Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education research and physics education research, in particular, are currently struggling with a dearth of research into understanding the experiences and identity development of neurodivergent students. In addition, an even larger gap in research exists looking into nonacademic members who have left the field and still strongly identify with their disciplinary identity. As valued members of our physics community, these colleagues provide a unique perspective as to how identity and participation are nurtured and developed, particularly among rising disabled physicists. To resolve these current issues and aid in future research, we operationalize our new Critical Disability Physics Identity framework and present results from interviews with three neurodivergent post-baccalaureate nonacademic physicists (those who have left physics and retain a strong affinity toward their identity as a physicist). As the first paper in a four-part phenomenological study into the identity development of neurodivergent physicists, we also present an analysis of each interview through a Critical Disability Physics Identity lens and discuss the implications of their Critical Disability Physics Identity development. We find that neurodivergent students experience very little outright discrimination and violence but experience structural ableism in the form of assessment that is not constructed for how neurodivergent physicists perform physics-related tasks. Additionally, we find that neurodivergent physicists seem to ground identity in having a strong interest in physics, something that is only shaken by professors and others in power being neutral toward the discrimination experienced by neurodivergent people. We find that there are very large power imbalances between professors and neurodivergent students and that only when professors and others in power are actively anti-ableist is this power imbalance remedied and neurodivergent students begin to feel that they are physicists.

The well-known artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT-4 has become able to process image data as input in October 2023. We investigated its performance on the test of understanding graphs in kinematics to inform the physics education community of the current potential of using ChatGPT in the education process, particularly on tasks that involve graphical interpretation. We found that ChatGPT, on average, performed similarly to students taking a high-school level physics course, but with important differences in the distribution of the correctness of its responses, as well as in terms of the displayed “reasoning” and “visual” abilities. While ChatGPT was very successful at proposing productive strategies for solving the tasks on the test and expressed correct reasoning in most of its responses, it had difficulties correctly “seeing” graphs. We suggest that, based on its performance, caution and a critical approach are needed if one intends to use it in the role of a tutor, a model of a student, or a tool for assisting vision-impaired persons in the context of kinematics graphs.

Recent critiques of physics education research (PER) studies have revoiced the critical issues when drawing causal inferences from observational data where no intervention is present. In response to a call for a “causal reasoning primer” in PER, this paper discusses some of the fundamental issues in statistical causal inference. In reviewing these issues, we discuss well-established causal inference methods commonly applied in other fields and discuss their application to PER. Using simulated data sets, we illustrate (i) why analysis for causal inference should control for confounders but not control for mediators and colliders and (ii) that multiple proposed causal models can fit a highly correlated dataset. Finally, we discuss how these causal inference methods can be used to represent and explain existing issues in quantitative PER. Throughout, we discuss a central issue in observational studies: A good quantitative model fit for a proposed causal model is not sufficient to support that proposed model over alternative models. To address this issue, we propose an explicit role for observational studies in PER that draw statistical causal inferences: Proposing future intervention studies and predicting their outcomes. Mirroring the way that theory can motivate experiments in physics, observational studies in PER can predict the causal effects of interventions, and future intervention studies can test those predictions directly.

Generative AI technologies such as large language models show novel potential to enhance educational research. For example, generative large language models were shown to be capable of solving quantitative reasoning tasks in physics and concept tests such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). Given the importance of such concept inventories for physics education research, and the challenges in developing them such as field testing with representative populations, this study seeks to examine to what extent a generative large language model could be utilized to generate a synthetic dataset for the FCI that exhibits content-related variability in responses. We use the recently introduced ChatGPT based on the GPT 4 generative large language model and investigate to what extent ChatGPT could solve the FCI accurately (RQ1) and could be prompted to solve the FCI as if it were a student belonging to a different cohort (RQ2). Furthermore, we study, to what extent ChatGPT could be prompted to solve the FCI as if it were a student having a different force- and mechanics-related preconception (RQ3). In alignment with other research, we found that ChatGPT could accurately solve the FCI. We furthermore found that prompting ChatGPT to respond to the inventory as if it belonged to a different cohort yielded no variance in responses, however, responding as if it had a certain preconception introduced much variance in responses that approximate real human responses on the FCI in some regards.

Much of physics involves the construction and interpretation of equations. Research on physics students’ understanding and application of mathematics has employed Sherin’s symbolic forms or Fauconnier and Turner’s conceptual blending as analytical frameworks. However, previous symbolic forms analyses have commonly treated students’ in-context understanding as their conceptual schema, which was designed to represent the acontextual, mathematical justification of the symbol template (structure of the expression). Furthermore, most conceptual blending analyses in this area have not included a generic space to specify the underlying structure of a math-physics blend. We describe a conceptual blending model for equation construction and interpretation, which we call symbolic blending, that incorporates the components of symbolic forms with the conceptual schema as the generic space that structures the blend of a symbol template space with a contextual input space. This combination complements symbolic forms analysis with contextual meaning and provides an underlying structure for the analysis of student understanding of equations as a conceptual blend. We present this model in the context of student construction of non-Cartesian differential length vectors. We illustrate the affordances of such a model within this context and expand this approach to other contexts within our research. The model further allows us to reinterpret and extend literature that has used either symbolic forms or conceptual blending.

We add to a growing literature suggesting that demographic grade gaps should be attributed to biases embedded in the courses themselves. Changes in the structure of two different introductory physics classes were made while leaving the topics covered and the level of coverage unchanged. First, a class where conceptual issues were studied before doing any complicated calculations had zero final exam grade gap between students from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups and their peers. Next, four classes that offered students a retake exam each week between the regular bi-weekly exams during the term had zero gender gap in course grades. Our analysis indicates that demographic grade gaps can be attributed to the course structure (a course deficit model) rather than to student preparation (a student deficit model).

Previous studies have shown the important role of different representations in the teaching and learning of physics. In this study, we used eye tracking to investigate the effect of different representations on the process of answering conceptual questions. We compared students’ scores and eye-tracking measures on isomorphic questions which contained graphical, pictorial, and verbal representations. On average, in two-thirds of cases, students were consistent in their answers (correct or incorrect) across all three representations. There was no statistically significant difference in students’ scores for different representations. However, eye-tracking measures suggest that it was easiest for students to extract information from verbal representations and most difficult from pictorial representations for the conceptual questions used in this study. These results could be useful to teachers and researchers when creating conceptual questions and, more generally, when teaching with multiple representations.

Underrepresentation of women in physics is a prominent issue in the western countries. Since physics teachers are in a unique position to affect new generations of students, it has been suggested that they are an important part of the solution. In this paper, we explore how trainee physics teachers create spaces for themselves as learners of physics while negotiating their positioning as women and trainee teachers. The empirical data consist of interviews with 17 trainee physics students, and the analysis focuses predominantly on the identity negotiations of three woman students. We find that the women simultaneously submit to and master a “physics nerd” discourse that connects physics with nerdiness, masculinity, and intelligence, which enables them to successfully create subject positions incorporating physics student, teacher-student, femininity, and constructive study practice. This is of particular importance to trainee physics teachers, who will be responsible for creating inclusive and productive physics learning environments for their students.

With the increasing industrial relevance of new quantum technologies, a well-educated quantum workforce becomes increasingly crucial. The foreseeable lack of workforce raises important questions. What are the expectations regarding the future relevance of second-generation quantum technologies? What are the requirements for the workforce in the coming quantum industry? Which competences, knowledge, and skills should future employees have? In this paper, we report the results of our study that were aimed at mapping requirements and forecasts for the future quantum workforce. Our study consisted of three consecutive survey rounds. In total, we gathered 188 responses from industry and academic experts across Europe. Our study results served as an input for the development of the European Competence Framework for Quantum Technologies, delivered by the project QTEdu CSA for the European Quantum Flagship. In addition, we will discuss predictions from experts related to the future quantum workforce, including the expected industrial relevance of the main areas of quantum technologies, the need for educational efforts, and the expected influence of quantum technologies on everyday life.

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics. Two separate studies measured the impacts of these interventions on students’ physics-related career intentions: first, with an intentionally selected group of teachers (10 teachers, 823 students) across regions and contexts in the U.S.; second, with a randomly sampled group of teachers (13 teachers, 1509 students) from three regions that also included a comparable control group. The results clearly show the importance of exposure to counternarratives in the development of high school students’ career interests, particularly for women and minoritized racial or ethnic groups, and that such counternarratives may help to address systemic issues of underrepresentation in STEM.

As quantum information science and technology (QIST) is becoming more prevalent and occurring not only in research labs but also in industry, many educators are considering how best to incorporate learning about quantum mechanics into various levels of education. Although much of the focus has been on quantum concepts in nonlab courses, current work in QIST has a substantial experimental component. Many instructors of undergraduate lab courses want to provide their students the opportunity to work with quantum experiments. One common way this is done is through a sequence of quantum optics experiments often referred to as the “single-photon experiments.” These experiments demonstrate fundamental quantum phenomena with equipment common to research labs; however, they are resource intensive and cannot be afforded by all institutions. It is therefore imperative to know what unique affordances these experiments provide to students. As a starting point, we surveyed and interviewed instructors who use the single-photon experiments in undergraduate courses, asking how and why they use the experiments. We describe the most commonly used experiments in both quantum and beyond-first-year lab courses, the prevalence of actions the students perform, and the learning goals, ranging from conceptual knowledge to lab skills to student affect. Finally, we present some strategies from these data demonstrating how instructors have addressed the common challenges of preparing students to work with conceptually and technically complex experiments and balancing the practice of technical skills with the completion of the experiments.

Broadly speaking, many physicists value intuition in their work, and many instructors hope their students develop intuition (while possibly being wary of their initial, unrefined intuitions). These considerations are especially relevant in quantum mechanics, a subject many see as counterintuitive because it is removed from classical everyday experience. Do students consider quantum mechanics intuitive, how does this affect their approach to the subject, and what does “intuitive” mean to them? We investigate these questions through a mixed-methods approach within the context of one upper-division quantum mechanics class at an R1 university. We find that most students in this population expect to have little intuition for quantum mechanics, so many consider it more unintuitive than counterintuitive. We also find that students use the word intuitive to refer to a number of distinct ideas. Overall, students have a diverse set of perspectives on intuition and its role in studying quantum mechanics. This study lays groundwork for additional research into students’ views on intuition in physics and informs how we can address intuition as educators. Quantum instructors should be aware of their students’ perspectives on intuition, and can integrate the different ways students perceive intuition into their lessons.

Students’ self-efficacy in physics classes can play a key role in shaping course outcomes. Prior research has shown that women have a lower self-efficacy than men in calculus-based introductory physics courses. We administered a validated survey to 564 students to investigate the gender differences in self-efficacy and how it predicts student grades at the end of a mandatory two-semester introductory physics course sequence primarily for bioscience majors in which women outnumber men. We used structural equation modeling to investigate how students’ self-efficacy predicts female and male students’ grade at the end of the course. We found that women had a lower self-efficacy and grade than men and that the students’ self-efficacy played a major role in predicting students’ grade even though women outnumbered men in this physics course. This study hints at the fact that numerical representation alone is not sufficient, e.g., to mitigate the effects of deep-rooted societal stereotypes and biases related to who belongs in physics and can excel in it. Thus, it is important for physics instructors to be intentional about creating equitable and inclusive learning environments in which all students, particularly those from traditionally marginalized groups such as women, have high self-efficacy and can thrive.

As systematic inequities in higher education and society have been brought to the forefront, graduate programs are interested in increasing the diversity of their applicants and enrollees. Yet, structures in place to evaluate applicants may not support such aims. One potential solution to support those aims is rubric-based holistic review. Starting in 2018, our physics department implemented a rubric-based holistic review process for all applicants to our graduate program. The rubric assessed applicants on 18 metrics covering their grades, test scores, research experiences, noncognitive competencies, and fit with the program. We then compared faculty’s ratings of applicants by admission status, sex, and undergraduate program over a three-year period. We find that the rubric scores show statistically significant differences between admitted and nonadmitted students as hoped. We also find that differences in rubric scores based on sex or undergraduate program reflected known systematic inequities such as applicants from smaller and less prestigious undergraduate universities scoring lower on the physics GRE and women performing more volunteer work in academia. Our results then suggest rubric-based holistic review as a possible route to making graduate admissions in physics more equitable.

High school science classrooms across the United States are answering calls to make computation a part of science learning. The problem is that there is little known about the barriers to learning that computation might bring to a science classroom or about how to help students overcome these challenges. This case study explores these challenges from the perspectives of students in a high school physics classroom with a newly revamped, computation-integrated curriculum. Focusing mainly on interviews to center the perspectives of students, we found that computation is a double-edged sword: It can make science learning more authentic for students who are familiar with it, but it can also generate frustration and an aversion towards physics for students who are not.

While commercially available mixed-reality (MR) head-mounted devices are also increasingly used in education the impact of MR learning environments is mostly being evaluated with respect to learning outcomes and learning gains alongside a number of affective variables. Here we aim at a deeper understanding of the influence of MR on experimental problem-solving processes by means of eye-tracking analyses as an addition to self-reported and questionnaire-based test instruments. On the basis of a didactically and empirically sound designed MR learning environment for experimental problem solving with an electrical circuit we investigate how novices and experts differ in their success in problem solving and their visual attention for both a MR learning environment and a non-MR condition. Our results indicate that MR not only has a positive effect for both groups on success in problem solving, but that it is also accompanied by significant shifts of visual attention on the different parts of the experiment.

Student sense of belonging in physics classes may not only play a key role in shaping course outcomes but also influence student persistence and future career aspirations. Prior research has shown that women have a lower sense of belonging than men in calculus-based introductory physics courses. However, prior research has generally not investigated students’ sense of belonging in introductory physics courses in which women are not underrepresented. We administered a validated survey to investigate the sense of belonging of 814 students and how it predicts student grades in a mandatory introductory physics course primarily for bioscience majors. In particular, we investigated how students’ sense of belonging predicts female and male students’ grade at the end of the mandatory physics course for bioscience majors using structural equation modeling. We found that women had a lower sense of belonging and grade than men in this course and that the students’ sense of belonging played a major role in predicting students’ grade in the course. In addition, while men’s sense of belonging significantly increased from the beginning to the end of the physics course, women’s sense of belonging did not significantly change by the end of the course.

Student motivational beliefs in introductory physics courses can influence their course outcomes as well as their retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and future career aspirations. Prior research has shown that students’ perceived recognition by others as a physics person is important in predicting their physics identity and career choices. This study used validated survey data from 827 students in the first of two college algebra-based introductory physics courses primarily taken by bioscience majors, in which women make up approximately 67% of the class. We investigated how the students’ perceived recognition by instructors and teaching assistants (TAs) as a physics person predicts their grade at the end of a mandatory physics course for bioscience majors in which women are not outnumbered by men. We found that overall women had lower perceived recognition than men as a physics person and their perceived recognition played an important role in predicting course grades controlling for high school GPA and math SAT scores. Since physics as a discipline presents a barrier to women due to deep-rooted societal stereotypes and biases about who can excel in it, the numerical representation of women alone in these courses does not imply that they will feel recognized by their instructors and TAs as a physics person without an intentional effort to make the learning environment equitable and inclusive. These findings suggest that physics instructors and TAs should focus on changing the culture in their physics classes and create an equitable and inclusive learning environment in which students from traditionally marginalized demographic groups, e.g., women, feel recognized, and can excel.

We investigated to what extent secondary school students have insight in the apparent motion of the Sun and stars (AMoSS). We used the AMoSS test instrument, which focuses on distinctions between different aspects of the apparent motion of the Sun and stars. It consists of 12 multiple-choice questions accompanied by explanations. We administered the test to students of the fifth year (16–17 years old) of six Belgian secondary schools ($N=410$) during a science lesson in school and asked them to explain their choices. We found that, despite instruction, most students only demonstrate a rudimentary understanding of the apparent motion of the Sun and stars for different times during the day, different times during the year, and different locations of the observer. Moreover, we see a clear distinction between the responses to the questions about the Sun and stars. Thanks to the classification system that we developed to categorize the written explanations and a latent class analysis, we are able to identify different mental models that students use to answer questions about the apparent motion of the Sun and stars.

Instructional labs are fundamental to an undergraduate physics curriculum, but their possible learning goals are vast with limited evidence to support any particular goal. In this study, we evaluate the efficacy of labs with different goals and structures on students’ critical thinking skills and views about experimentation, using an extensive database of survey responses from over 20 000 students at over 100 institutions. Here, we show that labs focused on developing experimentation skills improve students’ critical thinking skills and experimentation views compared to labs focused on reinforcing lecture concepts. We further demonstrate the positive impacts of skills-based labs over concepts-based labs on these outcomes across students’ gender and race or ethnicity. Our analysis also shows that activities to support students’ decision making and communication explain over one-half and one-third of the effect of skills-based labs on students’ critical thinking skills and experimentation views, respectively, while modeling activities have only a small effect on performance.