Physics education researchers have called for a shift from traditional laboratory (lab) instruction to labs that focus on the development of experimental skills. Although research has demonstrated the efficacy of such reformed labs, much work remains to determine what these labs can and should teach students and how best to achieve these goals.…

The position of writing center assistant director resides in the middle of the often blurry lines of hierarchy. While many writing centers advocate for team leadership, the fact remains that universities are steeped in bureaucratic tradition familiar to university leaders, students, and tutors. Assistant directors accomplish tasks that keep the…

In undergraduate research settings, students are likely to encounter anomalous data, that is, data that do not meet their expectations. Most of the research that directly or indirectly captures the role of anomalous data in research settings uses post-hoc reflective interviews or surveys. These data collection approaches focus on recall of past…

In the article "Understanding Writer Center Use among Community College Students," Christina Savarese addresses the reasons students use the writing center, understanding those reasons, and using them to identify ways the writing center administrators and tutors can better serve their student population. Additional research findings…

Reflection exercises have been used within anatomy education to evaluate empathy, humanism, and professionalism. A typical reflection exercise consists of directed prompts to guide the student's reflection as it relates to the experience and/or research question. The aim of this study was to utilize reflections through an open-ended format to…

Background: Previous research has indicated that it is difficult to maintain student motivation in gateway courses when students from multiple majors are taking the same course. Providing students with a choice in assignment is important because it creates a feeling that the students are in charge of their education, that they can tailor their…

The laboratory is a complex environment where the three levels of the chemistry triplet coincide. As the laboratory environment places a large demand on the working memory of students, cognitive load theory can address overload which causes barriers to learning. Breaking down barriers requires iterative phases of analysis/exploration,…

In this exploratory study, we took as our point of departure Lori Salem's (2016) call to investigate the factors that affect students' decisions to visit the writing center. Rather than exploring student decision-making through a sociological lens, as Salem does, we drew on insights from social psychology to understand students' motivations. We…

Teachers' goals and orientations underlie their instructional decision making and can make the difference between "talking the talk" and "walking the walk" when trying to change lab instruction. Schoenfeld's "Resources, Orientations, and Goals" (ROG) framework was employed to shed light on the challenges involved in a…