Research Areas: Physics Education Research, Engineering Education Research
I am a discipline-based education researcher: a scholar who draws upon fundamental research from cognitive psychology and the learning sciences to study teaching and learning in disciplinary contexts. My research group studies the role that physics plays in broader educational systems. Though our interests are diverse, we are broadly focused on critically examining, assessing, and improving the value and experience of physics learning, especially for those who have been historically excluded from physics.
Our mixed-methods research approach allows us to study these questions at multiple scales. Microscopic: Qualitative methods such as cognitive think-aloud interviews allow us to infer the details of how students and experts think about and experience physics to develop more fundamental theories. Mesoscopic: Qualitative analysis of students’ and experts’ written work and responses to open-ended prompts allows us to see patterns in reasoning and conduct simple quantitative analyses such as non-parametric statistical tests. Macroscopic: Quantitative analysis of aggregated assessment data allows us to determine large-scale trends in student and expert reasoning, conduct inferential validation of assessments and survey instruments, and analyze how physics education impacts different groups of students.
