Prof. Natasha Holmes, Cornell

"Putting the Experiment Back in the Lab"

Abstract: What is the purpose of practical physics laboratory work? Often instructional labs are structured such that students perform experiments to observe or discover classic physics phenomena. In this talk, I’ll describe our research that has identified significant issues with this use of the lab from limited impacts on students’ understanding of the phenomena to encouraging students to “massage” their data to reproduce the expected results. I’ll then present data on students’ learning, perceptions, and experiences that instead motivate using labs to develop students’ understanding of experimental physics and associated skills.