A Student Centered Approach to Understanding the Dynamics of A Computational Physics Lab Course

Despite computing being a key part of the landscape of 21st century physics, there has been limited research on effective teaching techniques in computational physics. This is especially true of upper division lab courses, where practicing physics can look very different to introductory courses. We conducted interviews of students in a one-credit junior level computational physics lab course at a large public research university. In pursuit of characterizing effective classroom dynamics at this level, we analyzed these interviews through the framework of Activity Theory. In so doing we sought to identify tensions in the activities of the course and thus where improvements might be made. We identified tensions between group work expectations, building proficiency at computing, and that the beliefs students bring to the course about the role of computing depend on their prior experience, and play a role in their learning of computational physics. The specific contextual features of this computational physics lab add detail and nuance to our findings, and could provide insight to ways that activity theory can be used to understand social dynamics in upper division computational physics and identify pathways to improve curriculum to be responsive to contextual needs.