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  • Open Access

Network positions in active learning environments in physics

Adrienne L. Traxler1,*, Tyme Suda1, Eric Brewe2, and Kelley Commeford3

  • 1Wright State University, Department of Physics, Dayton, Ohio 45435, USA
  • 2Drexel University, Department of Physics, School of Education Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
  • 3Drexel University, Department of Physics, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA

  • *adrienne.traxler@wright.edu
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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16, 020129 – Published 27 October, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020129

Abstract

This study uses positional analysis to describe the student interaction networks in four research-based introductory physics curricula. Positional analysis is a technique for simplifying the structure of a network into blocks of actors whose connections are more similar to each other than to the rest of the network. This method describes social structure in a way that is comparable between networks of different sizes and densities and can show large-scale patterns such as hierarchy among positions. We detail one positional analysis method and apply it to class sections of Peer Instruction, SCALE-UP, ISLE, and Minnesota Model context-rich problems. At the level of detail shown in the blockmodels, most of the curricula are more alike than different, showing a late-term tendency to form coherent subgroups that communicate actively among themselves but have few interposition links. Initial position assignments tend to change from beginning to end of the term, but in cases where the initial assignment is stable, those students appear to become more connected to each other and to the largest network component. These trends in position structure and stability may be network signatures of active learning classes, but wider data collection is needed to investigate.

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 16, 020129– Published 27 October, 2020
  • Received 15 April 2020
  • Accepted 1 October 2020
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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