Introduction

Writing, the task of transferring ideas from the brain down onto paper, is a difficult skill to master for nearly everyone. Coupling the task of writing with the field of physics, the process only becomes even more intimidating. Most students struggle with writing, as it is a skill that comes slowly and only with diligent practice. By the time a physics undergraduate enters upper-divisional classes, they have usually had multiple writing classes focusing on honing their grammar, sentence structure, word choice and spelling skills, all important components of any type of writing. However, very few have had any formal training or practice writing scientific papers. The writing process is important in many ways, not limited solely to communicating ideas and findings from one individual to another. The process of structuring arguments, physical concepts and their problem solving procedures helps students clarify their own understanding of the subject material. Scientific writing is also an important evaluation tool; when students provide full written solutions – as opposed to traditional homework problem solutions that are rarely comprised of a coherent structure – a deeper level of understanding of the subject can be determined by the instructor. However, physics instructors do not generally have the luxury of being able to spend much (if any) time on facilitating the writing process. This project seeks to develop a writing unit based on peer evaluation using a rubric that can be implemented in the future to facilitate the scientific writing process with minimal load on the instructor.

The project was motivated by the fact that undergraduate physics students entering the paradigms have not had much experience writing scientific papers or had the opportunity to clearly explain a problem solving process pertaining to physics. Throughout the first two paradigm courses, Symmetries (PH 320) and Vector Fields (PH 421), students work in small groups solving physics problems and then discuss their findings with the class. These activities are guided by the instructor, but the students are responsible for carrying out their own work and clearly communicating their ideas and problem solving strategies to one another, as well as considering and expressing the physical meaning of their final solution. This unique in-class activity structure allows students to become more proficient in verbally communicating the problem solving process and analysis of the problem. This project took the in-class activities one step further by having students write formal solutions to the in class activities.

The structure of this project was inspired by the Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) developed by UCLA. The original CPR is fully described in the Background Section (Section 2) of this paper. To facilitate our students' understanding of the requirements of scientific writing, a set of guiding questions was developed and distributed to the students at the beginning of the project. These guiding questions consisted of general prompts with short explanations, aimed at cuing students to what was generally considered important in scientific writing. A rubric was then developed based on these guiding questions. Each of the rubric criteria were not repeated verbatim from the guiding questions, but were derived from them so that assessing a paper with the rubric would give quantitative data as to how well a paper had addressed each of the guiding questions. Three writing samples based on an in-class activity were also developed, each of varying quality. The guiding questions, rubric, and the writing samples were distributed at varying times throughout the process, to slowly build on the writing process. The unit included five steps, each of which are outlined in the Methodology Section (Section 3) of this paper.

Using the rubric to acquire data from each of the student writing samples, the project was able to determine the change in student writing. Data acquired in each step of the process allowed for determining where and when the change occurred, and provided insight as to which stages of the process best facilitated change. Full data collection procedures are described in the Methodology Section (Section 3). Collected data is presented in the Methodology Section, analyzed and further explored in the Data Analysis Section (Section 4), and summarized and explained in the Results Section (Section 6). A brief discussion of the implications of the data and the importance of the problem are expressed in the Discussion Section (Section 7).

The collaborating project members each brought their own biases to the research. The main author of this paper, an undergraduate senior in physics, scored each of the papers and played a large role in writing the project materials. His bias was towards looking largely at the content and style of the students' writing, and not the veracity of what was actually written. Having only recently gone through the paradigm courses, he did not bring a mastery of the physics concepts that Corinne Manogue, professor of the course and leader of the research, would have brought to scoring each of the papers. Professor Manogue brought her own bias to the research, which consisted largely of concern for deepening students' understanding of physical concepts through the practice of writing; while the improvement of the writing itself was an important goal, it was not the sole goal. Professor Manogue's experience in writing professional scientific papers also brought professional bias as to what she believed a good scientific paper was, which may or may not have been an appropriately scaled goal for a junior level physics course.

Ultimately, this project aims to set up the framework for future study into the use of rubrics to facilitate physics writing capabilities, and ultimately develop a unit that can be implemented in future classrooms with minimal load on the instructor.