We discuss an investigation exploring students' difficulties with equations involving resistance, capacitance and inductance. We find that introductory physics students have great difficulty understanding, e.g., how the resistance of an ohmic resistor can be written in terms of the potential difference across it and the current through it, but it does not change when the potential difference across the resistor is varied. Similar confusions arose in problems relating to capacitors and inductors. We discuss these difficulties with equations in the context of introductory physics students' performance on questions about circuit elements both in the free-response and multiple-choice formats.
Performance of Graduate Students at Identifying Introductory Physics Students' Difficulties Related to Kinematics Graphs
运动学图形理解测试(英语:Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinetics,缩写:TUG-K)是一个由Beichner开发的多项选择测试,用于评估学生对运动学图形的理解。TUG-K上的许多项目都有很强的干扰项选择,这与入门学生在运动学图形方面的常见困难相对应。如果教师不了解这些常见的困难,并在教学设计中考虑到这些困难,教学就不可能有效。我们评估一年级物理研究生的表现,在确定入门学生的共同困难有关的运动学图。特别是,对于TUG-K上的每个项目,研究生被要求识别他们认为最常被物理学入门学生选择的错误答案,如果他们在相关概念的指导后不知道正确答案。我们使用Beichner原始论文中的入门学生数据来评估研究生对入门学生困难的了解。此外,我们选择了四个问题上的TUG-K上的研究生的表现是最差的一个更详细的分析,其中包括有声思维访谈。我们目前的结果,可以部分解释这些问题上的研究生表现不佳,也通知教学专业发展课程。
We discuss an investigation of student difficulties with the corrections to the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom for the intermediate field Zeeman effect using the degenerate perturbation theory. The investigation was carried out in advanced quantum mechanics courses by administering free-response and multiple-choice questions and conducting individual interviews with students. We find that students share many common difficulties related to relevant physics concepts. In particular, students often struggled with mathematical sense-making in this context of quantum mechanics which requires i…
We investigate upper-division student difficulties with direct integration in multiple contexts involving the calculation of a potential from a continuous distribution (e.g., mass, charge, or current). Integration is a tool that has been historically studied at several different points in the curriculum including introductory and upper-division levels. We build off of these prior studies and contribute additional data around student difficulties with multi-variable integration at two new points in the curriculum: middle-division classical mechanics, and upper-division magnetostatics. To facili…
We discuss an investigation of student difficulties with the corrections to the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom for the strong and weak field Zeeman effects using degenerate perturbation theory. This investigation was carried out in advanced quantum mechanics courses by administering written free-response and multiple-choice questions and conducting individual interviews with students. We discuss the common student difficulties related to these concepts which can be used as a guide for creating learning tools to help students develop a functional understanding of concepts involving the co…
Exploring Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Teaching Assistants Using the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics
运动学图形理解测验(英语:Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinetics,缩写:TUG-K)是Beichner在1994年开发的一个多项选择测验,用来评估学生对运动学图形的理解。TUG-K上的许多项目都有很强的干扰项选择,这与学生在运动学图形方面的常见困难相对应。如果教师不了解物理导论学生的共同困难,并在教学设计中明确考虑到这些困难,那么教学就不可能是有效的。我们评估的教学内容的知识,一年级的物理研究生参加了教学助理(TA)培训课程的主题所涵盖的TUG-K。特别是,对于TUG-K上的每个项目,研究生被要求识别他们认为最常被物理学入门学生选择的错误答案,如果他们在相关概念的指导后不知道正确答案。我们使用的研究生数据和数据从Beichner的原始文件介绍物理学的学生,以评估相关的教学内容的知识(PCK)的研究生。我们发现,虽然研究生,平均而言,表现优于随机猜测,在确定介绍学生的困难上的TUG-K,他们没有确定许多常见的困难,介绍学生有图形的运动学,即使在传统的教学。此外,我们发现,研究生的能力,以确定的困难,介绍学生是依赖于上下文。
Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing rather than a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. Using the theoretical lens of epistemological framing, we applied previously developed frames to seek an underlying structure to the long lists of published difficulties that span many topics in quantum mechanics. Mapping descriptions of published difficulties into errors in epistemological framing and resource use, we analyzed descriptions of students' problem solving to find their frames, and compared students…
We investigated the difficulties that physics students in upper-level undergraduate quantum mechanics and graduate students after quantum and statistical mechanics core courses have with the Fermi energy, the Fermi-Dirac distribution and total electronic energy of a free electron gas after they had learned relevant concepts in their respective courses. These difficulties were probed by administering written conceptual and quantitative questions to undergraduate students and asking some undergraduate and graduate students to answer those questions while thinking aloud in one-on-one individual i…
Challenges in addressing student difficulties with measurement uncertainty of two-state quantum systems using a multiple-choice question sequence in online and in-person classes
Challenges in addressing student difficulties with time-development of two-state quantum systems using a multiple-choice question sequence in virtual and in-person classes
Challenges in addressing student difficulties with quantum measurement of two-state quantum systems using a multiple-choice question sequence in online and in-person classes
We discuss research involving the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of teaching assistants (TAs): the knowledge of introductory students' alternate conceptions in electricity and magnetism as revealed by the CSEM. For each item on the CSEM, the TAs were asked to (1) identify the most common incorrect answer choice of introductory physics students and (2) predict the percentage of introductory students who would answer the question correctly in a post-test. Then, we used the CSEM post-test data from approximately 40…
Challenges in addressing student difficulties with basics and change of basis for two-state quantum systems using a multiple-choice question sequence in online and in-person classes
The research reported in this article represents a systematic, multi-year investigation of student understanding of the behavior of bipolar junction transistor circuits using a variety of different tasks to isolate and probe key aspects of transistor circuit behavior. The participants in this study were undergraduates enrolled in upper-division physics electronics courses at three institutions, as well as undergraduates in upper-division engineering electronics courses at one of the institutions. Findings from this research indicate that many students have not developed a robust conceptual und…
Instruction is unlikely to be effective if instructors do not know the common alternate conceptions of introductory physics students and explicitly take into account common student difficulties in their instructional design. Here, we discuss research involving the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of teaching assistants (TAs): knowledge of introductory students' alternate conceptions in electricity and magnetism as revealed by the CSEM. For each item on the CSEM, the TAs were asked to identify the most common incor…
Expanding our knowledge of student difficulties in advanced undergraduate electromagnetism is essential if we are to develop effective instructional interventions. Drawing on an analysis of course materials, in-class observations and responses to conceptual questions, we document specific resources employed by students when reasoning about the divergence of a vector field. One common student error, which persisted in our course despite explicit instruction, is to misinterpret any "spreading out" of field lines in a diagram as representing a place of non-zero divergence. Some of these student d…