Examinando por Autor "Zavala, Genaro"

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    Applying the Delphi method with early-career researchers to explore a genderissues agenda in STEM education
    (Modestum LTD, 2022) Hernandez-Martinez, Paul; Dominguez, Angeles; Zavala, Genaro; Kambouri, Maria; Zubieta, Judith; Clark, Robin
    The Delphi method (DM) was initially conceived as a forecasting technique whose results are based on the consensus of a panel of experts. It has been used in many fields, assisting researchers, policymakers, and others in setting directions and future agendas. This study presents an application of the DM, with a broader interpretation of the notion of “expert” as a qualitative tool to explore gender issues in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Its aim is to analyze the use of the DM as a technique to achieve agreement among a group of early-career researchers from the UK and Mexico, who are not considered “experts” in the traditional sense. The other aim was to explore the advantages and disadvantages of using the DM in this context. We used three stages to collect information and reach a consensus. The first two were online activities, and the last consisted of a five-day face-to-face workshop. In the first stage, participants sent research questions, and organizers categorized them into themes. Participants responded to a survey ranking all research questions in the second stage. In the last, organizers analyzed the highest scored questions and arranged them into research topics in which participants worked on research proposals. The DM worked successfully with this group of participants by combining their interest in the field and engagement with the activities. The research strands and proposals of using this method are usable. The method used in this paper can serve as a model to develop research graduate courses to develop students’ skills © 2022 by the authors; licensee Modestum. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License
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    Calculation of vector components: A tutorial worksheet to help students develop a conceptual framework
    (Sociedade Brasileira de Física, 2015) Barniol, Pablo; Zavala, Genaro
    When we administered our Test of Understanding of Vectors (TUV) to students who were finishing a physics university remedial course (that covers subjects of a traditional high school physics course), we observed that they have considerable difficulties in calculating the x-component of a vector when the angle given is measured from the y-axis to the vector. As a result of this finding, we decided to design a tutorial worksheet that guides students through the development of a conceptual framework in this subject. The worksheet was implemented with 264 students of the same course in another semester. Upon using the TUV to evaluate the students’ understanding, we confirmed that the tutorial worksheet had facilitated their learning. This tutorial worksheet is presented in the appendix and might be used by other physics instructors who teach this material in high schools, colleges or universities.
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    Impact of virtual reality use on the teaching and learning of vectors
    (Frontiers Media S.A., 2022-09) Campos, Esmeralda; Hidrogo, Irving; Zavala, Genaro
    The use of virtual reality in education has enabled the possibility of representing abstract concepts and virtually manipulating them, providing a suitable platform for understanding mathematical concepts and their relation with the physical world. In this contribution, we present a study that aims to evaluate the students’ experience using a virtual reality (VR) tool and their learning of three-dimensional vectors in an introductory physics university course. We followed an experimental research design, with a control and an experimental group, for measuring students’ performance in a pre-post 3D vectors questionnaire. We surveyed the experimental group about their perception of VR use regarding their learning objectives, their experience using VR as a learning tool during the sessions, and the value of using VR in class. We found that on the items in which visualization was important, students in the experimental group outperformed the students in the control group. Students evaluated the VR tool as having a positive impact on their course contents learning and as a valuable tool to enhance their learning experience. We identified four hierarchical categories in which students perceived the use of virtual reality helped them learn the course contents: Visualization, 3D Visualization, Identification, and Understanding. Overall, this study’s findings contribute to the knowledge of using virtual reality for education at the university level. We encourage university instructors to think about incorporating VR in their classes. Copyright © 2022 Campos, Hidrogo and Zavala.
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    Integration of Physics and Mathematics in STEM Education: Use of Modeling
    (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), 2024-01) Dominguez, Angeles; De la Garza, Jorge; Quezada-Espinoza, Monica; Zavala, Genaro
    Within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education, integrating real-world problem scenarios is paramount. Within interdisciplinary education, modeling is an approach to fostering student learning and skill development in a student-centered learning environment. This study focuses on an integrated physics and mathematics course in STEM education based on modeling for first-year engineering students. The main objectives of this study are to analyze students’ models, assess the effectiveness of the pedagogical approach, and evaluate the benefits of integrative education. This study uses a Model-Application Activity as a closure for the quadratic model and extends the models built to a two-dimensional motion situation. The core activity involves a real-world experiment where students attempt to roll a ball down a ramp into a cup. While most groups successfully constructed theoretical models, only a few hit the target, highlighting the complexities of applying theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios. The study also emphasizes the seamless integration of physics and mathematics, enriching the learning experience and making the models more robust and versatile. Despite the promising results, the study identifies a gap between theoretical understanding and practical application, suggesting the need for more hands-on activities in the curriculum. In conclusion, this study underlines the value of integrating physics and mathematics through modeling and a student-centered approach, setting the stage for future research to enhance the effectiveness of STEM education.
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    Learning interference between electricity and magnetism? Analysis of patterns and consistency
    (Modestum LTD, 2023) Campos, Esmeralda; Hernández, Eder; Barniol, Pablo; Zavala, Genaro
    Due to the similarities between Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws, students can present cognitive interference when learning these laws in the introductory physics course. This study aims to analyze the interference patterns that emerge in students’ answers when solving problems that involve Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws and related concepts (e.g., electric flux and magnetic circulation). We conducted a study of 322 engineering students attending a private Mexican university. We applied two open-ended questionnaires with questions that prompted using Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws. We analyzed students’ answers to identify whether they presented some word or element of an equation from the opposite context and coded them into coding families. We analyzed the consistency of interference by counting the times each student presented some interference in general and by coding family. The results indicated that the interferences related to the shape of the Gaussian surface or Amperian trajectory and field-related concepts are shared among contexts. However, the interference related to the source of the field (charge or current) is predominant in magnetism. In contrast, the interference related to using elements from the opposite context in an equation predominates in electricity. In other words, students referred to currents as charges and wrote equations that contained B (for magnetic field) or other similar elements in Gauss’s law. The general consistency analysis revealed that around half the students presented at least one interference in both contexts. We recommend that the interference between electricity and magnetism in Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws must not be overlooked. This study’s findings can guide introductory and intermediate electricity and magnetism instructors to address this interference phenomenon. © 2023 by the authors; licensee Modestum. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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    Mechanical waves conceptual survey: Its modification and conversion to a standard multiple-choice test
    (American Physical Society, 2016) Barniol, Pablo; Zavala, Genaro
    In this article we present several modifications of the mechanical waves conceptual survey, the most important test to date that has been designed to evaluate university students’ understanding of four main topics in mechanical waves: propagation, superposition, reflection, and standing waves. The most significant changes are (i) modification of several test questions that had some problems in their original design, (ii) standardization of the number of options for each question to five, (iii) conversion of the two-tier questions to multiple-choice questions, and (iv) modification of some questions to make them independent of others. To obtain a final version of the test, we administered both the original and modified versions several times to students at a large private university in Mexico. These students were completing a course that covers the topics tested by the survey. The final modified version of the test was administered to 234 students. In this study we present the modifications for each question, and discuss the reasons behind them. We also analyze the results obtained by the final modified version and offer a comparison between the original and modified versions. In the Supplemental Material we present the final modified version of the test. It can be used by teachers and researchers to assess students’ understanding of, and learning about, mechanical waves.
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    Modifying the test of understanding graphs in kinematics
    (American Physical Society, 2017-09) Zavala, Genaro; Tejeda, Santa; Barniol, Pablo; Beichner, Robert J.
    In this article, we present several modifications to the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics. The most significant changes are (i) the addition and removal of items to achieve parallelism in the objectives (dimensions) of the test, thus allowing comparisons of students' performance that were not possible with the original version, and (ii) changes to the distractors of some of the original items that represent the most frequent alternative conceptions. The final modified version (after an iterative process involving four administrations of test variations over two years) was administered to 471 students of an introductory university physics course at a large private university in Mexico. When analyzing the final modified version of the test it was found that the added items satisfied the statistical tests of difficulty, discriminatory power, and reliability; also, that the great majority of the modified distractors were effective in terms of their frequency selection and discriminatory power; and, that the final modified version of the test satisfied the reliability and discriminatory power criteria as well as the original test. Here, we also show the use of the new version of the test, presenting a new analysis of students' understanding not possible to do before with the original version of the test, specifically regarding the objectives and items that in the new version meet parallelisms. Finally, in the PhysPort project (physport.org), we present the final modified version of the test. It can be used by teachers and researchers to assess students' understanding of graphs in kinematics, as well as their learning about them. © 2017 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.
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    Phenomenographic analysis of students' conceptual understanding of electric and magnetic interactions
    (American Physical Society, 2022-07) Hernandez, Eder; Campos, Esmeralda; Barniol, Pablo; Zavala, Genaro
    Studying students' problem-solving abilities in physics education research has consistently shown that novices focus on a problem's surface features rather than its physical principles. Previous research has observed that some electricity and magnetism students confuse electricity and magnetism concepts, often presented in parallel problems (or problems with similar surface features). This confusion has been referred to as interference. It is essential to compare students' performance in these problems to evaluate their understanding of these topics. The present work focuses on the students' understanding of interactions between charged particles (i.e., electric force) and electric currents (i.e., magnetic force). We present and compare the findings on students' conceptions when analyzing electric and magnetic interactions for different systems of field sources. We conducted this study with engineering students finishing a calculus-based course on electricity and magnetism. We administered a written, open-ended questionnaire with two sets of three items: one version contained only electricity problems, and the other contained only magnetism problems. Each item in the electricity version of the test had a parallel counterpart in the magnetism version. We used a phenomenographic approach to analyze our data to identify categories that emerged from students' answers. We identified four main ideas in the results: (a) the rule of signs (ROS), which does not evidence a complete conceptual understanding of electric interactions; (b) the force-field confusion due to the similarity of electricity and magnetism contexts; (c) the importance of semiotic representation when answering an electricity and magnetism problem, where the student's choice of representation indicates their understanding, and (d) the interference phenomenon, in which we find evidence of other factors besides those produced by the timing of instruction and administration of the tests. At the end of this work, we provide recommendations for instruction. © 2022 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.
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    Students' conceptual understanding of electric flux and magnetic circulation
    (American Physical Society, 2023-01) Hernandez, Eder; Campos, Esmeralda; Barniol, Pablo; Zavala, Genaro
    Electricity and magnetism are closely related phenomena with a well-known symmetry found in Maxwell equations. An essential part of any electricity and magnetism course includes the analysis of different field source distributions through Gauss's and Ampere's laws to compute and interpret different physical quantities, such as electric flux, electric and magnetic field, or magnetic circulation. Still, some students have difficulties with these calculations or, in some cases, identifying the differences between those quantities. We present this article to explore and compare the challenges that students experience when asked to compute the electric flux (surface integral of the electric field) or the magnetic circulation (line integral of the magnetic field) in a nonsymmetric field-source distribution with two opposite field sources inside a Gaussian spherical surface or Amperian circular trajectory. The sample consisted of 322 engineering students finishing an electricity and magnetism course. They were presented with two parallel problems. Half answered one in the electricity context and the other in the magnetism context. After a phenomenographic analysis, our results showed that the students' conceptual difficulties in both contexts can be grouped into the same categories but are not contextually parallel, as has happened when analyzing other electricity and magnetism concepts. Our results also suggest that the magnetic circulation concept is far more unfamiliar to students than the electric flux. We propose several factors that could explain this finding and suggest teaching to address the conceptual difficulties identified in our analysis. © 2023 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
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    Students' understanding of the concept of the electric field through conversions of multiple representations
    (American Physical Society, 2020-06) Campos, Esmeralda; Zavala, Genaro; Zuza, Kristina; Guisasola, Jenaro
    We conducted a study with introductory and upper-division level physics students in a Mexican and a Spanish university to learn how students recognize the main characteristics of the electric field in three of its more widely used representations, namely, algebraic notation, vector field plot, and electric field lines, and how the students do conversions of them. The students' abilities to recognize the three representations of the electric field and do conversions gave insight into their understanding of this concept. We used the theory of registers of semiotic representations as a framework to analyze the data. Our results showed that the direction of the conversion is an essential factor in determining the students' success in performing conversions of electrical field representations. We found close synergy between the vector field plot and the algebraic notation of the electric field. However, we found that the conversions that involve electric field lines do not present synergy. The electric field lines representation is especially difficult for students, both as a source and as a target representation, specifically, the interpretation and representation of the magnitude of the field through the density of field lines. We recommend that teachers and researchers of electricity and magnetism be more conscious of the difficulties that some conversion tasks may present to their students. We specifically invite instructors to be attentive to how they approach the representation of electric field lines and be explicit when performing conversions that involve electric field lines.
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    Taking the Challenge: An Exploratory Study of the Challenge-Based Learning Context in Higher Education Institutions across Three Different Continents
    (MDPI, 2023-03) van den Beemt, Antoine; Vázquez-Villegas, Patricia; Gómez Puente, Sonia; O’Riordan, Fiona; Gormley, Clare; Chiang, Feng-Kuang; Leng, Chuntao; Caratozzolo, Patricia; Zavala, Genaro; Membrillo-Hernández, Jorge
    Teaching by subjects and contents where students passively receive knowledge is increasingly obsolete. Universities are opting for teaching strategies supporting skills development to face the labor, social, environmental, and economic conditions afflicting us. Employers demand increasingly complex skills; universities have identified experiential learning as giving access to real situations and learning by doing. One of the most advanced strategies is Challenge-Based Learning (CBL). Through real problem situations, faculty and students collaborate to solve an established challenge, with or without external stakeholders. This educational advancement has been global and is developing graduates with international skills, which ensures a world-class standard. Here we report a global study carried out in universities from three different continents, and we analyze the implementations of CBL in educational programs through cases in Mexico, The Netherlands, Ireland, and China. Developing skills and competencies is evident, and CBL is a viable way to ensure the success of Higher Education graduates. Obstacles in the transformation of faculty towards CBL are a similar fence in all cases. For CBL, the path needs to be explored, as it is on the frontline of educational developments that can be most helpful for developing a new paradigm in education. © 2023 by the authors.
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    Test of Understanding Graphs in Calculus: Test of students' interpretation of calculus graphs
    (Modestum LTD, 2017) Dominguez, Angeles; Barniol, Pablo; Zavala, Genaro
    Studies show that students, within the context of mathematics and science, have difficulties understanding the concepts of the derivative as the slope and the concept of the antiderivative as the area under the curve. In this article, we present the Test of Understanding Graphs in Calculus (TUG-C), an assessment tool that will help to evaluate students' understanding of these two concepts by a graphical representation. Data from 144 students of introductory courses of physics and mathematics at a university was collected and analyzed. To evaluate the reliability and discriminatory power of this test, we used statistical techniques for individual items and the test as a whole, and proved that the test's results are satisfactory within the standard requirements. We present the design process in this paper and the test in the appendix. We discuss the findings of our research, students' understanding of the relations between these two concepts, using this new multiple-choice test. Finally, we outline specific recommendations. The analysis and recommendations can be used by mathematics or science education researchers, and by teachers that teach these concepts. © Authors.