Education Commons^™

Horizon Content Knowledge And Its Integration Into Physics Education Research: Case Study Analysis On Physical Science And Physics Teachers, Trevor A. Robertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers focused on just one year of instruction may neglect what students need most– a coherent structure of learning across disciplines that advances students’ understanding. The topic of coherence has been a major motivator for education research, including investigations in student- teacher interactions, epistemological beliefs, and large-scale curricular reform. One framework of knowledge, horizon content knowledge (HCK), can aid in describing the knowledge a teacher needs to see beyond their own instruction and provide a coherent structure for students.

While horizon content knowledge exists in one of the most widely adopted teacher frameworks of knowledge in mathematics, mathematical knowledge for …

An Investigation Of Students' Use And Understanding Of Evaluation Strategies, Abolaji R. Akinyemi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One expected outcome of physics instruction is that students develop quantitative reasoning skills, including evaluation of problem solutions. To investigate students’ use of evaluation strategies, we developed and administered tasks prompting students to check the validity of a given expression. We collected written (N>673) and interview (N=31) data at the introductory, sophomore, and junior levels. Tasks were administered in three different physics contexts: the velocity of a block at the bottom of an incline with friction, the electric field due to three point charges of equal magnitude, and the final velocities of two masses in an elastic collision. Responses …

Using Question Variations To Access Alternate Student Thinking About The Same Physical Situations, Jeffrey Mathis Hawkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Assessing students’ understanding of physics is a critical element for improving physics education. This dissertation presents and demonstrates a method to better assess student understanding of physics by varying the types of questions asked of students. The method presented herein, which is based on the Specific Difficulties and Resources frameworks, involves modifying the task students are asked to complete when analyzing the physics of a particular physical situation. Creating question variations that ask students to address a particular correct or incorrect outcome of the physical situation, eliminate an incorrect outcome, or justify a correct outcome provided to them can provide …

Investigating Student Understanding Of Vector Calculus In Upper-Division Electricity And Magnetism: Construction And Determination Of Differential Element In Non-Cartesian Coordinate Systems, Benjamin Schermerhorn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Differential length, area, and volume elements appear ubiquitously over the course of upper-division electricity and magnetism (E&M), used to sum the effects of or determine expressions for electric or magnetic fields. Given the plethora of tasks with spherical and cylindrical symmetry, non-Cartesian coordinates are commonly used, which include scaling factors as coefficients for the differential terms to account for the curvature of space. Furthermore, the application to vector fields means differential lengths and areas are vector quantities. So far, little of the education research in E&M has explored student understanding and construction of the non-Cartesian differential elements used in applications …

Echoes Of The Past: The Effect Of Background Experience On Far Transfer, Graham H. Hummel-Hall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Far transfer is the application of knowledge learned in one setting to a problem in a very different setting. This multi-method study looked at far transfer in humans and whether it could be facilitated, inhibited, or remain unaffected by the number of courses or years a student at a university spent learning about the subject matter of the knowledge being transferred. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of pretest and post-test data from an introductory undergraduate earth science course, I found that students with more physical science background experience more frequently engaged in successful and accurate transfer of physics information to …

Investigating Student Learning Of Analog Electronics, Kevin L. Van De Bogart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Instruction in analog electronics is an integral component of many physics and engineering programs, and is typically covered in courses beyond the first year. While extensive research has been conducted on student understanding of introductory electric circuits, to date there has been relatively little research on student learning of analog electronics in either physics or engineering courses. Given the significant overlap in content of courses offered in both disciplines, this study seeks to strengthen the research base on the learning and teaching of electric circuits and analog electronics via a single, coherent investigation spanning both physics and engineering courses.

This …

Student Application Of The Fundamental Theorem Of Calculus With Graphical Representations In Mathematics And Physics, Rabindra R. Bajracharya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One mathematical concept frequently applied in physics is the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC). Mathematics education research on student understanding of the FTC indicates student difficulties with the FTC. Similarly, a few studies in physics education have implicitly indicated student difficulties with various facets of the FTC, such as with the definite integral and the area under the curve representation, in physics contexts. There has been no research on how students apply the FTC in graphically-based physics questions.

This study investigated student understanding of the FTC and its application to graphically-based problems. Our interest spans several aspects of the FTC: …

Identifying Productive Resources In Secondary School Students' Discourse About Energy, Benedikt Walter Harrer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A growing program of research in science education acknowledges the beginnings of disciplinary reasoning in students’ ideas and seeks to inform instruction that responds productively to these disciplinary progenitors in the moment to foster their development into sophisticated scientific practice. This dissertation examines secondary school students’ ideas about energy for progenitors of disciplinary knowledge and practice. Previously, researchers argued that students’ ideas about energy were constrained by stable and coherent conceptual structures that conflicted with an assumed unified scientific conception and therefore needed to be replaced. These researchers did not attend to the productive elements in students’ ideas about energy. …

Identifying And Addressing Specific Student Difficulties In Advanced Thermal Physics, Trevor I. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As part of an ongoing multi-university research study on student understanding of concepts in thermal physics at the upper division, I identified several student difficulties with topics related to heat engines (especially the Carnot cycle), as well as difficulties related to the Boltzmann factor. In an effort to address these difficulties, I developed two guided-inquiry worksheet activities (a.k.a. tutorials) for use in advanced undergraduate thermal physics courses. Both tutorials seek to improve student understanding of the utility and physical background of a particular mathematical expression. One tutorial focuses on a derivation of Carnot's theorem regarding the limit on thermodynamic efficiency, …

Investigating Student Understanding Of Sound As A Longitudinal Wave, Earl C. Coombs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The field of physics education research (PER) has highlighted the discrepancy between what is taught during traditional instruction in physics, and what students understand afterward. PER has also provided alternatives to traditional instruction that are research-based and have been shown to be more effective in bringing students’ level of understanding of physics more in line with that of the scientific community. One topic that has received attention is the propagation of sound. We confirmed that students in the introductory algebra-based and calculus-based physics courses at the University of Maine have difficulties with sound propagation similar to those documented by others. …

Investigating How Students Think About And Learn Quantum Physics: An Example From Tunneling, Jeffrey Todd Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of physics education research (PER) has focused on introductory courses and topics, with less research done into how students learn physics in advanced courses. Members of The University of Maine Physics Education Research Laboratory (PERL) have begun studying how students in advanced physics courses reason about classical mechanics, thermal physics, and quantum physics. Here, we describe an investigation into how students reason about quantum mechanical tunneling, and detail how those findings informed a portion of a curriculum development project. Quantum mechanical tunneling is a standard topic discussed in most modern physics and quantum physics courses. Understanding tunneling is crucial …