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

该项目旨在通过提供一个研究基地，研究教学如何改变学生对物理系统（从弹射器的运动到单个原子的运动）测量的理解，从而服务于国家利益。为了让学生更好地为21世纪的STEM职业做好准备，高等教育机构正急于将数据科学和量子信息的教学纳入其中。该准备工作的一个重要方面是让学生对所有系统（从经典物理中的日常物体到量子力学系统中的微观粒子）的测量基础及其相关的可变性和不确定性有一个强有力的理解。这个项目希望促进对教学如何影响学生对测量的思考及其潜在的不确定性的理解。揭示学生学习与教学实践之间的联系方式，可以让课程开发者设计出有效的教学，直接满足学生的学习需求，并为他们走出课堂后的未来做好更好的准备。目前，关于定向入门实验教学的影响，研究提供了不同的结果，而关于量子力学教学对学生思考不确定性和测量概念的影响，研究没有结果。该项目计划采用混合方法，将访谈、文件分析、调查分析、自然语言处理以及定性和定量聚类分析相结合。项目团队将积极从一系列机构和机构类型中招募广泛多样的学生反馈，这样的结果可能比物理教育研究文献中的标准结果更能推广到全国的学生。该项目的目标是(a)在入门和高级课程中描述不确定性和测量主题的教学特征，(b)根据学生对不确定性和测量的多个维度的推理来阐述学生概况，以及(c)识别由于不同教学策略而导致的学生思维的任何转变。结果应提供跨越从物理实验室教学到量子力学教学的不相关文献的智力价值，激励关键的未来工作，以调用本科物理课程的变化。NSF IUSE: EDU项目支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.