Women, especially Black and Latina women, are marginalized in physics, including in high school classrooms. Recognition is one of the ways women and girls experience marginalization in physics. This dissertation is comprised of three distinct but related studies examining how students experience recognition in an AP Physics 1 classroom. The first…

Physicists, physics students, and community members engage with each other through a variety of informal physics programs. These programs differ in format, such as after school programs, public lectures, planetariums, summer camps, and other non-formal classroom environments. These programs also differ in the physics topics they cover, activities,…

Quantitative literacy---the use of mathematics to describe and understand the world---is an essential skill. Physics has an opportunity to contribute to how students develop quantitative literacy, as much of physics curriculum centers on making sense of quantitative models. One facet of quantitative literacy in physics is covariational reasoning:…

This dissertation provides a start-to-finish description of development, administration, and validation for an online middle-school physics test using a DCM framework with response-time. The first paper illustrated the process of implementing DCM with a careful selection of the content domain and a simulation approach for a Q-matrix construction.…

In recent years, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have gained increasing importance in the field of physics. Despite efforts to enhance DEI, physics still faces numerous challenges in this area. This dissertation is divided into three main chapters, aiming to investigate the significance of learning-related emotions and physics identity as…

Numerosity perception has been studied for at least 150 years and its psychophysics have been well characterized by experimental work. However, the origins of many of its key properties remain obscure. For instance, people estimate the numerosity of small sets (up to four) much more rapidly and accurately than larger sets; people tend to…

Knowledge about the interior density distribution of a planetary body can constrain geophysical processes and reveal information about the origin and evolution of the body. Properties of this interior distribution can be inferred by analyzing gravity acceleration data sampled by orbiting satellites. Usually, the gravity data is complemented with…

The human brain is a byproduct of the natural process of evolution, as is the knowledge it contains. Like other natural resources fit for human consumption, knowledge can be modeled as a physical entity that can be sought after and acquired. In ancient times, knowledge was geographically constrained as a consequence of being a physical entity…

Physics classrooms, from high school through graduate school, chronically enroll far too few women, people of color, English language learners, and low-income students. Research suggests students' science identity functions as a strong indicator for their continued pursuit of physics coursework and careers. Further research indicates students'…

A significant body of scholarship in Physics Education Research (PER) has documented that students have intuitive knowledge resources that they use to make sense of the physical world. Similarly, for physicists, symmetry is fundamental to making sense of the universe. In this dissertation, I explore students' intuitive resources related to…

The post-pandemic classroom dealt with not only the mental health struggles of educators and students, but also the technological and virtual learning dependence in a time ridden with misinformation. At this time, it was important to not only consider the purpose and intent of science education as a learning experience, but also pedagogical…

The implementation of California Assembly Bill (CAB) 705 has impacted how students enroll into Physics courses. This paralleled anecdotal evidence of a decline in student mathematical abilities. The goal of this research study was to determine the existence of a relationship between CAB 705 and student success in specific Physics courses. This…

Students come to their high school physics classroom with experiences and knowledge that can be used to help explain physics concepts, but those experiences may not fully align with the scientifically accepted science concept. When there is a misalignment between a student's prior knowledge and the scientifically accepted concept a misconception…

Different teaching and learning strategies have informed physics educators on addressing the cultural meanings and practices of physics that have sustained homogeneity within university programs. However, literature evidence physics learning environments are under-theorized in dismantling homogeneity and conceptually changes physics student…

This paper is a proposal, project, and dissertation for Kenneth Johnson, Doctor of Philosophy degree in Science Education, in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa. I propose analyzing the writing assignment in an undergraduate online physics course offered by a small midwestern community college (CC). The goal is to study how Writing to…