Suzanne Brahmia
University of Washington, WA·Education Research
Physics majors take many math courses, yet they often struggle to connect math procedures to the physical meaning of a problem. This skill is called Physics Quantitative Literacy (PQL), the ability to reason about physics using mathematics.
- Fields
Education Research
Physics
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
physics education research
Physics Quantitative Literacy
mathematical methods
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2028
What they work on
- Identify the learning objectives of second-year mathematical methods courses for physics majors and the math skills students bring into them, using interviews and samples of student work.
- Characterize instructors' expectations and assumptions about students' prerequisite mathematical knowledge through faculty interviews and classroom observations.
- Study how students blend newly learned calculus with physics contexts and use the findings to develop instructional materials for mathematical methods and calculus-based physics courses.
More about the research
This collaborative project among California State University Fullerton, the University of Washington and the University of Maine studies PQL in the second-year mathematical methods course that many physics departments offer.
Why it matters
Physics majors who cannot connect math to physical meaning may struggle throughout their degrees. By matching instruction to the skills students actually bring, this work could give physics instructors at many institutions better teaching materials for mathematical methods and calculus-based physics courses. That could help students learn more effectively.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Larry Engelhardt
Francis Marion University, SC·Education Research
Establish regional faculty-development workshops, built on the PICUP community and sustained by local leaders, that help physics faculty add computational activities to undergraduate courses.
Kristen Vroom
Michigan State University, MI·Education Research
Design, test and refine inquiry-oriented lessons on sequences and series for second-semester calculus, built with Universal Design for Learning, through three cycles of classroom design research.
Luiz Manzoni
Concordia College at Moorhead, MN·Education Research
Apply Kotter's 8-step change model to integrate computation systematically and sustainably into the undergraduate physics curriculum at participating institutions.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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