Michael Vignal
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View article: Evidence for validity and reliability of a research-based assessment instrument on measurement uncertainty
Evidence for validity and reliability of a research-based assessment instrument on measurement uncertainty Open
The Survey of Physics Reasoning on Uncertainty Concepts in Experiments (SPRUCE) was designed to measure students’ proficiency with measurement uncertainty concepts and practices across ten different assessment objectives to help facilitate…
View article: Using a research-based assessment instrument to explore undergraduate students’ proficiencies around measurement uncertainty in physics lab contexts
Using a research-based assessment instrument to explore undergraduate students’ proficiencies around measurement uncertainty in physics lab contexts Open
Concepts and practices surrounding measurement uncertainty are vital knowledge for physicists and are often emphasized in undergraduate physics laboratory courses. We have previously developed a research-based assessment instrument—the Sur…
View article: Representational differences in how students compare measurements
Representational differences in how students compare measurements Open
Measurement uncertainty plays a critical role in the process of experimental physics. It is useful to be able to assess student proficiency around the topic to iteratively improve instruction and student learning. For the topic of measurem…
View article: Survey of physics reasoning on uncertainty concepts in experiments: An assessment of measurement uncertainty for introductory physics labs
Survey of physics reasoning on uncertainty concepts in experiments: An assessment of measurement uncertainty for introductory physics labs Open
[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Instructional labs: Improving traditions and new directions.] Measurement uncertainty is a critical feature of experimental research in the physical sciences, and the concepts and practices …
View article: Representational differences in how students compare measurements
Representational differences in how students compare measurements Open
Measurement uncertainty plays a critical role in the process of experimental physics. It is useful to be able to assess student proficiency around the topic to iteratively improve instruction and student learning. For the topic of measurem…
View article: Overview of couplet scoring in content-focused physics assessments
Overview of couplet scoring in content-focused physics assessments Open
Content-focused research-based assessment instruments typically use items (i.e., questions) as the unit of assessment for scoring, reporting, and validation. Couplet scoring employs an alternative unit of assessment called a couplet, which…
View article: Survey of physics reasoning on uncertainty concepts in experiments: an assessment of measurement uncertainty for introductory physics labs
Survey of physics reasoning on uncertainty concepts in experiments: an assessment of measurement uncertainty for introductory physics labs Open
Measurement uncertainty is a critical feature of experimental research in the physical sciences, and the concepts and practices surrounding measurement uncertainty are important components of physics lab courses. However, there has not bee…
View article: Affordances of Articulating Assessment Objectives in Research-based Assessment Development
Affordances of Articulating Assessment Objectives in Research-based Assessment Development Open
Research-based assessments have historically been developed based on teaching experience and/or course learning goals or objectives. However, using course learning goals for assessment development has limitations, including that the goals …
View article: Methods for utilizing Item response theory with Coupled, Multiple-Response assessments
Methods for utilizing Item response theory with Coupled, Multiple-Response assessments Open
Recent years have seen a movement within the research-based assessment development community towards item formats that go beyond simple multiple-choice formats. Some have moved towards free-response questions, particularly at the upper-div…
View article: Validation of a coupled, multiple response assessment for upper-division thermal physics
Validation of a coupled, multiple response assessment for upper-division thermal physics Open
Currently there are no assessment instruments available for upper-division thermal physics, though several introductory assessments are currently available. Notably missing from these introductory assessment are items targeting statistical…
View article: Investigating unprompted and prompted diagrams generated by physics majors during problem solving
Investigating unprompted and prompted diagrams generated by physics majors during problem solving Open
Diagrams are ubiquitous in physics, especially in physics education and physics problem solving. Problem solvers may generate diagrams to orient to a scenario, to organize information, to directly extract an answer, or as a tool of communi…
View article: Investigating students� strategies for interpreting quantum states in an upper-division quantum computing course
Investigating students� strategies for interpreting quantum states in an upper-division quantum computing course Open
Significant focus in the PER community has been paid to student reasoning in undergraduate quantum mechanics. However, these same topics have remained largely unexplored in the context of emerging interdisciplinary quantum information scie…
View article: Students' use of disability accommodations in emergency remote teaching
Students' use of disability accommodations in emergency remote teaching Open
Disability is an often-overlooked aspect of diversity. Recent research has indicated that there are barriers to access and participation for disabled students inherent in the design of physics courses. To help counteract these barriers, un…
View article: Physics Problem-Solvers on Why They Generate Unprompted Diagrams
Physics Problem-Solvers on Why They Generate Unprompted Diagrams Open
Previous work has shown that many physics students will draw unprompted diagrams while solving physics problems. These diagrams are distinct from prompted student-generated diagrams in that they tend to be smaller and contain fewer details…
View article: Comparing undergraduate and graduate student reasoning on a conceptual entropy questionnaire
Comparing undergraduate and graduate student reasoning on a conceptual entropy questionnaire Open
In a prior study, we investigated graduate student reasoning on a set of entropy-related conceptual tasks in a think-aloud format. The tasks involved entropy from microscopic and macroscopic perspectives, ideal gases, and a novel context i…
View article: Investigating graduate student reasoning on a conceptual entropy questionnaire
Investigating graduate student reasoning on a conceptual entropy questionnaire Open
Student learning in upper division thermal physics has not been studied to\nthe same extent as in other courses like electromagnetism and quantum\nmechanics. Studies addressing reasoning and learning at the graduate level are\neven more li…
View article: Investigating how graduate students connect microstates and macrostates with entropy
Investigating how graduate students connect microstates and macrostates with entropy Open
As a first step in a larger study of student reasoning in upper-division thermal physics, we conducted thinkaloud interviews with 8 physics graduate students to probe their understanding of entropy. In this paper, we’ll discuss results fro…
View article: Investigating Upper-Division Students' Interpretations of the Divergence Theorem
Investigating Upper-Division Students' Interpretations of the Divergence Theorem Open
The divergence theorem is an important mathematical tool used in many areas of physics, most notably, electricity and magnetism. Students have nominally encountered the divergence theorem in their math courses; however, its application in …
View article: Comparing Unprompted and Prompted Student-Generated Diagrams
Comparing Unprompted and Prompted Student-Generated Diagrams Open
Diagrams are ubiquitous in physics, especially in physics education and problem solving. Students might generate diagrams to orient themselves to a scenario, to organize information to aid in solving a problem, or as a tool of communicatio…
View article: Understanding the student experience with emergency remote teaching
Understanding the student experience with emergency remote teaching Open
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities transitioned in-person instruction to a new modality we refer to as ‘emergency remote teaching’ (ERT). As many instructors may be facing this same format in future semesters, …
View article: Designing upper-division thermal physics assessment items informed by faculty perspectives of key content coverage
Designing upper-division thermal physics assessment items informed by faculty perspectives of key content coverage Open
Though several conceptual inventories have been developed for thermal physics, none target upper-division material and all focus specifically on thermodynamics without including statistical mechanics content. In this paper, we outline the …
View article: Expert reasoning about independent and dependent variables in thermodynamics
Expert reasoning about independent and dependent variables in thermodynamics Open
Thermodynamic potentials (or free energies) are different energies that can describe the same system using different sets of independent variables. While the flexibility to consider one system in multiple ways is powerful, deciding which v…
View article: Analogues in thermodynamics: the Partial Derivative Machine and Legendre transformations
Analogues in thermodynamics: the Partial Derivative Machine and Legendre transformations Open
One commonly and persistently difficult topic in thermodynamics is the relationship between the different thermodynamic potentials obtained through Legendre transformations. The Partial Derivative Machine (PDM) was developed at Oregon Stat…
View article: Epistemic Games: A Multi-Layered Task Analysis
Epistemic Games: A Multi-Layered Task Analysis Open
Physics education researchers have successfully employed the epistemic games framework as a descriptive framework for episodes of physics problem solving. Researchers have used this framework to analyze behaviors and activities at a variet…