Understanding Physical Phenomena
How do students understand physical phenomena and how can learning experiences be constructed to facilitate such understanding?
In this research we investigate how students understand physical phenomena. We identify specific challenges in learning physics and related areas and design, implement, and evaluate teaching to address these issues. The research includes, but is not limited to, the learning of mechanics, electromagnetism and thermodynamics.
Current Projects
- Chemical engineering students’ ideas of entropy
Through questionnaires and interviews, we investigate engineering students’ ideas of entropy before and after a course in chemical thermodynamics. We take a particular interest in the student's use of different metaphors, such as entropy as disorder. - The role and potential of computer-based tools in the learning of physics
In this project we are interested in developing and applying theoretical principles for using computer-based tools to support the learning of physics in new and productive ways. One of the tools we are especially interested in is the interactive whiteboard. - Thermal cameras in school laboratory activities
In a design-based research programme, we investigate primary and secondary students’ engagement with laboratory exercises by means of infrared cameras. The exercises have been designed to target understanding of thermal phenomena and concepts, including temperature and heat conduction vs. insulation. - The pedagogical value of conceptual metaphor for secondary science teachers
In collaboration with Seattle Pacific University, we participate in a study of how a group of in-service teachers come to appreciate the conceptual metaphor framework in understanding students’ language in relation to energy. - Ranking Tasks
Internationally, ranking tasks have been shown to be useful in Physics Education Research. In this work we develop and use ranking tasks in Swedish undergraduate science evaluating their effectiveness with respect to contemporary theories of learning. - Entropy and ‘energy quality’ in Swedish curricula
In collaboration with Linköping University, we are part of a curriculum study on how the second law of thermodynamics has been addressed in Swedish natural science, physics, chemistry and technology curricula at the secondary level from about 1980 and onwards.
- Going through a phase: Infrared cameras in a teaching sequence on evaporation and condensation. American Journal of Physics 87, 577 (2019).
- Embodiment in physics learning: A social-semiotic look. Physical Review Phys. Educ. Res. 15, 010134 (2019).
- Hot vision: Affordances of infrared cameras in investigating thermal phenomena. Designs for Learning 11 (1), 1-15 (2019).
- Doing science by waving hands: Talk, symbiotic gesture, and interaction with digital content as resources in student inquiry. Physics Review Phys. Educ. Res. 13, 020104 (2017).
- Arbeta med rangordningsövningar.
- Thermal cameras in school laboratory activities. IR Video.
Collaboration and Practice
Our research is being carried out in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry at Uppsala University; colleagues from the Faculty for Mathematics and Physics at the University of Ljubljana and the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University; researchers, physics student-teachers, and school teachers associated with both Uppsala and Linköping University and the Concord Consortium, a nonprofit educational research and development organization based in Concord, Massachusetts; and, researchers at the College of Engineering, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.
We design laboratory activities for university thermodynamics courses involving infrared cameras, and study the implementation of the activities in physics and engineering courses. In the activities, students are encouraged to investigate the function of chosen experimental set-ups, such as a heat pump, through open-ended inquiry.
We collaborate with the designers of the Interactive Online Lab device (IOLab) to explore how to optimize enhancing students’ understanding of fundamental physics. The IOLab contains sensors for light, sound, atmospheric pressure, temperature, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, distance and force.