Learning to think like a physicist (LTP) is often cited as a central goal of graduate physics education, yet what this means in practice and the extent to which physics graduate education prepares students to develop LTP and view LTP as valuable to their research and teaching remain unclear. This interview-based study, conducted with seven physics graduate students at one US public research university, explores how students define thinking like a physicist and how their coursework and research experiences correlate with this development. Students emphasized that physics uniquely requires integrating physical and mathematical concepts in ways that go beyond other science disciplines. Our findings show that physics core courses, particularly electricity and magnetism, frequently emphasize mathematical techniques and content coverage at a rapid pace at the expense of deeper conceptual engagement and development of LTP. In contrast, physics elective courses and research experiences were more synergistic with and effective in fostering conceptual understanding, problem-solving skills, and identity development as physicists. Because graduate students simultaneously take core courses, conduct research and teach introductory physics, their perspectives on LTP are particularly valuable in how physics departments may consider transforming their preparation. Their voices highlight how this transformative stage of training can either support or hinder the development of physicist thinking.
Instructors and researchers think "thinking like a physicist" is important for students' professional development. However, precise definitions and observational markers remain elusive. We reinterpret popular beliefs inventories in physics to indicate what physicists think "thinking like a physicist" entails. Through discourse analysis of upper-division students' speech in natural settings, we show that students may appropriate or resist these elements. We identify a new element in the physicist speech genre: brief, embedded, spontaneous metacognitive talk (BESM talk). BESM talk communicates s…
We present two programs that address needs to better prepare graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The two programs, Preparing Future Physicists (PFP) and a course, Teaching and Learning Physics, are designed to be mutually supportive, address these broader graduate roles, and support the development of the field of physics education research. While voluntary, PFP has attracted the participation of roughly half the physics graduate students at each of two large research institutions. Compared to the national …
This article describes how the author successfully adapted techniques drawn from the literature on active learning for use in a graduate-level course on quantum field theory. Students completed readings and online questions ahead of each class and spent class time working through problems that required them to practice the decisions and skills typical of a theoretical physicist. The instructor monitored these activities and regularly provided timely feedback to guide their thinking. Instructor-student interactions and student enthusiasm were similar to that encountered in one-on-one discussion…
Student learning in upper division thermal physics has not been studied to the same extent as in other courses like electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. Studies addressing reasoning and learning at the graduate level are even more limited. In this study, we conducted think-aloud interviews with eight graduate students involving questions centered around a set of entropy related conceptual tasks, two of which are similar to tasks presented to undergraduates in other studies. We discuss patterns in student reasoning on each question then discuss themes that appeared across questions. We ident…
Covariational reasoning -- how one thinks about the way changes in one quantity affect another quantity -- is essential to calculus and physics instruction alike. As physics is often centered on understanding and predicting changes in quantities, it is an excellent discipline to develop covariational reasoning. However, while significant work has been done on covariational reasoning in mathematics education research, it is only beginning to be studied in physics contexts. This work presents preliminary results from an investigation into expert physicists' covariational reasoning in a replicati…
The pursuit of knowledge in particle physics requires constant learning. As new tools become available, new theories are developed, and physicists search for new answers with ever-evolving methods. However, it is the case that formal educational systems serve as the primary training grounds for particle physicists. Graduate school (and undergraduate school to a lesser extent) is where researchers learn most of the technical skills required for research, develop scientific problem-solving abilities, learn how to establish themselves in their field, and begin developing their career. It is unfor…
The summer training program for Italian undergraduate and graduate students at the Department of Energy (DOE) laboratory of Fermilab (Batavia, Illinois, USA) started in 1984 as a 2 month training program for Italian undergraduate students in physics of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) collaborating in the Collider Detector experiment (CDF) at the Fermilab Tevatron proton - antiproton collider. While in 1984 the program involved only 4 physics students from the University of Pisa, in the following years it rapidly grew in scope and size under the management of the Cultural Assoc…
The Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K) is a multiple choice test developed by Beichner to assess students' understanding of kinematics graphs. Many of the items on the TUG-K have strong distractor choices which correspond to introductory students' common difficulties with kinematics graphs. Instruction is unlikely to be effective if instructors do not know these common difficulties and take them into account in their instructional design. We evaluate the performance of first year physics graduate students at identifying introductory students' common difficulties related to kine…
Physics graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading. Physics education research suggests that grading practices that place the burden of proof for explicating the problem solving process on students can help them develop problem solving skills and learn physics. However, TAs may not have developed effective grading practices and may grade student solutions in introductory and advanced courses differently. In the context of a TA professional development course, we asked TAs to grade student solutions to introductory physics and quantum mechanics problems and explain why…
Physics outreach programs provide a critical context for informal experiences that promote the transition from new student to contributing physicist. Prior studies have suggested a positive link between participation in informal physics outreach programs and the development of a student's physics identity. In this study, we adopt a student-focused investigation to explore the effects of informal programs on dimensions of physics identity, sense of community, 21st century skill development, and motivation. We employed a mixed methods study combining a survey instrument (117 responses) and inter…
Covariational reasoning -- reasoning about how changes in one quantity relate to changes in another quantity -- has been examined extensively in mathematics education research. Little research has been done, however, on covariational reasoning in introductory physics contexts. We explore one aspect of covariational reasoning: ``goes like'' reasoning. ``Goes like'' reasoning refers to ways physicists relate two quantities through a simplified function. For example, physicists often say that ``the electric field goes like one over r squared.'' While this reasoning mode is used regularly by physi…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students experience difficulty with basic algebraic reasoning, a foundation on which more advanced mathematical thinking rests. However, little systematic research has been done to measure and categorize such difficulties in this population. This paper describes an investigation of trends in student reasoning with proportions, quantification, and symbolizing in introd…
The objectives of physics laboratory courses include fostering conceptual understanding and development of several important cognitive, psycho-motor, attitudinal and affective abilities. In most of the Indian colleges and universities (and probably at many other places all over the world) the usual practice of performing a set of experiments, in a cook-book mode, seldom helps students achieve the objectives of the physics laboratory courses and develop the abilities and skills required to become a successful experimental physicist. This paper describes the details of an instructional approach …
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 ef…
Relating two quantities to describe a physical system or process is at the heart of "doing physics" for novices and experts alike. In this paper, we explore the ways in which experts use covariational reasoning when solving introductory physics graphing problems. Here, graduate students are considered experts for the introductory level material, as they often take the role of instructor at large research universities. Drawing on work from Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME), we replicated a study of mathematics experts' covariational reasoning done by Hobson and Moore with p…
Physics faculty care about their students learning physics content. In addition, they usually hope that their students will learn some deeper lessons about thinking critically and scientifically. They hope that as a result of taking a physics class, students will come to appreciate physics as a coherent and logical method of understanding the world, and recognize that they can use reason and experimentation to figure things out about the world. Physics education researchers have created several surveys to assess one important aspect of thinking like a physicist: what students believe that lear…
[Taken from the "README" in the book] My goal with this book is to provide some kind of bridge for mathematics between the high-school-level and college-level for physics students. From my perspective, our job as physicists is to observe and understand the universe around us. Unfortunately our universe happens to be pretty complicated, at least from a mathematical point-of-view. However, a lot of the underlying physics | the underlying set of rules surrounding how things move and behave | is usually not too complicated. Sure, when we couple things together, everything turns disgusting, and we …
Helping students learn to think like a physicist is an important goal of many introductory physics courses. One characteristic distinguishing more experienced physicists from novice students is that they make better use of problem solving as a learning opportunity. Experts were found to spend more time than novices in monitoring their work, reflecting upon their possibly deficient approach to solving a problem, reconsidering their choices as necessary, and extending and refining their knowledge structure. Moreover, research on worked-out examples suggests that better performing students are th…
Most introductory quantum physics instructors would agree that transitioning students from classical to quantum thinking is an important learning goal, but may disagree on whether or how this can be accomplished. Although (and perhaps because) physicists have long debated the physical interpretation of quantum theory, many instructors choose to avoid emphasizing interpretive themes; or they discuss the views of scientists in their classrooms, but do not adequately attend to student interpretations. In this synthesis and extension of prior work, we demonstrate: (1) instructors vary in their app…
Mathematics is an essential element of physics problem solving, but experts often fail to appreciate exactly how they use it. Math may be the language of science, but math-in-physics is a distinct dialect of that language. Physicists tend to blend conceptual physics with mathematical symbolism in a way that profoundly affects the way equations are used and interpreted. Research with university physics students in classes from algebra-based introductory physics indicates that the gap between what students think they are supposed to be doing and what their instructors expect them to do can cause…
Troubleshooting systems is integral to experimental physics in both research and instructional laboratory settings. The recently adopted AAPT Lab Guidelines identify troubleshooting as an important learning outcome of the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. We investigate students' model-based reasoning on a troubleshooting task using data collected in think-aloud interviews during which pairs of students attempted to diagnose and repair a malfunctioning circuit. Our analysis scheme is informed by the Experimental Modeling Framework, which describes physicists' use of mathematical and concept…
Equations are about more than computing physical quantities or constructing formal models; they are also about understanding. The conceptual systems physicists use to think about nature are made from many different resources, formal and not, working together and inextricably linked. By blending mathematical forms and physical intuition, physicists breathe meaning into the equations they use. In contrast, in physics class, novice students often treat mathematics as only a calculational tool, isolating it from their rich knowledge of the physical world. We are interested in cases where students …
Increasing numbers of physicists engage in research activities that address biological questions from physics perspectives or strive to develop physics insights from active biological processes. The on-going development and success of such activities morph our ways of thinking about what it is to 'do biophysics' and add to our understanding of the physics of life. Many scientists in this research and teaching landscape are homed in physics departments. A challenge for a hosting department is how to group, name and structure such biophysicists to best add value to their emerging research and te…
The workshop `Astrophysical Dynamics 1999/2000' followed a homonymous advanced research course, and both activities were organized by me. In this opening paper of the proceedings book, I describe them and document their strong impact on the academic life of the local institutions. The advanced research course was open to graduate students, senior researchers, and motivated under-graduate students with good background in physics and mathematics. The course covered several multi-disciplinary issues of modern research on astrophysical dynamics, and thus also of interest to physicists, mathematici…
This invited paper discusses why Physics performance task by grade 9 students in Singapore is worth participating in for two reasons; 1) the video analysis and modeling are open access, licensed creative commons attribution for advancing open educational resources in the world and 2) allows students to be like physicists, where the K12 science education framework is adopted. Personal reflections on how physics education can be made more meaningful in particular Practice 1: Ask Questions, Practice 2: Use Models and Practice 5: Mathematical and Computational Thinking using Video Modeling support…
Promoting the transition to quantum thinking: development of a secondary school course for addressing knowledge revision, organization, and epistemological challenges
We offer second year students the opportunity to explore Current Topics in Biophysics in a course co-taught by a physicist and a biologist. The interdisciplinary course allows university students to engage in analytical thinking that integrates physics and biology. The students are either biophysics majors (50%) or from a diversity of science majors (about 30% life sciences). All will have taken first year courses in biology, physics and mathematics. The course is divided into: 1) The application of physical approaches to biological problems using case studies (how high can a tree grow? and bi…
This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book by exploring the role of intuition as a tool to deepen understanding in Einsteinian physics. Drawing on examples from the history of general relativity, we argue that the development of physical intuition is a crucial goal in physics education in parallel with any mathematical development of a physics subject. This chapter is for readers who wish to learn how expert physicists think conceptually about their subjects to understand them plus readers who wish to see how we can introduce Einsteinian physics to students by developing their intuit…
Data Science Education in Undergraduate Physics: Lessons Learned from a Community of Practice
Center for Advanced Systems Understanding, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf（德累斯顿-罗森多夫亥姆霍兹中心高级系统理解中心）；University of Mount Union（芒特尤尼恩大学）；American Association of Physics Teachers（美国物理教师协会）；University of Maryland（马里兰大学）；National Institute of Standards and Technology（美国国家标准与技术研究院）；Questrom School of Business at Boston University（波士顿大学奎斯特罗姆商学院）
