Network analysis of student perceptions of an introductory lab

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The discussion centers on a study that employs the Communities of Practice framework to analyze student perceptions of introductory physics labs. It highlights how students' experiences and views differ based on gender, college generation, and racial background. The study utilizes a drawing-based survey to capture students' perspectives, which are then analyzed through network analysis to identify common elements in their representations. Key findings indicate a focus on hands-on practices and community members, with less emphasis on goals. Notably, significant differences were observed between first-generation and continuing-generation students in their emphasis on various aspects of the lab experience, such as writing, learning goals, and the role of instructors. Critics point out a lack of connection to the learning of physics content, suggesting that while the study offers insights into student experiences, it may not directly address academic outcomes in physics.
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Network analysis of student perceptions of an introductory lab

"Introductory physics labs can be modeled using the Communities of Practice framework, in which a group of members pursues a common set of goals by learning and implementing a set of agreed-upon practices. Studies of student preferences and behaviors show how students might perceive the introductory lab community differently, as they occupy different positions within the community and engage differently with its practices. Such differences can be particularly sharp along the dimensions of gender, college generation, and racial background. In this proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate how we can explore students' perceptions of the introductory lab community of practice using a drawing-based survey and network analysis. The drawing-based survey collects students' open expressions of their perspectives and guides them to elaborate on the goals, members, and practices of the community. Network analysis allows us to obtain an overview of the most important common elements from a sample of drawings while preserving the openness of student expression. We quantify ``importance'' as the frequency of an element's depiction across the network and its betweenness centrality within the network. We collected student drawings from a studio-format introductory physics for life sciences sequence. Our network analysis reveals a wide diversity of drawing elements with a focus on centralized hands-on practices and community members and a sparsity of goals across the students' perspectives. We demonstrate how some elements show differences with large effect sizes between identity groups based on gender, college generation, and racial background. We compare these differences to those found in observational studies and discuss future uses of the drawing survey and network analysis approach."
 
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I didn't read the study yet, but by "college generation" do they mean like if the student is first generation going to college vs. having parents/grandparents who graduated college?
 
OK, I admt I haven't read the whole thing yet, but they seem to consider several generations. Family doesn't seem to be a factor.

"Students of differing gender, college generation, and racial background participate in and experience this enculturation differently depending on the lab format and context"

"Examining the elements in Table I with large effect sizes based on college generation, we observe that continuing-generation students tended to place more emphasis on the writing process, the goal of learning, the use of computers, the use of mathematics, and collaboration. The first-generation students tended to emphasize themselves explicitly instead of drawing generic student figures, although neither subnetwork tended to more strongly emphasize the presence of their lab group members. The first-generation students also tended to emphasize the instructor, being confused or stuck, graphs, and software more strongly than the continuing-generation students.
 
I'm not as quick as you guys but it looked interesting. Especially for me as it seemed to come from one of the softer sections of arXiv. But I may have bitten off more that I can chew...
 
Andy Resnick said:
Some parts of this were interesting, but the relevance to learning physics content is completely absent.
My apologies. I was, as is obvious, somewhat in over my head. I was sure there was a connection. Feel free to move, delete r whatever.
 

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