The typical introductory physics lecture requires students to consolidate and assimilate a large quantity of complex information that is often novel to them. This can leave students overwhelmed, slow the pace of their learning, and lower their motivation. We find that carefully designed multimedia summaries in the form of one-minute videos and short text summaries can significantly increase students’ understanding of the material as well as their ability to organize information into a useful mental framework, as measured by their performances on a concept mapping exercise and a conceptual test of learning. Notably, we show that these improvements can be achieved with negligible increase in overall time students spend on the course material each week. We discuss reasons why these short postlecture summaries helped students learn more, namely, that (i) they likely increased students’ ability to chunk and organize information while minimizing the extraneous cognitive load imposed by the materials, and (ii) they likely improved students’ ability to consolidate and transfer knowledge through the use of contrasting cases. We provide a set of detailed recommendations that instructors can use to develop effective postlecture multimedia summaries. We suggest that one of the most important and impactful recommendations is incorporating student thinking in the design of these types of summaries informed by the input of qualified former students or teaching assistants with significant experience interacting with students in the course.

We studied the impact of metacognitive reflections on recently-completed work as a way to improve the retention of newly learned problem-solving techniques. Students video recorded themselves talking through problems immediately after finishing them, completed ongoing problem-solving strategy maps or problem-sorting exercises, and filled out detailed exam wrappers. We assessed students’ problem-solving skillfulness using a combination of validated instruments and final exam questions scored using a rubric that targets problem-solving best practices. We found a small but significant difference between the rubric score distributions for the control and treatment groups. However, a multiple ordered logistic regression using treatment and Force Concept Inventory (FCI) pretest score as predictors showed that this difference is better explained by the latter. The surprising impact of conceptual preparation on problem-solving skill suggests two things: the importance of remediation for students with insufficient conceptual understanding and the need to consider problem-solving interventions in the context of students’ conceptual knowledge base.

The structure of many science programs at the college level assumes that students are able to draw on and integrate ideas from multiple disciplinary contexts. However, most assessment tools focus on learning in the context of a single discipline. We describe the development and validation of an instrument to measure how well students are able to combine energy ideas from different disciplines into a coherent understanding of a phenomenon. The final version of the instrument consists of a pair of multiple-choice online assessments, along with a metric calculated from the assessment scores: the cross disciplinary learning index (CDLI). The items on both assessments were found to have satisfactory psychometric properties for our sample. Furthermore, CDLI scores correlated with other relevant factors such as amount of science coursework. The CDLI is an easy-to-use metric that could be a useful component of program-level assessment for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. Furthermore, the broader measurement approach, involving a pair of assessments set in different disciplinary contexts, provides a model for assessing cross-disciplinary learning that could be utilized for other cross-cutting scientific concepts.

Both in physics education and in science education more generally concerns exist that formal K-12 education structures limit and, in some cases, diminish students’ interest and agency in these fields. Many stakeholders have turned to informal learning experiences as a means to inspire young people to pursue continual learning in these fields in ways that foster creativity and self-determination. While research exists on the effect of these informal science experiences on students’ science identities and broader science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) identities, little is known about how specific informal science education experiences relate to students’ physics identity—a construct strongly associated with physics career choice. The current study contributes to the literature by examining the effect of several informal science experiences on students’ physics identity. Drawing on data from a national survey administered to students in required English courses at 27 colleges and universities across the US ($N=15847$), we used multiple regression to test the relationship between informal science experiences in various topical areas at two educational levels (K-8 and 9–12) and students’ physics identity, while controlling for science background and demographics. The results reveal positive effects for stereotypic informal experiences in physical science (e.g., tinkering, competitions) as well as for talking science with friends or family. In addition, there were negative relationships between biology-related experiences (at both levels) and physics identity. Group comparisons further revealed that female students were more likely to report participating in biology-related activities and less likely to report participating in tinkering, STEM competitions, and talking science with friends or family. Students who identified themselves as Black or Hispanic were also less likely than those of other racial or ethnic groups to report tinkering and talking science with friends or family. We use this evidence to build the case that informal learning experiences in physics should move beyond stereotypic activities, increase accessibility, facilitate discourse with family or friends, and focus on interdisciplinary experiences that better engage young participants with a wide range of interests that are connected to physics.

Physics education research is replete with observations and proposed explanations for gender disparities in physics. In this work, we operationalize a definition for equity as everyone has access to the learning environment and everyone’s voice is heard (adapted from previous definitions). We review prior research that observed inequities in physics lab group work and evaluate the degree to which these inequities may arise from student preferences. Regarding access to the learning environment, we find that men and women have similar preferences for experimentation roles, though women generally preferred sharing, rather than dividing or rotating, roles. Regarding everyone’s voice being heard, we find that students prefer when no single student takes charge, though many preferred that students take turns leading the group, with no significant differences between men’s and women’s preferences. We also find no significant differences in men’s and women’s preferences for the gender composition of their group. We conclude that the observed inequities are not explained by student preference and explore implications for instruction and future research.

The proliferation of remote laboratory instruction increased substantially during the recent global pandemic. Many physics departments implemented this rapid transition without the previous experience, time, and deliberation to optimize learning experiences for students. The present quasi-experimental, nonequivalent group design study examined social connections and communities of practice in both in-person and remote undergraduate physics laboratories during the Fall 2020 academic semester. A social networking and communities of practice theoretical framework guided the study design and methodology. Study participants ($N=697$) included in-person and remote undergraduate students in introductory physics laboratories at a research university in the Northeastern United States. A survey instrument was designed to measure students’ perspectives relating to their social connectedness with peers and instructors as well as their physics laboratory self-efficacy. Survey factor analysis identified subdimensions related to student-student social learning perspectives, student-instructor social learning perspectives, and physics laboratory self-efficacy. Analysis of variance indicated remote students experienced weaker levels of engagement with instructors and peers than in-person students, and remote students who connected with one another experienced more social engagement than remote students who did not. Remote students who connected with one another reported having a lower physics laboratory self-efficacy than their in-person counterparts. Isolated remote students did not show a statistical difference in their physics laboratory self-efficacy from their remote-connecting nor their in-person counterparts. Correlations between factors were tested, with instructor interactions most closely related to self-efficacy formation. Results suggest that remote laboratories, which have proliferated extensively during the recent pandemic, may need formalized mechanisms and incentives to promote social interactions and foster communities of practice among peers. This is also the case for student-instructor interactions, which are often diminished in the online platform and may not be socially situated within the larger class community. Sources of self-efficacy, such as creating opportunities for vicarious learning, may also inform ways these changes can be made. Implications for policy and practice of remote physics laboratory instruction are discussed.

Diagrams are ubiquitous in physics, especially in physics education and physics problem solving. Physics problem solvers may generate diagrams to orient to a scenario, to organize information, to directly obtain an answer, or as a tool of communication. In this study, we asked 19 undergraduate and graduate physics majors to answer 18 multiple-choice (MC) physics questions and then complete six diagramming tasks of situations similar to six of the MC problems: the MC problems contained no prompting regarding diagrams, while the diagramming tasks explicitly asked participants to carefully generate diagrams. This prompting placed participants in one of two epistemic frames, problem solving or communicating, which allowed us to explore which elements and features the students include (or not) in diagrams generated when students are working within these two frames. By comparing students’ spontaneously generated diagrams to their prompted diagrams, we found differences in size, accuracy, and amount of detail in unprompted problem-solving diagrams and prompted communicating diagrams. We also looked at correlations between the presence and features of unprompted diagrams with participants’ answer choice. Looking at the different cohorts (e.g., lower-division undergraduate and graduate students), we found that the differences in diagramming between cohorts were generally smaller than the differences within a cohort. We also explore implications for teaching and research.

A new diagnostic instrument, the Conceptual Survey on Wave Optics (CSWO), was developed and validated on 224 high school students (aged 18–19 years) in Croatia. The process of test construction, which included the testing of 61 items on the total of 712 students is presented. The final version of the test consists of 26 multiple-choice items which cover basic conceptual aspects of interference, diffraction, and polarization of light at the high school level. The construction of the test and the evaluation of its functioning and validity were conducted using the Rasch model. The test construct was based on the increasing levels of cognitive complexity in accordance with the Webb’s depth of knowledge model. The theoretical construct was empirically confirmed, and it suggests that the explanations of wave optics phenomena and their application to real-life situations are the most difficult aspects of high school students’ understanding of wave optics. The results of the Rasch analysis suggest that the CSWO is a reliable diagnostic instrument suitable for administration as a post-test to high school students after instruction on wave optics and possibly also for university level students in some introductory physics courses.

Understanding social interactions among students comprises a rich area of physics education research. Here we focus on the social interactions in introductory physics laboratories (labs). Most existing research in such contexts focuses on within-group social dynamics, however, we argue that interactions between different lab groups are just as valuable, especially in nontraditional (reformed) labs where students have more control over the experimental designs. Using video recordings of lab sessions and social network analysis methods, we examined whether and for how long groups interact with each other, comparing across three offerings of an introductory mechanics course. We observed significant variability in the interactions across lab sessions and no clear pattern in how strongly lab groups were connected in the networks between the different courses. More prolonged intergroup interactions, however, occurred in three of the four reformed lab sections, as compared to a traditional lab section and a reformed lab section that took place in the evening. We also developed a group-level social role classification scheme based on groups’ interaction patterns, identifying four roles: noninteractors, information seekers, responders, and mutual interactors. We found that groups in the traditional lab section disproportionately acted as noninteractors, indicating that many groups in this lab did not engage in intergroup interactions at all. In contrast, groups in reformed lab sections took on the remaining three roles more frequently. We also found possible relationships between the distributions of the social roles within each type of lab by the groups’ gender compositions. All-male groups took on interactive roles more often than all-female and mixed-gender groups in the reformed lab sections, but not in the traditional lab. Results indicate that the amount of time students spend on intergroup interactions may depend on the lab curriculum itself, the time of day of the section, and/or the student population of the section. Still, instructors can encourage collaboration between lab groups through direct prompts, but such prompts need to be repeated throughout the semester.

In the summer of 2020, due to COVID-19, institutions either canceled or remotely hosted their research experience for undergraduates (REU) programs. We carried out a 16-week longitudinal study examining the impact of these fully remote research experiences on mentees’ psychosocial gains (e.g., identity). We studied the phenomenon of a remote research experience from the standpoint of the mentees ($N=10$) and their mentors ($N=8$), who were each interviewed seven and three times, respectively (94 total interviews). All mentees reported that this experience was highly beneficial through different factors such as other recognition and self-recognition, which led to their development of a sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and identity despite working remotely. Then, we synthesize these results with prior literature and develop a framework showing how different experiences and constructs affect the physics and researcher identity development. Gaining a greater understanding regarding factors leading to the growth of psychosocial gains may help REU coordinators and REU mentors to redesign their undergraduate research program and provide the support that their mentees’ need to have a positive undergraduate research experience.

This paper describes a comprehensive review of 31 quasi or experimental research studies from the past decade on the effect of PhET simulations on students’ conceptual understanding of physics. Two questions guided the review: (i) To what extent do PhET simulations enhance students’ conceptual understanding of physics? (ii) What are the best ways to use PhET simulations to enhance conceptual understanding of physics? The reviewed literature provides robust evidence that PhET simulations can significantly enhance students’ conceptual understanding of physics and can be integrated into many active learning instructional environments. The paper also points out gaps and directions of future research and suggests that educators integrate PhET simulations in physics to create more meaningful learning.

We present a model for sharing quantitative data in the field of physics education research and use it to present a newly available dataset as an example. This model is in line with calls from across physics and science more generally to democratize data and results through open access. The model includes suggestions for data collection, creation of a data schema, and data sharing. It attends to the specific needs of the physics education research community, such as anonymization of human subjects data. As an example of this model, we use the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS) dataset, which includes over 70 000 responses to the E-CLASS survey. These data cover 133 institutions, 599 unique courses, and 204 instructors, and was collected between 2016 and 2019. These data are made available at the time of publication and can be used freely, without the need of any institutional review board approval.

Student grades and motivational outcomes in introductory physics courses can influence their retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and future career aspirations. We surveyed students in mandatory large introductory level algebra-based physics courses for bioscience majors at a large research university. The study investigates how students’ perception of their learning environment, including their sense of belonging, peer interactions, and perceived recognition by instructors, predicts male and female students’ grade, self-efficacy, interest, and identity at the end of physics 2, controlling for their high school GPA and SAT math scores. We find that although women outnumbered men in these courses, women had worse outcomes than men. Moreover, using structural equation modeling, we find that all factors in students’ perception of their learning environment are essential to predicting their self-efficacy, interest, grade, and identity at the end of physics 2. The findings pertaining to gender differences call into question equity in learning in these physics courses and how the perception of the learning environment predicts the outcomes and can be useful for creating an equitable and inclusive learning environment to help all students excel in these algebra-based physics courses.

In quantum mechanics courses, students are often asked to solve bound and scattering state problems. The use of an ordinary differential equation is a standard technique to solve these questions. Here, we investigated students’ problem-solving processes for two typical problems of a single particle in one spatial dimension: a bound state problem and a scattering state problem. We analyzed students’ solutions to written exams and utilized think-aloud interviews using a framework that includes four stages: activation, construction, execution, and reflection. We found that the students encountered various difficulties when they solved the ordinary differential equations to obtain the properties of bound or scattering states. Common difficulties included recognizing when the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is the appropriate model; selecting a range of the energy constants that satisfies the bound or scattering state; justifying when to use a superposition form of the wave functions; grasping the physical definition of scattering coefficients; and using an effective checking method for their solutions. In addition, we observed qualitatively different difficulties in students’ solutions to the two problems and discussed possible explanations for the underlying reasoning mechanisms that cause these difficulties. Finally, we discussed the potential implications of our findings for instruction.

As part of ongoing research on student thinking about quantum mechanical concepts and formalism, we explored how students defined and made sense of expectation values. Previous research has focused on student difficulties when defining the expectation value for a generic operator and found that students conflate other quantum mechanical ideas with expectation values. In this study, we analyzed survey data collected from two universities over a number of years and interviews carried out at two points during the semester. With a focus on underlying student thinking, we used a concept image perspective to categorize students’ concept definitions of the expectation values in the context of measuring spin in a spin-$1/2$ system and in the contexts of measuring energy and position for a particle in an infinite square well potential. Analysis of interview data showed that students invoke many different ideas when explaining their reasoning. The two most common definitions for the expectation value were weighted average and most probable value. In interviews, students’ definitions were influenced by whether the problem context involves continuous or discrete observables.

Gender inequities continue to persist within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, even at the undergraduate level. This has led researchers to further examine potential factors that contribute to retention and persistence of undergraduates in STEM fields. In this study using classroom observations, we examined gender equity in individual verbal participation in large introductory physics courses, and compared our results to observations in introductory courses in other STEM disciplines. We found that in introductory physics courses, men had disproportionately higher rates of individual verbal participation than women. Observation-level analysis confirmed that three-quarters (76.2%) of the physics observations had descriptively higher than expected participation by men and almost a quarter of observations (23.8%) were statistically significant for a gender imbalance in individual verbal participation. We then sought to determine if any pedagogical strategies or student behaviors correlated with a more equitable classroom to better understand what drives gender inequity in participation, and found three classroom behaviors—an increasing amount of instructor questions, group responses from students, and student questions—correspond with a more gender equitable classroom. Student-level survey data, which mirrors the observation data, also show that self-reported levels of individual participation have small, significant correlations with both course-level belonging and inclusivity. The introductory physics results were mostly replicated in the other STEM disciplines, despite their differences in course structure. The patterns of individual participation were still disproportionately higher for men, with two-thirds of observations displaying a bias towards more men participating. Student-level survey data continued to mirror the observation data, and small, significant correlations between student self-reported participation and course-level belonging and inclusion were found. However, only the number of student questions correlated with a more equitable classroom in other STEM courses. This study extends the conversation on the relationship between active learning and equity in the classroom, demonstrating a need to move beyond mere inclusion of active pedagogies towards proactive facilitation of equitable and comfortable verbal participation by all students. Practical strategies for encouraging inclusive classroom dialogue, such as transparency, growth-mindset messaging, and multiple modes of engagement, are discussed.

This work is the fourth of a series of papers applying multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) to widely used physics conceptual assessments. This study applies MIRT analysis using both exploratory and confirmatory methods to the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA) to explore the assessment’s structure and to determine a well-fitting model of student knowledge measured by the assessment. These methods were used to investigate a large dataset ($N=9666$) from a research university in the United States. Exploratory analysis showed that a five-factor model had the best fit statistics; the items with the highest loadings in four of the five factors were items in the same item block. Confirmatory MIRT analysis fit a theoretical model developed from expert solutions to the instrument and identified two models with superior model fit: a principle model and a topical model. The principle model consisted of 28 principles, fundamental reasoning steps needed to solve items in the instrument; this was more principles than any of the models in the previous confirmatory MIRT studies of the Force Concept Inventory, the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation, and the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism. A second model, the topical model, consisted of five general subtopics of electromagnetism. Both the principle and the topical model had excellent fit statistics; however, unlike the other conceptual instruments studied, the topical model had better fit statistics. The five topical divisions were explored as possible subscales; however, none of these subscales had a Cronbach’s $\alpha$ of 0.7, the minimum value for required low-stakes testing.

Societal stereotypes and biases pertaining to who belongs in physics and who can excel in it can impact motivational beliefs of women in physics courses. Prior research has shown that women have lower physics self-efficacy than men in physics courses in which women are underrepresented. However, prior research has generally not investigated similar issues in physics courses in which women make up the majority of students. This study examines self-efficacy of men and women with similar performance in introductory algebra-based physics courses in which women outnumber men at a large public research university in the US. These courses are taken primarily by biological science majors many of whom are interested in health professions. Although women are not underrepresented in these physics courses, societal stereotypes and biases internalized by female students over their lifetime can impact their self-efficacy when they take any physics course. We find a gender gap in self-efficacy disadvantaging women at the beginning of the course. However, unlike courses in which women are underrepresented, in which the self-efficacy gender gap often increases from the beginning to the end of the courses, we find that the self-efficacy gender gap for students who received a certain grade either remained constant or decreased somewhat. Moreover, except for the students who received an A grade, the average self-efficacy of most of the other student groups decreased from the beginning to the end of the semester. Additionally, we find that most of the self-efficacy gender gap is due to students’ biased perceptions about their capability rather than the performance difference between women and men.

Because of the focus of introductory physics courses on improving students’ problem-solving and reasoning skills, researchers in physics education have been developing and refining theoretical frameworks for how students reason through physics problems. Recently, researchers have begun to apply dual-process theories of reasoning (DPToR), from cognitive science and psychology, to support mechanistic predictions of student reasoning in physics. In this article, we employ a novel methodology involving reasoning chain construction tasks in order to test DPToR-based predictions for two physics questions in which salient distracting features have been found to cue incorrect first-available mental models. In a reasoning chain construction task, students respond to a physics question by drawing from a list of reasoning elements (all of which are true) in order to assemble a chain of reasoning that leads to a conclusion. Two sets of experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that students would be unlikely to abandon an incorrect first-available model unless they were provided with information that called into question the satisfactoriness of that model. We found that providing increased access to information relevant to the correct line of reasoning did not produce large differences in student answering patterns. However, providing increased access to information refuting the first-available model did produce large differences in student answering patterns, but only among those students who demonstrated that they possessed the relevant mindware (i.e., conceptual understanding). Our findings are consistent with DPToR and further illustrate the applicability of such reasoning frameworks in the context of physics.

This study uses social network analysis and the classroom observation protocol for undergraduate STEM (COPUS) to characterize six research-based introductory physics curricula. Peer Instruction, Modeling Instruction, ISLE, SCALE-UP, Context-Rich Problems, and Tutorials in Introductory Physics were investigated. Students in each curriculum were given a survey at the beginning and end of term, asking them to self-identify peers with whom they had meaningful interactions in class. Every curriculum showed an increase in the average number of student connections from the beginning of term to the end of term, with the largest increase occurring in Modeling Instruction, SCALE-UP, and Context-Rich Problems. Modeling Instruction was the only curriculum with a drastic change in how tightly connected the student network was. Transitivity increased for all curricula except Peer Instruction. We also spent one week per research site in the middle of the term observing courses using COPUS. From these observations, the student COPUS profiles look nearly the same for Tutorials, ISLE recitations, and Context-Rich Problems discussion sections. This is likely due to the large resolution of activities that can be coded as “other group activity,” suggesting the need for a more detailed observation instrument.