Physics education research (PER) started in 1970s.
It started when physics educators started to investigate student misconceptions in kinematics and dynamics at the university level. People such as Arnold Arons, Lillian McDermott, David Hestenes, and Frederick Reif investigated student difficulties in mechanics and vectors. They developed different physics tasks to probe student understanding, collected student responses, summarized and reported the misconceptions. Some continued to create learning materials to help students to overcome those misconceptions.
How do I get into PER?
I was interested in teaching physics when I was in college. As soon as I worked as a teaching assistant in 2011, I came across physics education research as I wanted to find methods to improve student learning. I went to check out physics education conferences myself and saw different kinds of research. I found this area to be more meaningful to me, I decided to pursue a PhD in PER at the University of Washington in 2014.
Another personal reason is that I saw the drop of physics students intake in universities and I thought maybe I can find some answers if I go into PER.
Areas of focus in PER
Over the years, here are the areas of focus by physics education researchers:
- Student conceptual understanding
- Problem-solving ability
- Effectiveness of physics instructional strategies (lecture, laboratory, small class recitations/tutorials)
- Applying mathematics in physics
- Student reasoning abilities in physics
- Use of statistics and technology in PER investigation and analysis
- Attitudes or beliefs of students
- Identity-related issues
Personally, I am more interested in the first six areas. For the 7th one, I tend to use their results but not keen into expanding that area. As for the last one, I am not interested at all.
For my PhD, I have investigated student understanding of rolling motion. I developed tutorial worksheets to address the associated student difficulties in the topic. I also tried to use series of online assignments to improve student ability in vector addition. In addition, I tried to use statistics to demonstrate the effectiveness of my online assignments and natural language processing to present similarities in student reasonings in different physics tasks that use the same physics concepts.
If you really have time to spare, here is the link to my thesis. (It’s a really long one.)
Research methods
The research methods in PER can be classified as quantitative, qualitative, and mixed. Quantitative methods involve compiling student responses in multiple-choice items in surveys, tests, and exams. For qualitative methods, they could be conducting student interviews, summarizing written student responses, and observing teacher-student and student-student dynamics in physics lessons. Mixed methods would be a combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. These methods are from social science research.
Types of studies conducted
Depending on the types of investigation, most of them are going to be empirical studies. For example, investigations into student conceptual understanding or difficulties will mostly be empirical studies, as there is no theoretical framework to make particular claims. Studies that extend the investigations will continue to show the existence and sometimes the persistence of those previously reported misconceptions.
McDermott et. al. wrote their considerations for empirical studies in this resource letter. The studies should (1) focus on the students, (2) perform in a systematic manner, and (3) be replicable.
One area I want to highlight is research-based instructional strategies (RBIS). They are studies that looked into how to improve physics instructions, be it lectures, labs, or small-class tutorials. I would classify them as intervention studies, because they involve some changes to the mode of instruction, and in some cases, it can be costly and manpower-intensive.
Examples of RBIS are peer instruction, Just-In-Time Teaching (JiTT), Tutorials in Introductory Physics, and Modelling Instruction.
Another kind of empirical studies involve the development of survey instruments. Examples are Force Concept Inventory (FCI), Force-Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA), etc. Teachers who are interested in finding out more on the survey instruments, you can find them on the PhysPort website.
My personal opinions on PER
I am deeply grateful with the opportunities I had as I dived into PER.
The investigations into student conceptual misconceptions and difficulties are aligned with the idea of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) suggested by Lee Shulman (1986). Not only teachers need to know the content well, they also need to know how to teach it. Part of knowing how to teach the content is to understand where students have difficulty with. In some sense, it is to prepare teachers with the necessary tools to deliver lessons more effectively.
As I continue to teach physics and think about the future of PER, I saw the lack of longitudinal studies in this area. I understand that longitudinal studies are not easy to conduct, but I hope there are some answers to these questions in my head.
- How can we tell that physics majors who went through some kind RBIS have better physics reasoning abilities than those who aren’t at the end of their undergraduate education?
- How can we tell the improvement in the students’ attitudes and beliefs in physics after they went through RBIS?
- Is there some kind of minimum standards or benchmark that the physics majors should meet when they graduate?
I think there will be more questions as I continue my journey in physics teaching. I will share them in the future.
That’s all for now.
Chang Physics Class 