Physics Identity Development and Student Participation - A Case Study Through the Lens of Activity Theory

Sammanfattning: When highschool students apply for university physics programs they are taking a significant stepdown a path suggestively leading them closer to becoming physics community members. Highschoolstudents’ ideas of what physicists do at work might however differ from what physicists actuallydo. In order to inspire highschool students to do physics and give them a better understanding ofwhat physicists do at work, four highschool students at a Swedish highschool were invited to do alaboratory project at Uppsala University, Sweden. To understand how student attitudes may have been affected by the project and to analyze the process in search of finding out more about what waschallenging for the students, the author of this paper attended several laboratory sessions to observethe students, interviewed the students, and had the students take a pre- and post standardizedtest, before and after the laboratory period to compare their attitudes toward physics with those of experts. Theoretical frameworks of identity negotiation and student participation, and activity theory were used to identify what enabled or hindered the students and the professor in terms of succesfully completing the project. Other than finding out about changes in student attitudes, one goal ofthis study was to produce suggestions for improvements on how the laboratory project could be designed for future installments. The results showed that both the students and the professor weresuccesfull in achieving their objectives but that there were several problems that arose during theprocess that caused the project from progressing optimally. From the observation data and relevanttheory, a set of suggestions for project improvements were generated. Though the standardized testfor comparing students attitudes with those of experts did not reveal anything significant, it wasclear from the interviews with the students had been inspired to do more physics and that theirperspective on what physicist do had shifted closer to represent what physicist actually do at work.