Community of practice approach for understanding identity development within informal physics programs

Abstract

Studies on physics identity have shown that it is one of the main factors that can predict a person's persistence in the field; therefore, studying physics identity is critical to increase diversity within the field of physics and to understand what changes can allow more women and minorities to identify with the field. In this study, we investigate informal physics programs as spaces for physics identity exploration. These programs provide unique conditions under which to study physics identity development along with other identities. Informal physics spaces allow for voluntary engagement, as well as elements of agency and autonomy within the exploration of physics. Thus, these spaces allow an identity to form outside of the constraints traditionally found in academic settings. In this work, we operationalized the community of practice framework to study the development of physics identities within university students who facilitate informal physics programs. We present the stories from two physics graduate students out of our sample to provide a context for testing the feasibility of the extended framework and to identify how experiences within an informal physics program can shape physics identity development. This paper presents the operationalized constructs within the community of practice framework, how these constructs are applied to the narrated experiences of our participants and highlights how we can use this framework to understand the nuances of physics identity development as well as the factors that can influence that development.

Informal Science Education and Career Advancement

“…Furthermore, there is research within the Physics Education Research (PER) field that have looked at the positive impact that facilitating ISEAs has on the students who organize them, including fostering physics identity, development of communication and pedagogical skills, sense of belonging, and confidence among peers [7,25,36,37,[48][49][50][51][52][53].…”

Student Representations of Computation in the Physics Community

“…Hamerski, Irving, and McPadden describe the development of a community of practice among Learning Assistants, who developed their own practices of feedback in partnership with faculty [82]. Similarly, physics students can develop their identity as a subject-matter expert through informal outreach to learners of varying backgrounds [83], providing a demonstration of their increasingly central membership in the physics community [84]. Finally, the COP framework can be used to understand the experiences of underrepresented groups [85][86][87], as the lived identity developed in a COP is an important factor in student persistence in physics [62].…”

Comparing the impact of informal physics program on undergraduate versus graduate student facilitators

“…Through studying the Partnerships for Informal Science Education in the Community (PISEC) initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder, researchers found that student facilitators of an after school mentoring program experienced positive shifts in their perspectives of teaching and learning, and improved their science communication skills [11,12]. Recent work from Fracchiolla et al characterizing the experiences of two graduate physics students through a community of practice framework has suggested that facilitating informal physics programs may have a positive influence on the development of a student's physics identity [13]. Our recent study showed similar positive impacts to student physics identity for a larger sample of students who facilitated at least one of five different informal physics programs, and also showed positive influences on constructs including sense of belonging to the physics community and 21 st century career skill development [14].…”