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Studying Impact and Intent of Design: Conjecture Mapping for Affect-Centered Analysis

Sarah McHale, Tor Ole B. Odden, Ken Heller

TL;DR

This paper investigates how design intent and student affect can diverge in a computationally integrated physics course. It introduces a modified conjecture mapping approach to trace instructor design elements and mediating processes to student outcomes, using Bridget and Professor Evans as case perspectives. The study reveals that even a coherently designed, scaffolded activity can yield negative affect when it diverges from students' established practice and sense of identity. The findings provide guidance for curriculum designers on calibrating scaffolding, language of professional practice, and alignment between course-wide coherence and activity-level design to support physics identity and computational literacy.

Abstract

Physics education researchers have argued that authentic physics education includes computation as part of a physics student's training, and many parties have made efforts towards this goal. However, most research on this teaching modality has centered cognitive impacts rather than affective impacts, so little is known about the affective outcomes of holistically integrating computation into physics courses. To address that need, we present a case study of a multi-day activity within a computationally integrated modern physics laboratory course. Based on course observations and interviews with the professor of and a student in the course, we distinguish between the professor's intent behind the activity design and the impact on the student's physics computational literacy and physics identity with a novel modification of conjecture mapping that explicates how a student enacts the professor's expectations. In doing so, we highlight the methodological suitability of conjecture mapping for comparing the intent and impact of curricular design and explicate the specific misalignments that led to different affective outcomes than intended.

Studying Impact and Intent of Design: Conjecture Mapping for Affect-Centered Analysis

TL;DR

This paper investigates how design intent and student affect can diverge in a computationally integrated physics course. It introduces a modified conjecture mapping approach to trace instructor design elements and mediating processes to student outcomes, using Bridget and Professor Evans as case perspectives. The study reveals that even a coherently designed, scaffolded activity can yield negative affect when it diverges from students' established practice and sense of identity. The findings provide guidance for curriculum designers on calibrating scaffolding, language of professional practice, and alignment between course-wide coherence and activity-level design to support physics identity and computational literacy.

Abstract

Physics education researchers have argued that authentic physics education includes computation as part of a physics student's training, and many parties have made efforts towards this goal. However, most research on this teaching modality has centered cognitive impacts rather than affective impacts, so little is known about the affective outcomes of holistically integrating computation into physics courses. To address that need, we present a case study of a multi-day activity within a computationally integrated modern physics laboratory course. Based on course observations and interviews with the professor of and a student in the course, we distinguish between the professor's intent behind the activity design and the impact on the student's physics computational literacy and physics identity with a novel modification of conjecture mapping that explicates how a student enacts the professor's expectations. In doing so, we highlight the methodological suitability of conjecture mapping for comparing the intent and impact of curricular design and explicate the specific misalignments that led to different affective outcomes than intended.
Paper Structure (20 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 20 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Theoretical Frameworks
  3. Physics Computational Literacy
  4. Physics Identity
  5. Methods
  6. Data Sources
  7. Conjecture mapping
  8. Components of a conjecture map
  9. Creating and evaluating a conjecture map
  10. Comparative Case Study
  11. Context
  12. Intent: Professor Evans' Perspective
  13. Impact: Student Perspective - Bridget
  14. Cross-case Comparisons
  15. Discussion
  16. ...and 5 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Components of a conjecture map. When we use a modified term, Sandoval's original term is included in parentheses sandoval.
  • Figure 2: Conjecture map representing Professor Evans' perspective on the multi-day activity, specifically depicting intended coherence between the entire course and the multi-day activity under study.
  • Figure 3: Conjecture map representing Bridget's perspective on the multi-day activity, specifically depicting the impact of perceived coherence between the entire course and the activity under study.