Dynamics of Productive Confirmation Framing in an Introductory Lab

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Descamps, Ian, Jeon, Sophia, Holmes, N. G., Scherr, Rachel E., Hammer, David
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Descamps, Ian
Jeon, Sophia
Holmes, N. G.
Scherr, Rachel E.
Hammer, David
author_facet Descamps, Ian
Jeon, Sophia
Holmes, N. G.
Scherr, Rachel E.
Hammer, David
contents In introductory physics laboratory instruction, students often expect to confirm or demonstrate textbook physics concepts (Wilcox & Lewandowski, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2018). This expectation is largely undesirable: labs that emphasize confirmation of textbook physics concepts are unsuccessful at teaching those concepts (Wieman & Holmes, 2015; Holmes et al., 2017) and even in contexts that don't emphasize confirmation, such expectations can lead to students disregarding or manipulating their data in order to obtain the expected result (Smith et al., 2020). In other words, when students expect their lab activities to confirm a known result, they may relinquish epistemic agency and violate disciplinary practices. We claim that, in other cases, confirmatory expectations can actually support productive disciplinary engagement. In particular, when an expected result is not confirmed, students may enter a productive "troubleshooting" mode (Smith et al., 2020). We analyze the complex dynamics of students' epistemological framing in a lab where student's confirmatory expectations support and even generate epistemic agency and disciplinary practices, including developing original ideas, measures, and apparatuses to apply to the material world.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_14526
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
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spellingShingle Dynamics of Productive Confirmation Framing in an Introductory Lab
Descamps, Ian
Jeon, Sophia
Holmes, N. G.
Scherr, Rachel E.
Hammer, David
Physics Education
In introductory physics laboratory instruction, students often expect to confirm or demonstrate textbook physics concepts (Wilcox & Lewandowski, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2018). This expectation is largely undesirable: labs that emphasize confirmation of textbook physics concepts are unsuccessful at teaching those concepts (Wieman & Holmes, 2015; Holmes et al., 2017) and even in contexts that don't emphasize confirmation, such expectations can lead to students disregarding or manipulating their data in order to obtain the expected result (Smith et al., 2020). In other words, when students expect their lab activities to confirm a known result, they may relinquish epistemic agency and violate disciplinary practices. We claim that, in other cases, confirmatory expectations can actually support productive disciplinary engagement. In particular, when an expected result is not confirmed, students may enter a productive "troubleshooting" mode (Smith et al., 2020). We analyze the complex dynamics of students' epistemological framing in a lab where student's confirmatory expectations support and even generate epistemic agency and disciplinary practices, including developing original ideas, measures, and apparatuses to apply to the material world.
title Dynamics of Productive Confirmation Framing in an Introductory Lab
topic Physics Education
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14526