Using Drawing-Based Data to Visualize Student Perceptions of Instructional Labs

Instructional labs are an important component of undergraduate physics education. With instructional labs taking up a significant place in the first year of undergraduate study, they impact student persistence and STEM identity. These labs not only develop students' conceptual learning, but they also enculturate students into STEM as a community-oriented profession based on cooperative work around shared resources. An instructional lab can be thought of as a Community of Practice, defined as a group of members pursuing a common set of goals by using conventional practices. Students can develop different perspectives of the community within an instructional lab, embedded in each student's mental model. We administered a survey in which N = 74 students drew a picture of their mental model of Introductory Physics for Life Sciences, an interactive course centered around lab-based explorations of physics content. We cataloged their drawing elements and categorized them as related to the lab's goals, members, and practices. We visualize the results of this analysis at two scales: a network diagram showing the most central elements from all the drawings, and a Venn diagram showing the unique combination of elements drawn by three students from the same lab group. Both these visualizations indicate how the students prioritize the selection of elements when drawing their mental models.