Leveraging a Relationship with Biology to Expand a Relationship with Physics

TL;DR

This paper explores how students' positive experiences in biology can enhance their relationship with physics by influencing their identity, affect, and epistemology, leading to a more integrated understanding of both sciences.

Contribution

It introduces a model for disciplinary relationships and demonstrates how leveraging biology can improve students' engagement with physics through a case study.

Findings

Increased identification with physics

More positive and mixed affective stance towards physics

Adoption of more expert-like ways of knowing in physics

Abstract

This work examines how experiences in one disciplinary domain (biology) can impact the relationship a student builds with another domain (physics). We present a model for disciplinary relationships using the constructs of identity, affect, and epistemology. With these constructs we examine an ethnographic case study of a student who experienced a significant shift in her relationship with physics. We describe how this shift demonstrates (1) a stronger identification with physics, (2) a more mixed affective stance towards physics, and (3) more expert-like ways of knowing in physics. We argue that recruiting the students relationship with biology into experiences of learning physics impacted her relationship with physics as well as her sense of how physics and biology are linked.