Nothing works the first time: An expert experimental physics epistemology

TL;DR

This paper explores how expert physics instructors view troubleshooting as a fundamental part of electronics lab education, emphasizing that troubleshooting is an essential, expected skill for students to develop.

Contribution

It identifies troubleshooting as an expert epistemology influencing teaching beliefs and practices in electronics labs, with implications for instruction and assessment.

Findings

Instructors believe troubleshooting is essential for electronics lab success.

Troubleshooting is seen as an expected and integral part of circuit-building activities.

Students' ability to troubleshoot correlates with their circuit construction skills.

Abstract

The ability to troubleshoot is an important learning outcome for undergraduate physics laboratory courses. To better understand the role of troubleshooting in electronics laboratory courses, we interviewed 20 electronics instructors from multiple institution types about their beliefs and teaching practices related to troubleshooting. In these interviews, instructors articulated the idea that \emph{nothing works the first time} in multiple contexts pertaining to troubleshooting. We argue that this idea is an expert epistemology and show how it informs instructors' beliefs that (i) students need to know how to troubleshoot, (ii) students should expect to troubleshoot, (iii) all circuit-building lab activities provide opportunities for students to troubleshoot, and (iv) students' ability to construct functional circuits can be a proxy for their ability to troubleshoot malfunctioning circuits. Moreover, we discuss implications for instruction and assessment of troubleshooting in electronics courses.