Student Reasoning about Measurement Uncertainty while Working with the Projectile Data Lab PhET Simulation

Understanding concepts of measurement uncertainty is a core competency of physicists and engineers, and many physics lab courses aim to have students learn these ideas. However, there is strong evidence that this goal is often not met. To address the challenge of improving students' conceptual knowledge of measurement uncertainty, we developed a new, noise-enhanced PhET simulation named Projectile Data Lab by incorporating statistical noise into the Projectile Motion simulation. Additionally, the data from the simulation can be sent to the Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP), creating an instructional platform. Finally, we developed relevant activities for instructors to use the simulations in their lab courses. The combination of the PhET simulation, its CODAP-integrated instructional platform, the associated lab activities, and the instructor facilitation forms a new learning environment that aims to enhance student reasoning about measurement uncertainty. To investigate the effectiveness of this learning environment, we conducted think-aloud interviews where students worked through the lab activities with the simulations. We will describe the design of the new learning environment, and report the results from the student think-aloud interviews.