Collaborative Research: The impact of instruction on student thinking about measurement in classical and quantum mechanics experiments

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This project aims to serve the national interest by providing a research base for how instruction changes students’ understanding about measurement in physical systems ranging from the motion of a catapult to that of a single atom. In an effort to better prepare students for twenty-first century STEM careers, post-secondary institutions are rushing to incorporate instruction on data science and quantum information. An important aspect of that preparation is for students to develop a robust understanding of the fundamentals of measurement and its associated variability and uncertainty across all systems, from everyday objects in classical physics to the microscopic particles in quantum mechanical systems. This project hopes to advance understanding of how instruction affects student thinking about measurements and their underlying uncertainty. Uncovering the ways in which student learning is connected to instructional practices should allow curriculum developers to design effective instruction that speaks directly to students’ learning needs and better prepares them for futures beyond the classroom. At present, studies provide mixed results regarding the impact of targeting introductory lab instruction and no results regarding the impact of quantum mechanics instruction on student thinking about uncertainty and measurement concepts. The project plans to employ a mixed-methods approach that combines interviews, document analysis, survey analysis, natural language processing, and qualitative and quantitative cluster analyses. The project team will actively recruit a broad and diverse set of student responses from a range of institutions and institution types, such that the results may be more generalizable to students nationwide than is standard in the physics education research literature. The goals of the project are to (a) characterize instruction on the topics of uncertainty and measurement in introductory and upper-level courses, (b) articulate student profiles based on student reasoning about uncertainty and measurement along multiple dimensions, and (c) identify any shifts in student thinking as a result of different instructional strategies. The results should provide intellectual merit that span a disconnected literature from physics lab instruction to quantum mechanics instruction, motivating critical future work to invoke change across an undergraduate physics curriculum. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.