Research Summaries

February 13, 2019 Nick Young

Is taking notes on paper better than taking notes on a computer? Y- Maybe?

Prior work has claimed that taking notes by hand is better than on a computer but this claim doesn’t appear to hold up.

January 30, 2019 Nick Young

The more decimals, the more confusion

As more decimal places are shown in data, high school students seem less able to draw correct conclusions.

January 16, 2019 Nick Young

Who feels more capable of doing physics: women with “A”s or men with “C”s? The answer probably won’t surprise you.

Yep, women who perform the same as men perform don’t feel they are as capable of doing physics.

January 2, 2019 Nick Young

Buy the pizza, have the grading party

Getting a group of instructors together to grade can be difficult, but it seems to be worth the hassle.

December 19, 2018 Nick Young

What do students think about measuring the energy of a quantum state?

Students of various levels have difficulties determining the energy of a quantum state.

December 5, 2018 Nick Young

The GRE: what is it good for?

The GRE: great at acting as a barrier to underrepresented groups, not so good as a predictor of completing graduate school.

November 21, 2018 Nick Young

When finding nothing is a result

Null results are often not published, but can provide useful results.

November 7, 2018 Nick Young

You seem like a physicist

Explicitly and implicitly recognizing students as physicists can help them identify as physicists.

October 24, 2018 Nick Young

How far is far? Investigating students’ knowledge about distance to astronomical objects

Students are often unfamiliar with sizes and distances of astronomical objects. Today’s study compares student knowledge about this topic at different educational levels.

October 10, 2018 Nick Young

Not enough variation to explain the gender gap

The men and women earn equal STEM grades but men have higher variability in those grades. This isn’t enough to explain why there are more men in STEM.