Collaborative Research: Research and curriculum development in thermal physics

本项目是正在进行的热物理协调研究和基于研究的课程开发计划的延续，主要是在高级本科课程中。数据是通过一对一的学生访谈、书面的测试前和测试后的问题以及多项选择调查来收集的。然后将研究应用于课程材料的开发，旨在以与先前在物理教学中证明有效的主动学习方法一致的方式提高学生的理解。先前的支持导致了几个访谈协议、诊断问题和调查问题的发展。项目工作人员已经确定了热物理中几个具体的概念上的困难，并开发了一些初步的课程材料，这些材料已经在国内机构进行了试点测试，以解决这些困难。该项目增加了现有的数据语料库，并将现有的工作和产品扩展到热物理的新主题。目前正在评估现有材料和在该项目期间开发的材料在解决通过研究确定的学生困难方面的有效性。辅助材料将我们的课程材料更充分地整合到课程中，并为教师提供背景信息和评估问题，这些辅助材料正在开发中。目前正在编制一套辅助材料，包括前后测试、家庭作业和一份简短的教师指南，其中介绍了内容的背景和我们的研究成果以及实施建议。材料适用于从经典热力学和/或统计力学角度教授的课程。本项目以高年级课程为重点，拓展了已广泛应用于导论课程的标准物理教育研究方法的适用性。这方面的研究结果引起了物理教育研究界和高等物理课程教师的极大兴趣。在国内和国际物理学家、物理教育家和教育研究人员会议上发表的研究成果和课程材料的传播，以及在参与机构进行的试点测试，都有助于改善国内和国际的热物理教学。这项工作还有其他跨学科的组成部分。研究和课程材料的一个重点是物理和相关数学之间的联系。此外，还将物理课程的调查结果与化学、工程和地质科学等类似课程的调查结果进行比较。目的是比较这些人群中特定困难或信念的普遍性和持久性，并探索不同学科特定方法和教学策略对学生热力学学习的影响程度。

Physics (13)This project is a continuation of an ongoing program of coordinated research and research-based curriculum development in thermal physics, primarily in the advanced-level undergraduate courses. Data are gathered using one-on-one student interviews, written pre- and post-test questions, and multiple-choice surveys. The research is then applied to the development of curricular materials intended to improve student understanding in a manner consistent with active-learning methods previously shown to be effective in physics instruction. Prior support has resulted in the development of several interview protocols, diagnostic questions, and survey questions. Project staff have identified several specific conceptual difficulties in thermal physics, and have developed some preliminary curricular materials that have been pilot tested at the home institutions to address these difficulties. This project is adding to the existing data corpus and extending existing work and products to new topics in thermal physics. Existing materials and materials being developed during this project are being evaluated for their effectiveness at addressing student difficulties identified through research. Ancillary materials that integrate our curricular materials more fully into courses and provide instructors with background information and assessment questions are being developed. A set of supporting materials, including pre- and post-tests, homework exercises, and a brief instructors' guide with background on the content and our research findings as well as suggestions for implementation, are being prepared. Materials are applicable to courses taught from a classical thermodynamics and/or a statistical mechanics perspective. With its sharp focus on upper-division courses, this project is expanding the applicability of standard physics education research methods already widely used in introductory courses. Results from this aspect of the project are of great interest to the physics education research community and to instructors of advanced physics courses. The dissemination of both research results and of curricular materials in publications, in presentations at national and international meetings of physicists, physics educators and education researchers, and via pilot testing at participating institutions is contributing to the improvement of instruction in thermal physics nationally and internationally. There are additional interdisciplinary components to this work. One focus of both the research and the curricular materials is the connections between the physics and associated mathematics. In addition, results of the investigations in physics courses are being compared to the results from analogous courses in chemistry, engineering, and geological sciences. The aim is to compare the prevalence and persistence of specific difficulties or beliefs among these populations and to explore the extent to which the different discipline-specific approaches and instructional strategies affect student learning of thermodynamics.