In introductory physics laboratory instruction, students often expect to confirm or demonstrate textbook physics concepts. This expectation is largely undesirable: labs that emphasize confirmation of textbook physics concepts are generally unsuccessful at teaching those concepts and even in contexts that do not emphasize confirmation, such…

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) significantly enhance the outcomes of students who participate. Unfortunately, students may face barriers to engaging in UREs, which creates challenges for students' development of essential research skills that may not be covered thoroughly in laboratory classes. Overall, there is a need for a curriculum…

Students need to possess sensitivity to the environment in order to behave positively when they notice a problem and find the right solution. This study intends to investigate whether the PBHL model affects the environmental sensitivity of Social Science Education students on environmental issues and conservation materials. The quasi-experimental…

Background and Context: Encouraging undergraduate programming students to think more about their software development processes is challenging. Most programming courses focus on coding skill development and mastering programming language features; subsequently software development processes (e.g. planning, code commenting, and error debugging) are…

Undergraduate research experiences are excellent opportunities to engage students in science alongside experienced scientists, but at large institutions, it is challenging to accommodate all students. To address and engage a larger number of students, we developed a modular laboratory course based on the course-based undergraduate research…

We explore the overlap of two nationally recognized learning outcomes for physics lab courses, namely, the ability to model experimental systems and the ability to troubleshoot a malfunctioning apparatus. Modeling and troubleshooting are both nonlinear, recursive processes that involve using models to inform revisions to an apparatus. To probe the…

In this exploratory qualitative study, we describe instructors' self-reported practices for teaching and assessing students' ability to troubleshoot in electronics lab courses. We collected audio data from interviews with 20 electronics instructors from 18 institutions that varied by size, selectivity, and other factors. In addition to describing…