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Introductory physics lab courses aim to have students gain a wide variety of skills and knowledge, including developing views of the nature of experimental physics that are aligned with common expert views. The large introductory lab course ( 700 students) at the University of Colorado Boulder has been recently transformed to explicitly address this goal among others. To measure the level of success in reaching this goal, we used an established assessment instrument, the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS), which probes students’ views and expectations of experimental physics. We collected students’ responses to E-CLASS during three semesters before, and four semesters after, the course transformation. We observe statistically significant differences between the before and after transformation post-test scores of the (i) overall E-CLASS survey and (ii) some individual E-CLASS items, especially those closely related to specific course learning outcomes. 

A choose-your-own-adventure online assessment has been developed to measure the process of modeling undertaken by students when asked to measure the Earth's gravitational constant, g, using a simple pendulum. This activity forms part of the Modeling Assessment for Physics Laboratory Experiments (MAPLE), which is being developed to assess upper-division students' proficiency in modeling. The role of the pendulum activity is to serve as a pre-test assessment with apparatus that students are likely to be familiar. Using an initial sample of student data from a development phase of the assessment, we show that the pendulum activity is able to discriminate between a range of student processes that are relevant to understanding student engagement with modeling as a scientific tool. 

Research-based assessment instruments (RBAIs) are essential tools to measure aspects of student learning and improve pedagogical practice. RBAIs are designed to measure constructs related to a well-defined learning goal. However, relatively few RBAIs exist that are suitable for the specific learning goals of upper-division physics lab courses. One such learning goal is modeling, the process of constructing, testing, and refining models of physical and measurement systems. Here, we describe the creation of one component of an RBAI to measure proficiency with modeling. The RBAI is called the Modeling Assessment for Physics Laboratory Experiments (MAPLE). For use with large numbers of students, MAPLE must be scalable, which includes not requiring impractical amounts of labor to analyze its data as is often the case with large free-response assessments. We, therefore, use the coupled multiple response (CMR) format, from which data can be analyzed by a computer, to create items for measuring student reasoning in this component of MAPLE.We describe the process we used to create a set of CMR items for MAPLE, provide an example of this process for an item, and lay out an argument for construct validity of the resulting items based on our process. 

The large introductory physics lab course at the University of Colorado Boulder, which serves primarily engineering and physical science majors, was recently completely redesigned to align with new explicit learning goals. One of the learning goals of the new course was to have students enjoy working on physics experiments and to see value in experimental physics as a discipline. Additionally, we wanted to make the student workload consistent with a one credit course. To help achieve these goals, we created custom interactive videos that were viewed by the students before the lab to help them prepare for the lab activities. We present design principles for creating these videos, as well as data regarding student engagement and perceptions of this part of the course. Physics Education Research Conference 2019 Part of the PER Conference series Provo, UT: July 24-25, 2019 

Methodological development of a new coding scheme for an established assessment on measurement uncertainty in laboratory courses written by Benjamin Pollard, Robert Hobbs, Dimitri R. Dounas-Frazer, and H. J. Lewandowski Student understanding around measurement uncertainty is an important learning outcome in physics lab courses across the US, including at the University of Coloroado Boulder (CU), where it is among the major learning outcomes for the large introductory stand-alone physics lab course. One research tool for studying student understanding around measurement uncertainty, which we use in this course, is the Physics Measurement Questionnaire (PMQ), an open-response assessment for measuring student understanding of measurement uncertainty. Interpreting and analyzing PMQ data involves coding students' written explanations to open-response questions. However, the preexisting scoring scheme for the PMQ does not fully capture the breadth and depth of reasoning contained in our students' responses. Therefore, we created a new coding scheme for the PMQ based on responses from our students. Here, we document our process to develop a new coding scheme for the PMQ, and describe the resulting codes. We also present examples of what can be learned from applying the new coding scheme at our institution. Physics Education Research Conference 2019 Part of the PER Conference series Provo, UT: July 24-25, 2019