] and that a major goal of electronics is for students to build circuits that work [37]. In addition, instructors believe that since "nothing works the first time" [38] troubleshooting and revisions are a required part of working with electronics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using think-aloud interviews to characterize model-based reasoning in electronics for a laboratory course assessment

Rios

Pollard

Dounas-Frazer

et al. 2019

Self Cite

Models of physical systems are used to explain and predict experimental results and observations. The Modeling Framework for Experimental Physics describes the process by which physicists revise their models to account for the newly acquired observations, or change their apparatus to better represent their models when they encounter discrepancies between actual and expected behavior of a system. While modeling is a nationally recognized learning outcome for undergraduate physics lab courses, no assessments of students' model-based reasoning exist for upper-division labs. As part of a larger effort to create two assessments of students' modeling abilities, we used the Modeling Framework to develop and code think-aloud problem-solving activities centered on investigating an inverting amplifier circuit. This study is the second phase of a multiphase assessment instrument development process. Here, we focus on characterizing the range of modeling pathways students employ while interpreting the output signal of a circuit functioning far outside its recommended operation range. We end by discussing four outcomes of this work: (1) Students engaged in all modeling subtasks, and they spent the most time making measurements, making comparisons, and enacting revisions; (2) Each subtask occurred in close temporal proximity to all over subtasks; (3) Sometimes, students propose causes that do not follow logically from observed discrepancies; (4) Similarly, students often rely on their experiential knowledge and enact revisions that do not follow logically from articulated proposed causes.

“…Emotions that might, on their face, seem negative, can ultimately lead to positive outcomes. For instance, "student frustration and struggle" are "necessary features of learning environments that promote ownership" (Dounas-Frazer & Lewandowski, 2017…”

Section: Emotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, in parallel to studies on identity, one could take a lens of examining classroom activity structures that may make some responses to challenge more or less available to students in certain moments (Shah, 2013;Carlone et al, 2014;Hand & Gresalfi, 2015). Given physics education research demonstrating that many physics faculty express ideas around physics ability as innate (Zwickl et al, 2014;Dounas-Frazer & Lewandowski, 2017;Scherr et al, 2017), examining the classroom and departmental environments that faculty set up should be a focus of study. For instance, Johnson et al (2017) have suggested that faculty messaging that aligns with growth mindset is one aspect of a departmental culture that is supportive of women of color.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring mindset’s applicability to students’ experiences with challenge in transformed college physics courses

Little

Humphrey

Green

et al. 2019

The mindset literature is a longstanding area of psychological research focused on beliefs about intelligence, response to challenge, and goals for learning (Dweck, 2000). However, the mindset literature's applicability to the context of college physics has not been widely studied. In this paper we narrow our focus toward students' descriptions of their responses to challenge in college physics. We ask the research questions, "can we see responses to challenge in college physics that resemble that of the mindset literature?" and "how do students express evidence of challenge and to what extent is such evidence reflective of challenges found in the mindset literature?" To answer these questions, we developed a novel coding scheme for interview dialogue around college physics challenge and students' responses to it. In this paper we present the development process of our coding scheme. We find that it is possible to see student descriptions of challenge that resemble the mindset literature's characterizations. However, college physics challenges are frequently different than those studied in the mindset literature. We show that, in the landscape of college physics challenges, mindset beliefs cannot always be considered to be the dominant factor in how students respond to challenge. Broadly, our coding scheme helps the field move beyond broad Likert-scale survey measures of students' mindset beliefs.