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Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research
Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving
written by Andrew J. Mason and Chandralekha Singh
Students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving in physics can profoundly influence their motivation to learn and development of expertise. We developed and validated an Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving survey by expanding the Attitudes toward Problem Solving survey of Marx and Cummings and administered it to physics graduate students. Comparison of their responses to the survey questions about problem solving in their own graduate-level courses vs problem solving in the introductory physics courses provides insight into their expertise in introductory and graduate-level physics. The physics graduate students' responses to the survey questions were also compared with those of introductory physics and astronomy students and physics faculty. We find that, even for problem solving in introductory physics, graduate students' responses to some survey questions are less expertlike than those of the physics faculty. Comparison of survey responses of graduate students and introductory students for problem solving in introductory physics suggests that graduate students' responses are in general more expertlike than those of introductory students. However, survey responses suggest that graduate-level problem solving by graduate students on several measures has remarkably similar trends to introductory-level problem solving by introductory students.
Subjects Levels Resource Types
Education Foundations
- Student Characteristics
= Affect
- Teacher Characteristics
= Affect
Education Practices
- Active Learning
= Problem Solving
- Lower Undergraduate
- Graduate/Professional
- Reference Material
= Research study
Intended Users Formats Ratings
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- application/pdf
- text/html
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Mirror:
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevST…
Access Rights:
Free access
License:
This material is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
Rights Holder:
American Physical Society
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.6.020124
PACSs:
01.40.G-
01.40.Ha
Keywords:
Problem Solving, Student Attitudes
Record Creator:
Metadata instance created February 27, 2011 by Lyle Barbato
Record Updated:
May 9, 2012 by Lyle Barbato
Last Update
when Cataloged:
December 1, 2010
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AIP Format
A. Mason and C. Singh, , Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6 (2), 020124 (2010), WWW Document, (https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212).
AJP/PRST-PER
A. Mason and C. Singh, Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6 (2), 020124 (2010), <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212>.
APA Format
Mason, A., & Singh, C. (2010, December 1). Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 6(2), 020124. Retrieved February 13, 2025, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212
Chicago Format
Mason, Andrew, and Chandralekha Singh. "Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving." Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, no. 2, (December 1, 2010): 020124, https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212 (accessed 13 February 2025).
MLA Format
Mason, Andrew, and Chandralekha Singh. "Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving." Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6.2 (2010): 020124. 13 Feb. 2025 <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212>.
BibTeX Export Format
@article{ Author = "Andrew Mason and Chandralekha Singh", Title = {Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving}, Journal = {Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.}, Volume = {6}, Number = {2}, Pages = {020124}, Month = {December}, Year = {2010} }
Refer Export Format

%A Andrew Mason %A Chandralekha Singh %T Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving %J Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. %V 6 %N 2 %D December 1, 2010 %P 020124 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212 %O application/pdf

EndNote Export Format

%0 Journal Article %A Mason, Andrew %A Singh, Chandralekha %D December 1, 2010 %T Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving %J Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. %V 6 %N 2 %P 020124 %8 December 1, 2010 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=10741&DocID=2212


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Surveying graduate students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving:

References Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving Survey

The expert-like solutions to the Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving Survey are in a password protected file to help ensure its integrity.

To obtain the password, please send a request with your name, email, institution, and a link to a page at your institution that confirms you are an instructor.

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