As part of an ongoing project to examine student learning in upper-division courses in thermal and statistical physics, we have examined student reasoning about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. We have examined reasoning in terms of heat transfer, entropy maximization, and statistical treatments of multiplicity and probability. In…

Through study of 32 students' narratives about coping with external threats to their career goals (e.g., denial of admission to the major of their choice), this study examines the following issues: (a) the coping mechanisms student use when faced with threats that loom large, (b) the relation between coping methods employed and whether the goal is…