Who does what now? How physics lab instruction impacts student behaviors

TL;DR

This study investigates how different physics lab instructional approaches influence student behaviors, gender dynamics, and engagement, highlighting the importance of lab structure in shaping student participation and identity formation.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into how lab design affects student behaviors and gender-based task division, informing better instructional practices in physics education.

Findings

Gender-based task division in collaborative labs

No gender divide in guided verification labs

Lab structure influences student engagement and behaviors

Abstract

While laboratory instruction is a cornerstone of physics education, the impact of student behaviours in labs on retention, persistence in the field, and the formation of students' physics identity remains an open question. In this study, we performed in-lab observations of student actions over two semesters in two pedagogically different sections of the same introductory physics course. We used a cluster analysis to identify different categories of student behaviour and analyzed how they correlate with lab structure and gender. We find that, in lab structures which fostered collaborative group work and promoted decision making, there was a task division along gender lines with respect to laptop and equipment usage (and found no such divide among students in guided verification labs).