Colloquium: Eric Burkholder
Auburn University
Event Details:
- Time: 3:45 - 4:45 PM
- Location: 1080 Physics Research Building
- Faculty Host: Heather Mei
Abstract
After decades of work to improve and understand undergraduate physics education, the Physics Education Research (PER) community is increasingly looking to graduate education as one of the next research priorities. Early work has examined admissions processes, graduate student teaching assistant training, students’ conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics, and how students navigate and experience the arcane structure of graduate programs. In this talk, I will present some of my group’s work in graduate education—and some of the work we want to do but can’t—and highlight the unique methodological challenges of studying and changing graduate education in physics, including: the questionable utility of quasi-experimental designs in classroom intervention studies; the decentralized nature of admissions, teaching, and data-keeping processes in graduate programs; and the curious intransigence encountered when trying to affect change in graduate programs.
