RAPID: Examining the Impacts of Transitioning to Remote Teaching of Undergraduate Physics Labs Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Education and Human Resources - Undergraduate laboratory instruction in STEM disciplines usually involves special equipment, materials, and hands-on interactions. As a result, they are the most difficult courses to translate from an in-person learning environment to an online learning environment. Approaches that have achieved some success include web-based simulations of traditional lab exercises and remote access to laboratory equipment. Nevertheless, it is challenging for faculty to design online replacements to their laboratory courses and most never attempted it until forced to do so by the COVID-19 pandemic. In spring 2020, to maximize student safety and provide continued instruction, colleges and universities shifted all courses, including lab courses, to an online format. At this time, fully online teaching and learning will extend through spring semester, and it is possible that it will be necessary for even longer. This circumstance presents a unique, time-sensitive opportunity to measure the impact of the sudden, forced transition on teaching and learning in undergraduate physics lab courses. This project will apply qualitative and quantitative approaches to study impacts of the shift on students and identify strategies used to develop online versions of in-person physics lab activities.

The investigator will use both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore how online labs affect students? understanding of physics and identify the approaches used by physics laboratory instructors to shift to an online learning environment. The project has two specific aims: (1) to measure the effects of the transition on students' learning and knowledge in physics and their expectations about how experimental physics works; and (2) to identify and categorize the strategies taken by physics instructors to enable students to remotely experience laboratory-like learning. For the quantitative component of the study, the Investigator will use the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS), an established survey that her research group has previously developed and tested. The 30 questions in E-CLASS assess students' views about their strategies, habits of mind, and attitudes when doing experiments in physics lab classes. E-CLASS assigns scores to students based on their ratings of how closely their personal views align with those of experts, as well as how an experimental physicist would respond. The pre-instruction E-CLASS was administered in 51 courses involving over 6,000 students this year. Thus, this project will allow analysis of the midterm transition to remote instruction on a large scale. The investigator will add supplemental questions to the post-instruction E-CLASS, as well as administer an instructor survey, to specifically probe the transition to remote labs. The additional questions and the instructor survey will allow the investigator to: (a) analyze which variables in remote teaching most impact E-CLASS scores; (b) compare lab teaching using remote instruction to lab teaching during previous semesters; (c) categorize tools used by instructors during the transition to remote labs; and (d) find common themes, challenges, and successes that will inform the qualitative component of the study. The qualitative component will involve interviews with both faculty and students to develop a case study that captures the details of the transition to remote labs. This project aims to build a better understanding of how the physics lab environment (including social interactions) contributes to students' views about the nature of experimentation and what it means to do experiments. These results will help education researchers who wish to study the advantages and limitations of different lab environments and remote strategies. In addition, the cataloging of different approaches to transitioning lab courses to remote learning will help increase instructors' knowledge of creative practices that they could use for lab courses both during an emergency and outside of one. With this knowledge, they might, for example, be able to increase opportunities for students who have limited access to in-person lab instruction such as students in rural areas. This RAPID award is made by the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) program in the Division of Undergraduate Education (Directorate for Education and Human Resources), using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.