Overview
Research Focus
My primary research interest is improving students' learning in introductory-level physics courses, in particular, for underrepresented groups: women and ethnic/racial minorities. Students' motivational attitudes can be a strong predictor for their learning and class participation, retention, and advancement in STEM. I am currently working with Dr. Natasha Holmes on assessing the impact of active-learning physics labs on students' attitudes, such as self-efficacy, belonging, identity, or mindset. I am mostly interested in understanding the underlying reasons for low diversity in STEM education, specifically in physics. I focus on identifying the trends in motivational characteristics from beginning to end of the physics lab courses over a semester. I study these central motivational characteristics across gender and ethnic/racial groups using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The results can inform educational researchers for developing more effective teaching pedagogies and classroom-intervention (e.g., mindset-belonging) to eliminate achievement and participation gaps and create more inclusive learning environment.
