arXiv subjects

Sarah B. McKagan

Publications and source records attributed to Sarah B. McKagan.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

PhysPort use and growth: Supporting physics teaching with research-based resources since 2011

PhysPort (www.physport.org) has become the go-to place for physics faculty to learn to apply research-based teaching and assessment in their classrooms. Usage has doubled every two years since the site was released in 2011, and 20% of all U.S. physics faculty are now verified educators on PhysPort. The lead author conceived of PhysPort in 2007 after meeting many physics faculty interested in incorporating results of physics education research (PER) in their classrooms but with no idea where to start. At the time, most PER results were buried in research journals not accessible to ordinary physics educators, and there was no central place to learn about results and implications for classroom practice. Throughout its development, PhysPort has been based on user research: we interview physics faculty about their needs, design the site based on those needs, and conduct usability testing to see how we meet those needs. PhysPort is a joint product of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and Kansas State University (K-State), with contributions from many universities, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and a library within the ComPADRE.org digital library. The site (originally called the PER User's Guide) was first funded by an NSF grant in 2009 and released in November 2011. This article presents an overview of resources on PhysPort, discussion of research and development of the site, and data on the continuing growth of site usage.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2020

Beyond teaching methods: highlighting physics faculty's strengths and agency

Much work in physics education research (PER) characterizes faculty teaching practice in terms of whether faculty use specific named PER-based teaching methods, either with fidelity or with adaptation; we call this research paradigm the "teaching-method-centered paradigm." However, most faculty do not frame their teaching in terms of which particular named methods they use, but rather in terms of their own ideas and values, suggesting that the teaching-method-centered paradigm misses key features of faculty teaching. These key features include the productive ideas that faculty have about student learning and faculty agency around teaching. We present three case studies of faculty talking about their teaching, and analyze them in terms of two theoretical frameworks: a framework of teaching principles (How Learning Works) and a framework of faculty agency (Self-Determination Theory). We show that these frameworks well characterize key features of faculty teaching practices and agency, and can be combined in a new paradigm for modeling faculty teaching which we call an "asset-based agentic paradigm." We therefore encourage physics education researchers to move beyond the teaching-method-centered paradigm and think about faculty teaching using an asset-based agentic paradigm.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2019

Physics departments should discuss sexual harassment -- But consider this first

In April 2019, Aycock et al. published "Sexual harassment reported by undergraduate female physicists" in Phys. Rev. PER. Their main finding is that 3/4 of undergraduate women in physics in the U.S. report experiencing sexual harassment. Gender minorities experience high rates of harassment also. Many physics departments will want to discuss these findings with the ultimate goal of making our field harassment-free. However, there are major challenges inherent in having these discussions, since many participants will have experienced harassment themselves. We suggest questions for discussion organizers to reflect on, and ideas for how departments can approach these discussions.

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arXiv2018

Resource Letter RBAI-2: Research-based assessment instruments: Beyond physics topics

This Resource Letter provides a guide to research-based assessment instruments (RBAIs) for physics and astronomy classes, but goes beyond physics and astronomy topics to include: attitudes and beliefs about physics, epistemologies and expectations, the nature of physics, problem solving, self-efficacy, reasoning skills and lab skills. We also discuss RBAIs in physics and astronomy cognate fields such as mathematics and observation protocols for standardized observation of teaching. In this Resource Letter, we present an overview of these assessments and surveys including research validation, instructional level, format, and themes, to help faculty find the assessment that most closely matches their goals. This Resource Letter is a companion to RBAI-1: Research-based Assessment Instruments in Physics and Astronomy, which explicitly dealt with physics and astronomy topics. More details about each RBAI discussed in this paper are available at PhysPort: physport.org/assessments.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2018

Paradigms in Physics Education Research

In this paper, we describe two paradigms in physics education research (PER): recurrence-oriented and case-oriented PER. We connect theory on research methodologies in the social sciences to interviews with physics education researchers and examples of published PER to articulate the specific assumptions of recurrence- and case-oriented PER. We show that the different assumptions made in these two paradigms bear out in specific aims and research designs taken up by physics education researchers. In particular, recurrence-oriented research seeks reproducible, representative patterns and relationships; human behavior is modeled as governed by lawful (albeit probabilistic) relationships. Case-oriented research, in contrast, seeks to refine and develop theory by linking that theory to cases; human action is assumed to be shaped by the meanings that participants make of their local environments. We briefly offer examples in which researchers take up both the recurrence- and case-oriented research paradigms.

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arXiv2017

Personas as a Powerful Methodology to Design Targeted Professional Development Resources

Scaling and sustaining educational innovations is a common problem in the learning sciences. Professional development resources around educational innovations that are personalized to appeal to the needs and motivations of different types of faculty offer a possible solution. The method of developing personas to represent key types of users is commonly employed in user-interface design and can be used to produce personalized resources. Personas are fictional named archetypes of users encompassing generalizations of their key characteristics and goals that emerge from interviews. This method is especially powerful because personas succinctly package information into the form of a person, who is easily understood and reasoned about. Herein we describe the creation of a set of personas focusing on the needs and motivations of physics faculty around assessment and teaching. We present the personas, a discussion of how they inform our design and how the method can be used more broadly.

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arXiv2016

Best Practices for Administering Concept Inventories

There are a plethora of concept inventories in physics available for faculty to use, but it is not always clear exactly why you would use these tests, or how you should administer them and interpret the results. These multiple-choice research-based tests about physics concepts are valuable because they allow for standardized comparisons among institutions, instructors, or over time. In order for these comparisons to be meaningful, you should use best practices for administering the tests. Here we discuss best practices for administering concept inventories including background on these types of tests and specifics of how to give them online or in-class. We also discuss advantages and disadvantages of different incentives you could give your students, interpretation of scores and common concerns you may have about using concept inventories.

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arXiv2016

Secondary Analysis of Teaching Methods in Introductory Physics: a 50k-Student Study

Physics education researchers have developed many evidence-based instructional strategies to enhance physics students' conceptual learning. These strategies have historically been tested using assessments such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). We have performed a review and analysis of FCI and FMCE data published between 1995 and 2014. We confirm previous findings that interactive engagement teaching techniques are significantly more likely to produce high student learning gains than traditional lecture-based instruction. We also establish that interactive engagement instruction works in many settings, including for students with a high and low level of prior knowledge, for liberal arts and research universities, and for small and large class sizes.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2015

How physics instruction impacts students' beliefs about learning physics: A meta-analysis of 24 studies

In this meta-analysis, we synthesize the results of 24 studies using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) and the Maryland Physics Expectations Survey (MPEX) to answer several questions: (1) How does physics instruction impact students' beliefs? (2) When do physics majors develop expert-like beliefs? and (3) How do students' beliefs impact their learning of physics? We report that in typical physics classes, students' beliefs deteriorate or at best stay the same. There are a few types of interventions, including an explicit focus on model-building and/or developing expert- like beliefs that lead to significant improvements in beliefs. Further, small courses and those for elementary education and non-science majors also result in improved beliefs. However, because the available data oversamples certain types of classes, it is unclear whether these improvements are actually due to the interventions, or due to the small class size, or student population typical of the kinds of classes in which these interventions are most often used. Physics majors tend to enter their undergraduate education with more expert-like beliefs than non-majors and these beliefs remain relatively stable throughout their undergraduate careers. Thus, typical physics courses appear to be selecting students who already have strong beliefs, rather than supporting students in developing strong beliefs. There is a small correlation between students' incoming beliefs about physics and their gains on conceptual mechanics surveys. This suggests that students with more expert-like incoming beliefs may learn more in their physics courses, but this finding should be further explored and replicated. Some unanswered questions remain. To answer these questions, we advocate several specific types of future studies.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2015

Selection, Generalization, and Theories of Cause in Case-Oriented Physics Education Research

Case-oriented physics education research - which seeks to refine and develop theory by linking that theory to cases - incorporates distinct practices for selecting data for analysis, generalizing results, and making causal claims. Unanswered questions about these practices may constrain researchers more familiar with the recurrence-oriented research paradigm - which seeks to inform instructional predictions by discerning reproducible, representative patterns and relationships - from participating in or critically engaging with case-oriented research. We use results from interviews with physics education researchers, a synthesis of the literature on research methodologies, and published examples of case-oriented and recurrence-oriented research to answer "hard-hitting questions" that researchers may pose. In doing so, we aim to substantiate our position that both case-oriented and recurrence- oriented PER are rigorous but that the rigor is of a different nature in each paradigm.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2015

Research-based assessment affordances and constraints: Perceptions of physics faculty

To help faculty use research-based materials in a more significant way, we learn about their perceived needs and desires and use this information to suggest ways for the Physics Education Research community to address these needs. When research-based resources are well aligned with the perceived needs of faculty, faculty members will more readily take them up. We used phenomenographic interviews of ordinary physics faculty and department chairs to identify four families of issues that faculty have around research-based assessments (RBA). First, many faculty are interested in using RBAs but have practical needs around how to do so: how to find them, which ones there are, and how to administer them. They want help addressing these needs. Second, at the same time, many faculty think that RBAs are limited and don't measure many of the things they care about, or aren't applicable in their classes. They want assessments to measure skills, perceptions, and specific concepts. Third, many faculty want to turn to communities of other faculty and experts to help them interpret their assessment results and suggest other ways to do assessment. They want to norm their assessment results by comparing to others and interacting with faculty from other schools to learn about how they do assessment. Fourth, many faculty consider their courses in the broader contexts of accountability and their departments. They want help with assessment in these broader contexts. We also discuss how faculty members role in their department and type of institution influence their perceived wants and needs around assessment.

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arXiv2014

Energy conservation in dissipative processes: Teacher expectations and strategies associated with imperceptible thermal energy

Research has demonstrated that many students and some teachers do not consistently apply the conservation of energy principle when analyzing mechanical scenarios. In observing elementary and secondary teachers engaged in learning activities that require tracking and conserving energy, we find that challenges to energy conservation often arise in dissipative scenarios in which kinetic energy transforms into thermal energy (e.g., a ball rolls to a stop). We find that teachers expect that when they can see the motion associated with kinetic energy, they should be able to perceive the warmth associated with thermal energy. Their expectations are violated when the warmth produced is imperceptible. In these cases, teachers reject the idea that the kinetic energy transforms to thermal energy. Our observations suggest that apparent difficulties with energy conservation may have their roots in a strong and productive association between forms of energy and their perceptible indicators. We see teachers resolve these challenges by relating the original scenario to an exaggerated version in which the dissipated thermal energy is associated with perceptible warmth. Using these exaggerations, teachers infer that thermal energy is present to a lesser degree in the original scenario. They use this exaggeration strategy to productively track and conserve energy in dissipative scenarios.

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arXiv2014

Gender gap on concept inventories in physics: what is consistent, what is inconsistent, and what factors influence the gap?

We review the literature on the gender gap on concept inventories in physics. Across studies of the most commonly used mechanics concept inventories, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), mens average pretest scores are always higher than womens, and in most cases mens posttest scores are higher as well. The weighted average gender difference on these tests is 13% for pretest scores, 12% for posttest scores, and 6% for normalized gain. This difference is much smaller than the average difference in normalized gain between traditional lecture and interactive engagement (25%), but it is large enough that it could impact the results of studies comparing the effectiveness of different teaching methods. There is sometimes a gender gap on commonly used electromagnetism concept inventories, but it is usually much smaller and sometimes is zero or favors women. The weighted average gender difference on these tests is 3.7% for pretest scores, 8.5% for posttest scores, and 6% for normalized gain. Based on our analysis of 26 published articles, no single factor is sufficient to explain the gap. Several high-profile studies that have claimed to account for or reduce the gender gap have failed to be replicated in subsequent studies, suggesting that isolated claims of explanations of the gender gap should be interpreted with caution. Other factors, such as gender differences in background preparation, scores on different kinds of assessment, and splits between how students respond to test questions when answering for themselves or for a scientist do contribute to a difference between male and female responses, but the size of these differences is smaller than the size of the overall gender gap, suggesting that the gender gap is most likely due to the combination of many small factors rather than any one factor that can easily be modified.

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