Eugenia Etkina

College physics students’ epistemological self-reflection and its relationship to conceptual learning

Students should develop self-reflection skills and appropriate views about knowledge and learning, both for their own sake and because these skills and views may be related to improvements in conceptual understanding. We explored the latter issue in the context of an introductory physics course for first-year engineering honors students. As part of the course, students submitted weekly reports, in which they reflected on how they learned specific physics content. The reports by 12 students were analyzed for the quality of reflection and some of the epistemological beliefs they exhibited. Students’ conceptual learning gains were measured with standard survey instruments. We found that students with high conceptual gains tend to show reflection on learning that is more articulate and epistemologically sophisticated than students with lower conceptual gains. Some implications for instruction are suggested.

Design and Reflection Help Students Develop Scientific Abilities: Learning in Introductory Physics Laboratories

Design activities, when embedded in an inquiry cycle and appropriately scaffolded and supplemented with reflection, can promote the development of the habits of mind (scientific abilities) that are an important part of scientific practice. Through the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE), students construct physics knowledge by engaging in inquiry cycles that replicate the approach used by physicists to construct knowledge. A significant portion of student learning occurs in ISLE instructional labs where students design their own experiments. The labs provide an environment for cognitive apprenticeship enhanced by formative assessment. As a result, students develop interpretive knowing that helps them approach new problems as scientists. This article describes a classroom study in which the students in the ISLE design lab performed equally well on traditional exams as ISLE students who did not engage in design activities. However, the design group significantly outperformed the non-design group while working on novel experimental tasks (in physics and biology), demonstrating the application of scientific abilities to an inquiry task in a novel content domain. This research shows that a learning environment that integrates cognitive apprenticeship and formative assessment in a series of conceptual design tasks provides a rich context for helping students build scientific habits of mind.

Using introductory labs to engage students in experimental design

The Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) engages students in processes mirroring the practice of science. Laboratories play a central role in this learning environment. Students in ISLE laboratories design their own experiments to investigate new phenomena, test hypotheses, and solve realistic problems. We discuss various issues associated with implementing these labs in large enrollment introductory physics courses. We present examples of experiments that students design, include a sample of student work, and discuss issues related to the choice of experiments for design and practical implementation. We also review assessment techniques and show results of students’ acquisition and transfer of some laboratory-related abilities.

The Role of Models in Physics Instruction

The word modeling is becoming more and more common in physics, chemistry, and general science instruction. In physics, students learn models of the solar system, light, and atom. In biology courses they encounter models of joints, the circulatory system, and metabolic processes. The benefits of engaging students in model building are described in the literature.1–5 “Modeling instruction” is an example of a whole curriculum based on the idea of modeling.6 However, in a traditional physics class students do not have a clear understanding of what the word model means, and thus do not appreciate the role of this notion in physics.7–9 Physics teachers also have difficulties defining this word.10,11 The purposes of this paper are (a) to reexamine the word model as it is used in science, and (b) to suggest several types of tasks that engage students in the construction of models in a regular-format introductory physics course.

Role of Experiments in Physics Instruction — A Process Approach

This paper describes an approach to classroom experiments that serves roles closer to that in the practice of physics. We propose that in the history of physics most “classical” experiments fall into one of three groups: observational experiments, testing theoretical model experiments, or application experiments.

An Overview of Recent Research on Multiple Representations

In this paper we focus on some of the recent findings of the physics education research community in the area of multiple representations. The overlying trend with the research is how multiple representations help students learn concepts and skills and assist them in problem solving. Two trends developed from the latter are: how students use multiple representations when solving problems and how different representational formats affect student performance in problem solving. We show how our work relates to these trends and provide the reader with an overall synopsis of the findings related to the advantages and disadvantages of multiple representations for learning physics.

Fostering Self-Reflection and Meaningful Learning: Earth Science Professional Development for Middle School Science Teachers

This paper describes the analysis of teachers’ journal reflections during an inquiry-based professional development program. As a part of their learning experience, participants reflected on what they learned and how they learned. Progress of subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge was assessed though surveys and pre- and posttests. We found that teachers have difficulties reflecting on their learning and posing meaningful questions. The teachers who could describe how they reasoned from evidence to understand a concept had the highest learning gains. In contrast those teachers who seldom or never described learning a concept by reasoning from evidence showed the smallest learning gains. This analysis suggests that learning to reflect on one’s learning should be an integral part of teachers’ professional development experiences.

Do our words really matter? Case studies from quantum mechanics

To understand the role of language in learning physics, we will treat it as one possible representation of a physical model. We will then present a theoretical framework that enables us to identify physical models encoded in language. We will present data showing that physicists use linguistic representations to reason productively about physical systems and problems. We will also present a case study and supporting evidence to argue that these linguistic representations are being used and applied by physics students when they reason. Sometimes students misapply and overextend these linguistic representations. This study allows us to understand and account for some student difficulties.

Case Study: Students’ Use of Multiple Representations in Problem Solving

Being able to represent physics problems and concepts in multiple ways for qualitative reasoning and problem solving is a scientific ability we want our students to develop. These representations can include but are not limited to words, diagrams, equations, graphs, and sketches. Physics education literature indicates that using multiple representations is beneficial for student understanding of physics ideas and for problem solving. To find out why and how students use different representations for problem solving, we conducted a case study of six students during the second semester of a two‐semester introductory physics course. These students varied both in their use of representations and in their physics background. This case study helps us understand how students’ use or lack of use of representations relates to their ability to solve problems.

Millikan award lecture: Students of physics—Listeners, observers, or collaborative participants in physics scientific practices?

This article is a written version of my acceptance speech upon receiving the Millikan Medal at the 2014 Summer AAPT meeting. In the talk I shared an approach to learning and teaching physics that engages students learning introductory physics in the processes that physicists use to construct physics concepts, physical quantities, and equations, as well as to solve problems. This article describes the origins of the method, its characteristic features, research on its implementation, and available resources.