Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
Title
Using Research to Investigate and Enhance Student Understanding of Light as an Electromagnetic Wave
Department
Physics
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2011-2012
Abstract
In astronomy it is crucial to understand that light is an electromagnetic wave that can exhibit interference and polarization phenomena. For many years, however, research in physics education has shown that physics students, both mainstream introductory students and physics majors, encounter serious difficulties when they endeavor to develop and apply a wave model to the behavior of light. This presentation will focus on well-identified difficulties some of them deeply-seated alternate conception suggested by the analysis of student responses to various research tasks (ungraded quizzes, written exams, individual student interviews). Also to be discussed are examples of teaching-by-questioning strategies that seem effective in addressing these difficulties. All examples come from research previously conducted at the University of Washington in the context of the introductory calculus-based waves and optics course or from more recent work at Grand Valley State University in a sophomore-level modern physics course.
Conference Name
2012 AAPT Winter Meeting
Conference Location
Ontario, CA
ScholarWorks Citation
Ambrose, Bradley, "Using Research to Investigate and Enhance Student Understanding of Light as an Electromagnetic Wave" (2011). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 230.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/230
