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Abstract Research suggests that interacting with more peers about physics course material is correlated with higher student performance. Some studies, however, have demonstrated that different topics of peer interactions may correlate with their performance in different ways, or possibly not at all. In this study, we probe both the peers with whom students interact about their physics course and the particular aspects of the course material about which they interacted in six different introductory physics courses: four lecture courses and two lab courses. Drawing on social network analysis methods, we replicate prior work demonstrating that, on average, students who interact with more peers in their physics courses have higher final course grades. Expanding on this result, we find that students discuss a wide range of aspects of course material with their peers: concepts, small-group work, assessments, lecture, and homework. We observe that in the lecture courses, interacting with peers about concepts is most strongly correlated with final course grade, with smaller correlations also arising for small-group work and homework. In the lab courses, on the other hand, small-group work is the only interaction topic that significantly correlates with final course grade. We use these findings to discuss how course structures (e.g. grading schemes and weekly course schedules) may shape student interactions and add nuance to prior work by identifying how specific types of student interactions are associated (or not) with performance. 

Prior work has found inequities in what experimental roles students take on during instructional labs. Research also suggests that this role division might arise implicitly and that prompting explicit role negotiation might improve equity in lab group work. To understand these various ways students negotiate roles in their lab groups, we use the lens of positioning to analyze two different video episodes of a gender-and-race-diverse group of three students. In one episode, students implicitly take on roles through subtle negotiations and in the second episode, one student explicitly assigns roles. We find that the positioning dynamics in both episodes lead to inequitable learning experiences within the group. This inequity, moreover, occurs along gender and racial lines, prompting future work relating students' intersectional identities to their positioning dynamics in small groups. 

While understanding laboratory equipment is an important learning goal of physics laboratory (lab) instruction, previous studies have found inequities as to who gets to use equipment in in-person lab classes. With the transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, class dynamics changed and the effects on equipment usage remain unclear. As part of a larger effort to make intro physics labs more equitable, we investigated student equipment usage based on gender and race in two introductory physics lab courses, one taught in-person and one taught remotely. We found inequities between men and women for in-person instruction, replicating previous work with a new student population. In contrast, we found that remote instruction created a more gender equitable learning environment, albeit with one student typically in charge of the equipment per class session. When we looked at equipment handling based on student race, we found no inequities in either format. These results suggest that changes should be made in introductory labs to create a more gender equitable learning environment and that some aspects of remote labs could help make these labs more equitable. 

Numerous studies have identified gender inequity in how students divide roles in lab courses. Few studies, however, have probed how these inequities impact women's experimental physics identity development. In this work, we used closed-response surveys to investigate which lab tasks students view as part of "doing physics" and how these designations varied by gender. In both courses, we found that most students viewed working with the experimental apparatus, taking lab notes, doing data analysis, and thinking about the physics theory behind the experiment as part of doing physics. Only 50% of students, however, viewed managing the group progress as part of doing physics. While men and women's views did not vary in the first-semester lab course, in the third-semester course women were more likely to view notes and managing as part of doing physics than were men. Given that previous research has indicated that women are more likely to take on managing and note-taking roles than men, our results suggest that women may be receiving less recognition as physicists from their peers, which may hinder their experimental physics identity development.