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Chandralekha Singh

Publications and source records attributed to Chandralekha Singh.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2023

Preparing Pre-College Students for the Second Quantum Revolution with Core Concepts in Quantum Information Science

After the passage of the US National Quantum Initiative Act in December 2018, the National Science Foundation and the Office of Science and Technology Policy assembled an interagency working group and conducted a workshop titled "Key Concepts for Future Quantum Information Science Learners" that focused on identifying core concepts for future curricular and educator activities to help pre-college students engage with quantum information science (QIS). Helping pre-college students learn these key concepts in QIS is an effective approach to introducing them to the Second Quantum Revolution and inspiring them to become future contributors in the growing field of quantum information science and technology as leaders in areas related to quantum computing, communication and sensing. This paper is a call to pre-college educators to contemplate including QIS concepts into their existing courses at appropriate levels and get involved in the development of curricular materials suitable for their students. Also, research shows that compare and contrast activities can provide an effective approach to helping students learn. Therefore, we illustrate a pedagogical approach that contrasts the classical and quantum concepts so that educators could adapt them for their students in their lesson plans to help them learn the differences between key concepts in quantum and classical contexts.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2023

Helping students apply superposition principle in problems involving spherical, cylindrical and planar charge distributions

We describe student difficulties in applying the superposition principle in combination with Gauss's law. We addressed these difficulties by developing a tutorial that uses guided inquiry. Students who used this tutorial following lecture-based instruction performed significantly better on these topics than those who did not. Instructors can assign the tutorial as classwork or homework.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2023

Helping students become proficient problem solvers Part I: A brief review

Understanding issues involved in expertise in physics problem solving is important for helping students become good problem solvers. In part 1 of this article, we summarize the research on problem-solving relevant for physics education across three broad categories: knowledge organization, information processing and cognitive load, and metacognition and problem-solving heuristics. We also discuss specific strategies discussed in the literature for promoting development of problem-solving skills in physics. This review article can be valuable in helping instructors develop students' problem-solving, reasoning, and metacognitive skills in physics and other related disciplines. Additionally, this review article is relevant across educational contexts in countries that may have different educational paradigms and challenges.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2023

Progression in self-efficacy, interest, identity, sense of belonging, perceived recognition and effectiveness of peer interaction of physics majors and comparison with non-majors and Ph.D. students

The importance of science beliefs such as self-efficacy, interest, identity, sense of belonging, perceived recognition and effectiveness of peer interaction in science education has been increasingly recognized in recent years. Here, we use five years of data from a validated survey administered to non-majors during their first year, physics majors throughout their undergraduate education, and first-year physics Ph.D. students at a large research university in the US. We find that physics majors in the first-year responded to the survey prompts more positively than their non-physics major peers who were in the same introductory courses, with the largest differences in perceived recognition, interest, and physics identity and somewhat smaller differences in self-efficacy, perception of peer interaction, and sense of belonging. Further, the average survey responses of physics majors for each belief remain largely constant over time from their first-year of the undergraduate curriculum through the last year and comparable to the Ph.D. students. This suggests that students are adjusting their interpretation of the survey items to match the current level of expertise expected of them. One exception occurs in the second year, when peer interaction and sense of belonging reach a minimum. Moreover, physics identity dips to the lowest value in the fourth year when many students are contemplating continuing in physics beyond their undergraduate years or switching fields. We also find that perceived recognition is the best predictor of physics identity for physics majors throughout their entire physics education, pointing to the importance of instructors making a concerted effort to recognize and affirm their students throughout their education.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2023

Instructional Strategies that Foster Effective Problem-Solving

Helping students become proficient problem solvers is a major goal of many physics courses from introductory to advanced levels. In fact, physics has often been used by cognitive scientists to investigate the differences between the problem-solving strategies of expert and novice problem solvers because it is a domain in which there is reasonably good agreement about what constitutes good problem-solving. Since the laws of physics are encapsulated in compact mathematical form, becoming an expert physics problem solver entails learning to unpack and interpret those physical laws as well as being able to apply them in diverse situations while solving problems. A physics expert must have a well-organized knowledge structure of relevant physics and math concepts and be able to manage cognitive load and do metacognition while solving complex problems. In this chapter, we review foundational research on expertise in physics problem-solving and then discuss research on instructional strategies that promote effective problem-solving as well as challenges in changing the instructional practices of physics instructors and teaching assistants via professional development to promote and support effective problem-solving approaches.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2023

Helping students become proficient problem solvers Part II: An example from waves

Helping students become proficient problem-solvers is one of the primary goals of physics courses. In part 1 of this article, we summarized the vast research on problem-solving relevant for physics instruction, and here we discuss a concrete example of problem solving in the context of waves from introductory physics. The goal of this research was to investigate how drawing of diagrams affects students' problem-solving performance. An introductory class was broken up into three recitations which received different instructions related to diagrams on their weekly quizzes: one group was provided a diagram, another was asked to draw one, and the third was the comparison group which was given no instructions about diagrams. We find that students who were provided a diagram performed significantly worse than students in the other two groups. Furthermore, we find that irrespective of the condition, students who drew diagrams as part of the problem-solving process performed better overall despite primarily using a mathematical approach to solving the problem. Lastly, we conducted think-aloud interviews with students who solved the same problem to further understand their solution approaches as well as how drawing a diagram is useful even in situations where a primarily mathematical approach is used.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2023

The impact of perceived recognition by physics instructors on women's self-efficacy and interest

Students' self-efficacy, interest, and perceived recognition from others have been shown to be very important for the development of their identity in a given field, which is a critical predictor of students' career decisions. Prior research suggests that students' self-efficacy and interest play an important role in their performance and persistence in STEM fields. However, very little has been investigated about the role of perceived recognition and validation by instructors on students' self-efficacy and interest. Moreover, prior quantitative studies show that women often report a lower level of physics perceived recognition, self-efficacy and interest. In this study, we analyzed data from individual interviews with 38 female students to investigate their learning experiences in physics courses in order to obtain a qualitative understanding of the factors that shape their self-efficacy and interest. We find that female students' negative and positive perceived recognition from instructors and teaching assistants (TAs) greatly influenced their self-efficacy and interest and even impacted their desire to persist in STEM majors. We categorize different types of perceived recognition that women reported in our interviews and how they influenced them. For example, many women reported that they felt belittled for their questions or efforts in physics courses, which often negatively influenced their self-efficacy. These findings can help physics educators develop better ways to interact with students in order to provide positive recognition and validation, such as acknowledging students' efforts and questions, expressing faith in students' ability to excel, and being careful not to give unintended messages to students. Our research also suggests that it is important for instructors/TAs to note that it is not their intentions that matter but the impact they are having on their students.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2022

Students' attitudes toward experimental physics in a conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab

There is some evidence that conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab curricula, such as RealTime Physics, may improve students' understanding of physics concepts. Thus, these curricula may be attractive for instructors who seek to transform their physics labs to improve student learning. However, the impact of conceptual inquiry-based lab instruction on students' attitudes and beliefs about experimental physics, as measured by the E-CLASS survey, is not yet fully understood. We present data from three curricular approaches over four semesters ($n=701$). We saw no change in E-CLASS scores in the first implementation of a conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab. However, the addition of questions that asked students to reflect on issues relating to experimental physics was associated with E-CLASS outcomes that are comparable to other effective approaches to lab instruction.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2022

Gender Inequities Throughout STEM: Compared to Men, Women with Significantly Higher Grades Drop STEM Majors

Efforts to promote equity and inclusion using evidence-based approaches are vital to correcting long-standing societal inequities that have disadvantaged women and discouraged them from pursuing studies, including in many STEM disciplines. We used 10 years of institutional data from a large public university to investigate the grade point average trends in different STEM disciplines for men and women who declared a major and then either completed the degree or dropped the major after declaring it. We found alarming trends, such as that women who dropped majors on average earned higher grades than men, and in some STEM majors, women who dropped the majors were earning comparable grades to men who persisted in those majors. While these quantitative findings call for a deeper understanding of the reasons women and men drop a major, we provide suggestions for approaches to make learning environments more equitable and inclusive so that traditionally excluded stereotyped groups can have a higher sense of belonging and thrive.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2022

Reflections on the Fifth International Conference on Women in Physics

This article describes reflections on the Fifth International Conference on Women in Physics which was a conference attended by 215 female physicists and a few male physicists from 49 different countries. The article focuses on the barriers that women face in their professional advancement in physics and the extent to which the situation is different in various countries.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2021

"Everyone is new to this": Student reflections on different aspects of online learning

In 2020, many instructors and students at colleges and universities were thrust into an unprecedented situation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions. Even though they typically engage in in-person teaching and learning in brick and mortar classrooms, remote instruction was the only possibility. Many instructors at our institution who had to switch from in-person to remote instruction without any notice earlier in the year worked extremely hard to design and teach online courses to support their students during the second half of 2020. Since different instructors chose different pedagogical approaches for remote instruction, students taking multiple remote classes simultaneously experienced a variety of instructional strategies. We present an analysis of students' perceptions of remote learning in their lecture-based, active learning, and lab physics classes at a large research university in the USA, focusing on positive and negative aspects including collaboration, communication, and assessment. Student reflections emphasized the importance of grade incentives for out-of-class and in-class work; frequent, low-stakes assessments; community-building activities; and opportunities to study with peers. Reflecting on the challenges and successes of different types of remote instructional approaches from students' perspective could provide useful insight to guide the design of future online courses as well as some aspects of in-person courses.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2021

Building a Quantum Engineering Undergraduate Program

The rapidly growing quantum information science and engineering (QISE) industry will require both quantum-aware and quantum-proficient engineers at the bachelor's level. We provide a roadmap for building a quantum engineering education program to satisfy this need. For quantum-aware engineers, we describe how to design a first quantum engineering course accessible to all STEM students. For the education and training of quantum-proficient engineers, we detail both a quantum engineering minor accessible to all STEM majors, and a quantum track directly integrated into individual engineering majors. We propose that such programs typically require only three or four newly developed courses that complement existing engineering and science classes available on most larger campuses. We describe a conceptual quantum information science course for implementation at any post-secondary institution, including community colleges and military schools. QISE presents extraordinary opportunities to work towards rectifying issues of inclusivity and equity that continue to be pervasive within engineering. We present a plan to do so and describe how quantum engineering education presents an excellent set of education research opportunities. Finally, we outline a hands-on training plan on quantum hardware, a key component of any quantum engineering program, with a variety of technologies including optics, atoms and ions, cryogenic and solid-state technologies, nanofabrication, and control and readout electronics. Our recommendations provide a flexible framework that can be tailored for academic institutions ranging from teaching and undergraduate-focused two- and four-year colleges to research-intensive universities.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2021

Development and Validation of a conceptual survey instrument to evaluate introductory physics students' understanding of thermodynamics

We discuss the development and validation of a conceptual multiple-choice survey instrument called the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws (STPFaSL) suitable for introductory physics courses. The survey instrument uses common student difficulties with these concepts as resources in that the incorrect answers to the multiple-choice questions were guided by them. After the development and validation of the survey instrument, the final version was administered at six different institutions. It was administered to introductory physics students in various traditionally taught calculus-based and algebra-based classes in paper-pencil format before and after traditional lecture-based instruction in relevant concepts. We also administered the survey instrument to upper-level undergraduates majoring in physics and Ph.D. students for bench marking and for content validity and compared their performance with those of introductory students for whom the survey is intended. We find that although the survey instrument focuses on thermodynamics concepts covered in introductory courses, it is challenging even for advanced students. A comparison with the base line data on the validated survey instrument presented here can help instructors evaluate the effectiveness of innovative pedagogies designed to help students develop a solid grasp of these concepts.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2021

The challenges of changing teaching assistants' grading practices: Requiring students to show evidence of understanding

Teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading in introductory physics courses at large research universities. Their grading practices can shape students' approaches to problem solving and learning. Physics education research recommends grading practices that encourage students to provide evidence of understanding via explication of the problem-solving process. However, TAs may not necessarily grade in a manner that encourages students to provide evidence of understanding in their solutions. Within the context of a semester-long TA professional development course, we investigated whether encouraging TAs to use a grading rubric that appropriately weights the problem-solving process and having them reflect upon the benefits of using such a rubric prompts TAs to require evidence of understanding in student solutions. We examined how the TAs graded realistic student solutions to introductory physics problems before they were provided a rubric, whether TAs used the rubric as intended, whether they were consistent in grading similar solutions, and how TAs' grading criteria changed after discussing the benefits of a well-designed rubric. We find that many TAs typically applied the rubric consistently when grading similar student solutions but did not require students to provide evidence of understanding. TAs' written responses, class discussions, and individual interviews suggest that the instructional activities involving the grading rubrics in this study were not sufficient to change their grading practices. Interviews and class discussions suggest that helping TAs value a rubric that appropriately weights the problem-solving process may be challenging partly due to the TAs past educational experiences and the departmental context.

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