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UMD PERG Papers & Talks: Abstracts |
Maintained by
University of Maryland PERG
Questioning the questions: Playing with constraints in physics education research
R. Scherr
AAPT National Meeting,
Austin, Texas,
January 14, 2003
Physics education research, like any pursuit, takes place within constraints
established by community consensus. These constraints, usually invisible,
can often be detected in the research questions that we pose. For example,
asking the question, "What difficulties do students have with special
relativity?" reveals assumptions that (1) students have difficulties and (2)
we ought to study them. These assumptions have been, and continue to be,
wonderfully productive for improving instruction. Nonetheless, they can
limit our insight into more basic questions of physics education research:
What do we know about what our students think? How do we know it? What model
best describes student learning? Joe Redish delights in explicitly
questioning the questions that we pose, transforming seeming boundaries into
research opportunities and widening the range of productive inquiry. This
presentation will include examples that touch on epistemology, art education
research, special relativity, and discourse analysis.
The challenge of listening: Selective attention in clinical interveiws
R. Scherr and M. Wittmann
AAPT National Meeting,
Austin, Texas,
January 13, 2003
A researcher's interests dictate which student statements in a clinical
interview are considered to constitute data. To the extent that our research
agendas are unexamined, they may control our attention inappropriately,
limiting the effectiveness of both data collection and data interpretation.
We describe an interview in which the interviewer paid nearly exclusive
attention to the student's conceptual understanding of charge flow, thereby
missing information about her epistemological stance that might have made
the interview itself more productive. We also present our initial
collaborative analysis of the same interview, in which we judged a
particular interview excerpt to contain relatively little information, and
show that our judgment reveals more about our implicit research agenda than
about the quality of the interview data itself. The data presented in this
talk is analyzed from two other perspectives in the other two talks in this
session.
Epistemology mediating conceptual knowledge: Constraints on data accessible from interviews
M. Wittmann and R. Scherr
AAPT National Meeting,
Austin, Texas,
January 13, 2003
A student's epistemological stance (be it knowledge as memorized
information, knowledge from authority, or knowledge as invented stuff) may
constrain that student from reasoning in productive ways while also shaping
the inferences a researcher can make about how that student reasons about a
particular phenomenon. We present an example of an individual student
interview on charge flow in wires in which the student's epistemological
stance appears to strongly affect the results of the interview. In the first
part of the interview, the student's use of memorized knowledge prevents the
researcher from learning whether she is capable of any detailed reasoning
about current. In the second part of the interview, her use of constructed
knowledge provides the researcher with a picture of her reasoning about the
physical mechanisms of charge flow. The interview discussed in this talk is
analyzed from two other perspectives in the other talks in this session.
The negotiation of relevance: Student inference in clinical interviews
N. Gillespie, M. Wittmann, and R. Scherr
AAPT National Meeting,
Austin, Texas,
January 13, 2003
In this talk, we present results from a linguistic analysis of the interview
discussed in the other two talks of this session. The goal of the interview
(i.e., investigating the subject's understanding of current flow) required
that the interviewer state his questions carefully in order to avoid
excessively influencing the subject's responses. This inherent implicitness
in the interviewer's questions puts the interviewee in the position of
making inferences about what the questions are "really" about. That is, she
must do some work to decide what the relevant meaning of the question is.
Relevance theory1 accounts for how participants in a conversation understand
that which is implied, rather than explicitly stated. In particular, the
theory addresses the role of context in shaping relevance and provides a
useful starting point for examining the shifts in the types of responses
given by the student in this interview.
Epistemological considerations in analogical modeling labs
R. Scherr, A. Elby, and S. Snowman
AAPT Summer National Meeting,
Boise, Idaho,
August 5, 2002
The Physics Education Research Group is engaged in an ongoing effort to bring epistemological considerations to a large algebra-based introductory course. This effort has included the design of "modeling laboratories," in which students are guided not only to develop working models of physical phenomena, but also to see the modeling process as productive. In implementing these laboratories, we see students showing impressive abilities for inventing models, but we have had difficulty getting them to apply the models they invent with consistency.
The Multi-Layered Nature of Student Difficulties: An Example from Special Relativity
R.E. Scherr, S. Vokos, P.S. Shaffer, and L.C. McDermott
AAPT Summer National Meeting,
August 2000,
Guelph, Ontario
Ongoing investigations by the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington have demonstrated that student difficulties with special relativity are often multilayered. We have identified certain difficulties with reference frames, relative motion, and measurement procedures, as well as with the consequences of Einstein's postulates, that are interrelated and interdependent. We will present an example of a series of student interviews that reveal successive layers of student difficulties with basic topics in special relativity.
Identifying Student Difficulties with Measurement in Special Relativity
R.E. Scherr, S. Vokos, P.S. Shaffer, and L.C. McDermott
AAPT Summer National Meeting,
August 1999,
San Antonio, Texas
The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington has been investigating student understanding of special relativity at the introductory, advanced undergraduate, and graduate levels. In this ongoing research project, we have found that many student difficulties with special relativity reflect difficulties with basic measurement procedures. Results from qualitative and quantitative written questions and individual student interviews will be presented.
Applying The Results Of Research To Curriculum Development In Galilean And Special Relativity
R.E. Scherr, S. Vokos, P.S. Shaffer, and L.C. McDermott
APS Spring Regional Meeting,
May 1999,
Eugene, Oregon
For many years, the Physics Education Group has been conducting research and applying the results to curriculum development. Recently we have expanded our investigation to include topics common to introductory university physics courses and advanced high school physics courses, such as Galilean and special relativity. We will present examples of the contributions of this research to the development of tutorials to supplement undergraduate courses as well as to Physics by Inquiry, an in-depth, laboratory-based curriculum for the preparation of precollege teachers.
Identifying and Addressing Student Difficulties with Basic Concepts in Galilean and Special Relativity: Length and Length Contraction
R.E. Scherr, A. Boudreaux, S. Vokos, and L.C. McDermott
APS Centennial Meeting,
March 1999,
Atlanta, Georgia
The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington has been investigating student understanding of Galilean and special relativity. In this ongoing research project, we have begun to identify specific conceptual and reasoning difficulties that students have with measurements of length and applications of length contraction. Results will be presented from individual student interviews, pretests, and examination questions at the introductory, advanced undergraduate, and graduate levels.
Identifying and Addressing Student Difficulties in Galilean and Special Relativity
R.E. Scherr, A. Boudreaux, S. Vokos, and L.C. McDermott
AAPT Summer National Meeting,
August 1998,
Lincoln, Nebraska
The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington has been examining student understanding of relativity. Findings from interviews and written questions indicate that some difficulties with concepts in special relativity also arise in the context of Galilean relativity. Results from this research with students in introductory and advanced courses have guided the development of curriculum to address specific difficulties. Examples will be presented in the context of the synchronization of clocks and the relative simultaneity of events.
Com8ments and questions may be directed to
E. F. Redish
Last modified 7 November 2001