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  • 101.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Eriksson, Urban
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Fredlund, Tobias
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    On the Disciplinary Affordances of Semiotic Resources2014Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In the late 70’s Gibson (1979) introduced the concept of affordance. Initially framed around the needs of an organism in its environment, over the years the term has been appropriated and debated at length by a number of researchers in various fields. Most famous, perhaps is the disagreement between Gibson and Norman (1988) about whether affordances are inherent properties of objects or are only present when they are perceived by an organism. More recently, affordance has been drawn on in the educational arena, particularly with respect to multimodality (see Linder (2013) for a recent example). Here, Kress et al. (2001) have claimed that different modes have different specialized affordances. Then, building on this idea, Airey and Linder (2009) suggested that there is a critical constellation of modes that students need to achieve fluency in before they can experience a concept in an appropriate disciplinary manner. Later, Airey (2009) nuanced this claim, shifting the focus from the modes themselves to a critical constellation of semiotic resources, thus acknowledging that different semiotic resources within a mode often have different affordances (e.g. two or more diagrams may form the critical constellation).

    In this theoretical paper the concept of disciplinary affordance (Fredlund et al., 2012) is suggested as a useful analytical tool for use in education. The concept makes a radical break with the views of both Gibson and Norman in that rather than focusing on the discernment of one individual, it refers to the disciplinary community as a whole. Put simply, the disciplinary affordances of a given semiotic resource are determined by those functions that the resource is expected to fulfil by the disciplinary community. Disciplinary affordances have thus been negotiated and developed within the discipline over time. As such, the question of whether these affordances are inherent or discerned becomes moot. Rather, from an educational perspective the issue is whether the meaning that a semiotic resource affords to an individual matches the disciplinary affordance assigned by the community. The power of the term for educational work is that learning can now be framed as coming to discern the disciplinary affordances of semiotic resources.

    In this paper we will briefly discuss the history of the term affordance, define the term disciplinary affordance and illustrate its usefulness in a number of educational settings.

    Download full text (pdf)
    Airey et al 2014
  • 102.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala universitet, Fysikundervisningens didaktik.
    Eriksson, Urban
    Uppsala universitet, Fysikundervisningens didaktik.
    Fredlund, Tobias
    Uppsala universitet, Fysikundervisningens didaktik.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala universitet, Fysikundervisningens didaktik.
    On the Disciplinary Affordances of Semiotic Resources2014In: IACS-2014 Book of abstracts, 2014, p. 54-55Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In the late 70’s Gibson (1979) introduced the concept of affordance. Initially framed around the needs of an organism in its environment, over the years the term has been appropriated and debated at length by a number of researchers in various fields. Most famous, perhaps is the disagreement between Gibson and Norman (1988) about whether affordances are inherent properties of objects or are only present when they are perceived by an organism. More recently, affordance has been drawn on in the educational arena, particularly with respect to multimodality (see Linder (2013) for a recent example). Here, Kress et al. (2001) have claimed that different modes have different specialized affordances. Then, building on this idea, Airey and Linder (2009) suggested that there is a critical constellation of modes that students need to achieve fluency in before they can experience a concept in an appropriate disciplinary manner. Later, Airey (2009) nuanced this claim, shifting the focus from the modes themselves to a critical constellation of semiotic resources, thus acknowledging that different semiotic resources within a mode often have different affordances (e.g. two or more diagrams may form the critical constellation).

    In this theoretical paper the concept of disciplinary affordance (Fredlund et al., 2012) is suggested as a useful analytical tool for use in education. The concept makes a radical break with the views of both Gibson and Norman in that rather than focusing on the discernment of one individual, it refers to the disciplinary community as a whole. Put simply, the disciplinary affordances of a given semiotic resource are determined by those functions that the resource is expected to fulfil by the disciplinary community. Disciplinary affordances have thus been negotiated and developed within the discipline over time. As such, the question of whether these affordances are inherent or discerned becomes moot. Rather, from an educational perspective the issue is whether the meaning that a semiotic resource affords to an individual matches the disciplinary affordance assigned by the community. The power of the term for educational work is that learning can now be framed as coming to discern the disciplinary affordances of semiotic resources.

    In this paper we will briefly discuss the history of the term affordance, define the term disciplinary affordance and illustrate its usefulness in a number of educational settings.

    Download (pdf)
    bilaga
  • 103.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education. Uppsala University, Sweden.
    Grundström Lindqvist, Josefine
    Kung, Rebecca
    What does it mean to understand a physics equation?: A study of undergraduate answers in three countries2017Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In this paper we are interested in how undergraduate students in the US, Australia and Sweden experience the physics equations they meet in their education. We asked over 350 students the same simple question: How do you know when you understand a physics equation? Students wrote free-text answers to this question and these were transcribed and coded. The analysis resulted in eight themes (significance, origin, describe, predict, parts, relationships, calculate and explain). Each of these themes represents a different disciplinary aspect of student understanding of physics equations. We argue that together the different aspects we find represent a more holistic view of physics equations that we would like all our students to experience. Based on this work we wondered how best to highlight this more holistic view of equations. This prompted us to write a set of questions that reflect the original data with respect to the eight themes. We suggest that when students are working with problem solving they may ask themselves these questions in order to check their holistic understanding of what the physics equations they are using represent. In continuing work we are asking the same question to a cohort of physics lecturers. We are also trialling the themes and related questions that we generated in teaching situations. Here we are interested in whether students perceive the questions as helpful in their learning.

    Download full text (pdf)
    fulltext
  • 104.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University Sweden.
    Grundström Lindqvist, Josefine
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Kung, Rebecca
    Independent Researcher.
    What does it mean to understand a physics equation?: A study of undergraduate answers In three countries2019In: Bridging Research and Practice in Science Education: Selected Papers from the ESERA 2017 Conference, Dublin: ESERA, 2019, p. 225-239Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    What does it mean to understand a physics Equation?   A study of Undergraduate answers In Three countries.

    John Airey1,2 Josefine Grundström Lindqvist1 Rebecca Kung3

    1Department of Physics, Uppsala University, Sweden

    2Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University, Sweden

    3Independent researcher, Grosse Ile, MI, USA.        

                                                    

    In this paper we are interested in how undergraduate students in the US, Australia and Sweden experience the physics equations they meet in their education. We asked over 350 students the same simple question: How do you know when you understand a physics equation? Students wrote free-text answers to this question and these were transcribed and coded. The analysis resulted in eight themes (significance, origin, describe, predict, parts, relationships, calculate and explain). Each of these themes represents a different disciplinary aspect of student understanding of physics equations. We argue that together the different aspects we find represent a more holistic view of physics equations that we would like all our students to experience. Based on this work we wondered how best to highlight this more holistic view of equations. This prompted us to write a set of questions that reflect the original data with respect to the eight themes. We suggest that when students are working with problem solving they may ask themselves these questions in order to check their holistic understanding of what the physics equations they are using represent. In continuing work we are asking the same question to a cohort of physics lecturers. We are also trialling the themes and related questions that we generated in teaching situations. Here we are interested in whether students perceive the questions as helpful in their learning.

    Keywords: International Studies in Education, Physics, Higher Education

    Background

    As a discipline, physics is concerned with describing the world by constructing models, the end product of this modelling process often being an equation. Despite their importance in the representation of physics knowledge, physics equations have received surprisingly little attention in the literature. The work that has been done has tended to focus on the use of equations in problem solving (see Hsu, Brewe, Foster, & Harper, 2004 for an overview and Hegde & Meera, 2012 for a more recent example). One significant study is that of Sherin (2001) who examined students ability to construct equations. The majority of work suggests that many students in calculus-based physics courses focus their attention exclusively on selecting an equation and substituting in known values—so called “plug and chug” (see Tuminaro 2004). This behaviour—what Redish (1994) has termed the “Dead Leaves” approach to physics equations—has been framed as a major hurdle to students’ ability to see the bigger picture of physics. However, very little work has examined what students think it means to understand a physics equation, the only work we could locate was that of Domert et al, 2007 and Hechter, 2010. Building on these two sources this study examines student understanding of physics equations in three countries. Our research questions are:

    1. How do students in three countries say they know that they have understood a physics equation?
    2. What different disciplinary aspects of equations can be seen in an analysis of the complete set of answers to research question 1?
    3. How might a more holistic view of the understanding of equations be communicated to students?

    Method

    This qualitative study uses a research design based on minimum input and maximised output. We asked students in the US (n=83), Australia (n=168) and Sweden (n=105) the same simple question:

    How do you know when you understand a physics equation?

    Students wrote free-text answers to this question and these were transcribed and coded. Using qualitative analysis techniques drawn from the phenomenographic tradition, the whole dataset was then treated as a “pool of meaning” (See Airey, 2012 for an example of this type of analysis).

    Analysis and Results

    In our analysis we initially looked for differences across countries, however it quickly became apparent that there was a range of answers that repeated across countries. This led us to treat the data as a single set. This first analysis resulted in 15 preliminary categories. These categories were later broken up and reconstructed to form eight themes: Significance, Origin, Describe, Predict, Parts, Relationships, Calculate and Explain. We suggest that each of these eight themes represents a different disciplinary aspect of the expressed student understanding of physics equations. We argue that together the different aspects we find represent a more holistic view of physics equations that we would like all our students to experience. Based on this work we wondered how best to highlight this more holistic view of equations. This prompted us to write a set of questions that reflect the original data with respect to the eight themes:

    1      Significance: Why, when, where

    Do you know why the equation is needed?

    Do you know where the equation can and cannot be used? (boundary conditions/areas of physics).

    Do you understand what the equation means for its area of physics?

    What status does this equation have in physics? (fundamental law, empirical approximation, mathematical conversion, etc.).

    2      Origin

    Do you know the historical roots of the equation?

    Can you derive the equation?

    3      Describe/visualize

    Can you use the equation to describe a real-life situation?

    Can you describe an experiment that the equation models?

    Can you visualize the equation by drawing diagrams, graphs etc.

    4      Predict

    Can you use the equation to predict?

    5      Parts

    Can you describe the physical meaning of each of the components of the equation?

    How does a change in one component affect other components in the equation?

    Can you manipulate/rearrange the equation?

    6      Other equations

    Can you relate this equation to other equations you know?

    Can you construct the equation from other equations that you know?

    7      Calculate

    Can you use the equation to solve a physics problem?

    Can you use the equation to solve a physics problem in a different context than the one in which it was presented?

    When you use the equation to calculate an answer do you know:

    • How your answer relates to the original variables?
    • The physical meaning of this answer?
    • Whether your answer is reasonable?

    8      Explain

    Can you explain the equation to someone else?

    Discussion and conclusion

    The motivation for this study came from an experience the first author had a number of years ago. In an interview situation, students were asked in passing about whether they understood a certain equation. They replied “yes” and that the equation was “trivial”. However when questioned about what one of the terms in the equation meant and the students did not know! The students clearly meant that the equation was trivial from a mathematical point of view—they knew they could easily use the equation to “calculate stuff” so they said that they understood it. In Redish’s (1994) terms they were using the “Dead Leaves” approach to physics equations.

    We believe the questions we have generated in this study have the potential to help physics students who think they understand a physics equation to check whether there might be other aspects that they may not yet have considered.

    Our questions are based on student-generated data. Potentially physics lecturers could experience physics equations in even more complex ways. In continuing work we are therefore asking the same question to a cohort of physics lecturers. We are also trialling the themes and related questions that we generated in various teaching situations. Here we are interested in whether students perceive the questions as helpful in their learning.

    Acknowledgements

    Support from the Swedish Research Council, VR project no. 2016-04113, is gratefully acknowledged.

    REFERENCES

    Airey, J. (2012). “I don’t teach language.” The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25(2012), 64–79.

    Domert, D., Airey, J., Linder, C., & Kung, R. (2007). An exploration of university physics students' epistemological mindsets towards the understanding of physics equations. NorDiNa,Nordic Studies in Science Education(3), 15-28.

    Hechter, R. P. (2010). What does it understand the equation' really mean? Physics Education, 45(132).

    Hegde, B. & Meera, B. N. (2012). How do they solve it? An insight into the learner's approach to the mechanism of physics problem solving. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010109

    Hsu, L., Brewe, E., Foster, T. M., & Harper, K. A. (2004). Resource Letter RPS-1: Research in problem solving. American Journal of Physics, 72(9), 1147-1156.

    Redish, E. (1994). The implications of cognitive studies for teaching physics. American Journal of Physics, 62(6), 796-803.

    Sherin, B. L. (2001). How students understand physics equations. Cognitive Instruction, 19, 479-541.

    Tuminaro, J. (2004). A Cognitive framework for analyzing and describing introductory students' use of mathematics in physics. PhD Thesis. University of Maryland, Physics Department.

     

    Download full text (pdf)
    fulltext
  • 105.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
    Grundström Lindqvist, Josefine
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Lippman Kung, Rebecca
    Independent researcher, Grosse Ile, USA.
    What does it mean to understand a physics equation?: A study of undergraduate answers in three countries2019In: Bridging Research and Practice in Science Education: Selected Papers from the ESERA 2017 Conference / [ed] Eilish McLoughlin, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019, p. 225-239Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In this chapter we are interested in how undergraduate physics students in three countries experience the equations they meet in their education. We asked over 350 students in the US, Australia and Sweden the same simple question: How do you know when you understand a physics equation? Students wrote free-text answers to this question and these were transcribed and coded. The similarity of the answers we received across the three countries surprised us and led to us treating all the answers as a single “pool of meaning”. Qualitative analysis resulted in eight distinct themes: significance, origin, description, prediction, parts, relationships, calculation and explanation. Drawing on diSessa’s theory of knowledge in pieces, we argue that each theme represents a different disciplinary aspect of student understanding of physics equations. Educationally, we wondered how best to highlight the more holistic view of equations that analysis of the combined datasets revealed. This prompted us to write a set of questions that reflect the original data with respect to the eight themes. We suggest that when students meet a new physics equation they may ask themselves these questions in order to check their holistic understanding of what the equation represents. In continuing work we are asking our same original question to a cohort of physics lecturers in order to consolidate the themes we have already identified and to look for further themes. We are also trialling the themes and related questions that we generated in teaching situations. Here, we are interested in whether students perceive the questions as helpful in their learning. 

    References

    Airey, J. (2012). “I don’t teach language.” The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25, 64–79. doi:10/1075/aila.25.05air

    Airey, J., & Larsson, J. (2018).  Developing Students’ Disciplinary Literacy? The Case of University Physics. In: Tang K-S, Danielsson K. (eds) Global Developments in Literacy Research for Science Education. Springer, Cham, Switzerland, pp 357-376. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69197-8_21

    Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27-49. doi:10.1002/tea.20265

    Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research and critique. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham

    Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S .R. (1992). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods. 2 edn. Allyn and Bacon, Inc, Boston

    Chin, C., & Brown, D. E. (2000). Learning in Science: A Comparison of Deep and Surface Approaches. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37(2), 109-138. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2736(200002)37:2<109::AID-TEA3>3.0.CO;2-7

    diSessa, A. A. (1993). Toward an epistemology of physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2 & 3), 105-226. doi: 10.1207/s1532690xci1002&3_2

    diSessa, A. A. (2018). A Friendly Introduction to “Knowledge in Pieces”: Modeling Types of Knowledge and Their Roles in Learning. In: Kaiser G., Forgasz, H., Graven, M., Kuzniak, A., Simmt, E., & Xu B. (eds) Invited Lectures from the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-72170-5_5

     Domert, D., Airey, J., Linder, C., & Kung, R. (2007). An exploration of university physics students' epistemological mindsets towards the understanding of physics equations. NorDiNa, Nordic Studies in Science Education, 3(1), 15-28

    Eichenlaub, M., & Redish, E. F. (2018). Blending physical knowledge with mathematical form in physics problem solving. In: Pospiech, G., Michelini, M., &Eylon, B. (eds) Mathematics in Physics Education Research. Springer. arXiv:1804.01639

    Hechter, R. P. (2010). What does 'I understand the equation' really mean? Physics Education, 45 132-133. doi: 10.1088/0031-9120/45/2/F01

    Hegde, B., & Meera, B. N. (2012). How do they solve it? An insight into the learner's approach to the mechanism of physics problem solving. Physical Review Special Topics Physics Education Research, 8:010109. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.010109

    Hsu, L., Brewe, E., Foster, T. M., & Harper, K. A. (2004). Resource Letter RPS-1: Research in problem solving. American Journal of Physics,72(9), 1147-1156. doi: 10.1119/1.1763175

    Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511815355

    Lising, L., & Elby, A. (2005). The impact of epistemology on learning: A case study from introductory physics. American Journal of Physics,73, 372-382.doi:10.1119/1.1848115

    Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ

    Marton, F., & Säljö, R. (1976). On qualitative differences in learning. II - outcome as a function of the learner's conception of the task. British Journal of Educational Psychology,  46, 115-127. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1976.tb02980.x

    May, D. B., & Etkina, E. (2002). College physics students’ epistemological self-reflection and its relationship to conceptual learning. American Journal of Physics, 70(12),1249-1258. doi: 10.1119/1.1503377

    Nordling, C., & Österman, J. (2006). Physics Handbook. 8 edn. Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden

    Redish, E. (1994). Implications of cognitive studies for teaching physics. American Journal of Physics, 62(9), 796-803. doi: 10.1119/1.17461

    Sherin, B. L. (2001). How students understand physics equations. Cognitive Instruction, 19, 479-541. doi: 10.1207/S1532690XCI1904_3

    Swedish Research Council (2017) Good Research Practice. Swedish Research Council, Stockholm

    Tuminaro, J. (2004). A Cognitive framework for analyzing and describing introductory students' use of mathematics in physics. PhD Thesis. University of Maryland

  • 106.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education. Uppsala University, Sweden.
    Grundström Lindqvist, Josefine
    Lippman Kung, Rebecca
    What Does It Mean to Understand a Physics Equation? A Study of Undergraduate Answers in Three Countries2019In: Bridging Research and Practice in Science Education: Selected Papers from the ESERA 2017 Conference / [ed] Eilish McLoughlin, Odilla E. Finlayson, Sibel Erduran, Peter E. Childs, Cham: Springer Nature, 2019, p. 225-239Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    As a discipline, physics is concerned with describing the world by constructing models, the end product of this modelling process often being an equation. As such, physics equations represent much more than a finalized, ready-to-use calculation package – to physicists they are the culmination of a whole range of actions, assump- tions, approximations and historical discoveries. Moreover, physics equations are not simply stand-alone entities, rather they are intimately bound up with other equa- tions. Together, this web of equations represents an integrated, coherent whole that signals the way the community of physicists view the world.

    Clearly, such a nuanced, expert-like understanding of physics equations is not spontaneously available to undergraduate physics students when they meet an equa- tion for the first time. In this respect, research suggests that we should not expect students to display conceptually coherent understanding across settings. Rather it has been suggested that understanding is built up from context-dependent knowl- edge in pieces (diSessa 1993, 2018). In this characterization, different aspects, or ways of viewing the same phenomenon, are leveraged in different settings. Students gradually develop their understanding in two ways: by forging links between these separate ‘pieces of knowledge’ and by coming to appreciate the usefulness of a given ‘piece of knowledge’ for a given task. Educationally then, we are interested in identifying these pieces of knowledge – in our case the range of ways that students understand equations. What are students’ default positions with respect to equa- tions? Which aspects of equations do students tend to focus on and which aspects tend to go unnoticed? Once we have documented the range of ways of understand- ing, the next task concerns how to help students discern other aspects of equations than those they may initially notice. Do the tasks that students are presented with in their undergraduate education encourage them to move towards a more nuanced, coherent, holistic understanding of physics equations?

  • 107.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Larsson, Johanna
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Developing Students’ Disciplinary Literacy?: The Case of University Physics2018In: Global Developments in Literacy Research for Science Education / [ed] Kok-Sing Tang, Kristina Danielsson, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018, p. 357-376Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    The main data set used in this chapter comes from a comparative study of physics

    lecturers in Sweden and South Africa. (Airey 2012; 2013: Linder et al 2014). Semistructured

    interviews were carried out using a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix

    (Airey 2011b), which enabled us to probe the lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals in the

    various semiotic resource systems used in undergraduate physics (i.e. graphs, diagrams,

    mathematics, language, etc.).

    The findings suggest that whilst physics lecturers have strikingly similar

    disciplinary literacy goals for their students, regardless of setting; they have very different

    ideas about whether they themselves should teach students to handle these disciplinaryspecific

    semiotic resources. It is suggested that the similarity in physics

    lecturers’disciplinary literacy goals across highly disparate settings may be related to the

    hierarchical, singular nature of the discipline of physics (Bernstein 1999; 2000).

    In the final section of the chapter some preliminary evidence about the disciplinary

    literacy goals of those involved in physics teacher training is presented. Using Bernstein’s

    constructs, a potential conflict between the hierarchical singular of physics and the

    horizontal region of teacher training is noticeable.

    Going forward it would be interesting to apply the concept of disciplinary literacy

    to the analysis of other disciplines—particularly those with different combinations of

    Bernstein’s classifications of hierarchical/horizontal and singular/region.

    References

    Airey, J. (2009). Science, Language and Literacy. Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 81. Uppsala  Retrieved 2009-04-27, from http://publications.uu.se/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=9547

    Airey, J. (2011a). The Disciplinary Literacy Discussion Matrix: A Heuristic Tool for Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education. Across the disciplines, 8(3).

    Airey, J. (2011b). Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education: Disciplinary Literacy and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Dynamic content and language collaboration in higher education: theory, research, and reflections (pp. 57-65). Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

    Airey, J. (2012). “I don’t teach language.” The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25(2012), 64–79.

    Airey, J. (2013). Disciplinary Literacy. In E. Lundqvist, L. Östman, & R. Säljö (Eds.), Scientific literacy – teori och praktik (pp. 41-58): Gleerups.

    Airey, J. (2015). Social Semiotics in Higher Education: Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics In: SACF Singapore-Sweden Excellence Seminars, Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research in Higher Education (STINT), 2015 (pp. 103). urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-266049.

    Airey, J., & Larsson, J. (2014). What Knowledge Do Trainee Physics Teachers Need to Learn? Differences in the Views of Training Staff. International Science Education Conference ISEC 2014, National Institute of Education, Singapore. 25-27 November 2014.

    Airey, J., Lauridsen, K., Raisanen, A., Salö, L., & Schwach, V. (2016). The Expansion of English medium Instruction in the Nordic Countries. Can Top-down University Language Policies Encourage Bottom-up Disciplinary Literacy Goals? Higher Education. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-015-9950-2

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    Airey, J. & Linder, C. (in press) Social Semiotics in University Physics Education. In D. Treagust, R. Duit, R. & H. Fischer (Eds.), Multiple Representations in Physics Education Springer.

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  • 108.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education. Uppsala University, Sweden; Linnaeus University, Sweden.
    Larsson, Johanna
    Developing Students’ Disciplinary Literacy? The Case of University Physics2018In: Global Developments in Literacy Research for Science Education / [ed] Kok-Sing Tang, Kristina Danielsson, Springer, 2018, p. 357-376Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In this chapter we use the concept of disciplinary literacy (Airey, 2011a, 2013) to analyze the goals of university physics lecturers. Disciplinary literacy refers to a particular mix of disciplinary-specific communicative practices developed for three specific sites: the academy, the workplace and society. It has been suggested that the development of disciplinary literacy may be seen as one of the primary goals of university studies (Airey, 2011a).

    The main data set used in this chapter comes from a comparative study of physics lecturers in Sweden and South Africa (Airey, 2012, 2013; Linder, Airey, Mayaba, & Webb, 2014). Semi-structured interviews were carried out using a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011b), which enabled us to probe the lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals in the various semiotic resource systems used in undergraduate physics (i.e. graphs, diagrams, mathematics, language).

    The findings suggest that whilst physics lecturers have strikingly similar disciplinary literacy goals for their students, regardless of setting, they have very different ideas about whether they themselves should teach students to handle these disciplinary-specific semiotic resources. It is suggested that the similarity in physics lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals across highly disparate settings may be related to the hierarchical, singular nature of the discipline of physics (Bernstein, 1999, 2000).

    In the final section of the chapter some preliminary evidence about the disciplinary literacy goals of those involved in physics teacher training is presented. Using Bernstein’s constructs, a potential conflict between the hierarchical singular of physics and the horizontal region of teacher training is noticeable.

    Going forward it would be interesting to apply the concept of disciplinary literacy to the analysis of other disciplines—particularly those with different combinations of Bernstein’s classifications of hierarchical/horizontal and singular/region.

  • 109.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Larsson, Johanna
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    What Knowledge Do Trainee Physics Teachers Need to Learn?: Differences in the Views of Training Staff2014In: International Science Education Conference 2014 Programme, Singapore: Ministry of Education, National Institute of Education , 2014, p. 62-Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Although the impact of disciplinary differences on teaching and learning has been extensively discussed in the literature (e.g. Becher 1989; Becher and Trowler 2001; Lindblom-Ylännea et al. 2006; Neumann 2001; Neumann and Becher 2002), little research has explored this issue in relation to teacher training. In particular, we know of no work that examines differing views about the knowledge that trainee teachers need to learn across different settings. In this paper we analyse differences in the expressed views of staff involved in the training of prospective physics teachers in three environments: the education department, the physics department and schools. We analyse these differences in terms of two constructs: disciplinary literacy goals (Airey 2011, 2013) and disciplinary knowledge structures (Bernstein 1999).

    In terms of disciplinary literacy we find a stronger emphasis on learning goals for the academy expressed by informants from the physics and education departments. This can be contrasted with the view that the needs of the workplace are paramount expressed by school practitioners.

    Then, using Bernstein’s knowledge structures, we also identify clear differences in views about the nature of knowledge itself with a more hierarchical view of knowledge prevalent in the physics department and the more horizontal view of knowledge prevalent in the education department.

    The study highlights the often-conflicting signals about what constitutes useful knowledge that prospective physics teachers need to negotiate during their training. We tentatively suggest that more attention should be paid to both the theory/practice divide and potential epistemological differences in the training of prospective teachers.

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    Airey Larsson ISEC 2014
  • 110.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University.
    Larsson, Johanna
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Anne
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Investigating Undergraduate Physics Lecturers’ Disciplinary Literacy Goals For Their Students2017Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    Investigating Undergraduate Physics Lecturers’ disciplinary literacy Goals for their students.

    Abstract

     In this presentation we use the concept of disciplinary literacy (Airey, 2011a; 2013) to analyse the expressed learning goals of university physics lecturers for their students. We define disciplinary literacy in terms of learning to control a particular set of multimodal communicative practices. We believe it is important to document the expressed intentions of lecturers in this way, since it has previously been suggested that the development of such disciplinary literacy may be seen as one of the primary goals of university studies (Airey, 2011a).

    The main data set used in this presentation comes from a comparative study of 30 physics lecturers from Sweden and South Africa. (Airey, 2012, 2013; Linder et al, 2014). Semi-structured interviews were carried out using a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011b), which enabled us to probe the lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals in the various semiotic resource systems used in undergraduate physics (e.g. graphs, diagrams, mathematics, spoken and written languages, etc.).

    The findings suggest that physics lecturers in both countries have strikingly similar disciplinary literacy goals for their students and hold similar beliefs about disciplinary semiotic resources. The lecturers also agree that teaching disciplinary literacy ought not to be their job. Here though, there were differences in whether the lecturers teach students to handle disciplinary-specific semiotic resources. These differences appear to be based on individual decisions, rather than being specific to a particular country or institution.

    Keywords: Higher education, Scientific literacy, Representations.

    Introduction: disciplinary literacy

    In this presentation we examine the notion of disciplinary literacy in university physics (see Airey, 2011a, 2011b, 2013 and the extensive overview in Moje, 2007). Drawing on the work of Gee (1991), Airey (2001a) has broadened the definition of literacy to include semiotic resource systems other than language, defining disciplinary literacy as:

    The ability to appropriately participate in the communicative practices of a discipline.

    He goes on to suggest that the development of disciplinary literacy may be seen as one of the primary goals of university studies. In this study we use this disciplinary literacy concept to compare and problematize the goals of undergraduate physics lecturers in Sweden and South Africa.

    Research questions

    Our research questions for this study are:

    1. What do physics lecturers at universities in Sweden and South Africa say about disciplinary literacy in terms of the range of semiotic resources they want their students to learn to master?
    2. To what extent do these physics lecturers say that they themselves take responsibility for the development of this disciplinary literacy in their students?

    Data Collection

    The data set used for this presentation is taken from a comparative research project where 30 university physics lecturers from a total of nine universities in Sweden (4) and South Africa (5) described the disciplinary literacy goals they have for their students (Airey, 2012, 2013; Linder et al, 2014). A disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011b) was used as the basis for in-depth, semi-structured interviews.

    These were conducted in English and lasted approximately 60 minutes each. In the interviews the lecturers were encouraged to talk about the semiotic resources they think their students need to learn to control.

    Analysis

    The analysis drew on ideas from the phenomenographic research tradition by treating the interview transcripts as a single data set or “pool of meaning” (Marton & Booth, 1997: 133). The aim was to understand the expressed disciplinary literacy goals of the physics lecturers interviewed. Following the approach to qualitative data analysis advocated by Bogdan and Biklen (1992), iterative cycles were made through the data looking for patterns and key statements. Each cycle resulted in loosely labeled categories that were often split up, renamed or amalgamated in the next iteration. More background and details of the approach used can be found in Airey (2012).

    Results and Discussion

    Analysis of the 30 interviews resulted in the identification of four themes with respect to the lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals:

    1. Teaching physics is not the same thing as developing students’ disciplinary literacy.

    All the lecturers expressed a strong commitment that physics is independent of the semiotic resources used to construct it. For them, developing disciplinary literacy and teaching physics were quite separate things.

    These are tools, physics is something else. Physics is more than the sum of these tools it’s the way physicists think about things—a shared reference of how to analyse things around you.

    This theme challenges contemporary thinking in education and linguistics. Halliday and Martin (1993, p. 9) for example insist that communicative practices are not some sort of passive reflection of a priori disciplinary knowledge, but rather are actively engaged in bringing knowledge into being. In science education, an even more radical stance has been taken by Wickman and Östman (2002), who insist that disciplinary learning itself should be viewed as a form of discourse change.

    1. Disciplinary literacy in a range of semiotic resources is necessary for learning physics.

    All the lecturers in the study felt it was desirable that students develop disciplinary literacy in a range of semiotic resources in order to cope with their studies. In many ways this finding is unremarkable, with a number of researchers having commented on the wide range of semiotic systems needed for appropriate knowledge construction and communication in physics (e.g. Airey, 2009; Lemke, 1998; McDermott, 1990; Parodi, 2012).

    1. Developing disciplinary literacy is not really the job of a physics teacher.

    All physics lecturers expressed frustration at the low levels of disciplinary literacy in their students, feeling that they really should not have to work with the development of these skills, e.g.:

    I cannot say that I test them or train them in English. Of course they can always come and ask me, but I don’t think that I take responsibility for training them in English

    Northedge (2002) holds that the role of a university lecturer should be one of a discourse guide leading “excursions” into disciplinary discourse. However, although some lecturers actually did in fact work in this way (see category 4) the none of physics lecturers interviewed in this study felt comfortable with this role.

    1. Some teachers were prepared to take responsibility for the development of certain aspects of students’ disciplinary literacy.

    Nonetheless, some physics lecturers did say that the development of students’ disciplinary literacy would be something that they would work with. In these cases, lecturers (somewhat grudgingly) took on Northedge’s (2002) role of a discourse guide. This position was most common for mathematics, which was seen as essential for an understanding of physics (see Airey, 2012. p. 75 for further discussion of this theme).

    To be able to express it in a precise enough way you need mathematics. Language is more limited than mathematics in this case. So they need to use mathematics to see physics rather than language.

     

    Conclusion

    In this presentation we have applied the concept of disciplinary literacy to the goals of university physics lecturers. Lecturers reported their belief that disciplinary literacy in a wide range of semiotic resources is a necessary condition for physics learning. However, the same lecturers do not feel the development of this disciplinary literacy is their job. Although some lecturers were prepared to help students develop specific aspects of disciplinary literacy, all the lecturers interviewed believed that teaching physics is something that is separate from teaching disciplinary literacy. Here, Airey has argued that:

    Until lecturers see their role as one of socialising students into the discourse of their discipline…[they] will continue to insist that they are not [teachers of disciplinary literacy] and that this should be a job for someone else.                                                                                                                        (Airey, 2011b, p. 50)

    References

    Airey, J. (2009). Science, Language and Literacy. Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 81. Uppsala, Sweden.: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A173193&dswid=-4725.

    Airey, J. (2011a). The Disciplinary Literacy Discussion Matrix: A Heuristic Tool for Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education. Across the disciplines, 8(3), unpaginated.

    Airey, J. (2011b). Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education: Disciplinary Literacy and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Dynamic content and language collaboration in higher education: theory, research, and reflections (pp. 57-65). Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

    Airey, J. (2012). “I don’t teach language.” The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25(2012), 64–79.

    Airey, J. (2013). Disciplinary Literacy. In E. Lundqvist, L. Östman, & R. Säljö (Eds.), Scientific literacy – teori och praktik (pp. 41-58): Gleerups.

    Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. R. (1992). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods. (2 ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

    Gee, J. P. (1991). What is literacy? In C. Mitchell & K. Weiler (Eds.), Rewriting literacy: Culture and the discourse of the other (pp. 3-11). New York: Bergin & Garvey.

    Halliday, M. A. K., & Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing science: Literacy and discursive power. London: The Falmer Press.

    Lemke, J. L. (1998). Teaching all the languages of science: Words, symbols, images, and actions. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/papers/barcelon.htm.

    Linder, A., Airey, J., Mayaba, N., & Webb, P. (2014). Fostering Disciplinary Literacy? South African Physics Lecturers’ Educational Responses to their Students’ Lack of Representational Competence. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(3), 242-252. doi:10.1080/10288457.2014.953294

    Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    McDermott, L. (1990). A view from physics. In M. Gardner, J. G. Greeno, F. Reif, A. H. Schoenfeld, A. A. diSessa, & E. Stage (Eds.), Toward a scientific practice of science education (pp. 3-30). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Moje, E. B. (2007). Developing Socially Just Subject-Matter Instruction: A Review of the Literature on Disciplinary Literacy Teaching. Review of Research in Education 31 (March 2007), 1–44.

    Northedge, A. (2002). Organizing excursions into specialist discourse communities: A sociocultural account of university teaching. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century. Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 252-264). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

    Parodi, G. (2012) University Genres and Multisemiotic Features: Accessing Specialized Knowledge Through Disciplinarity. Fórum Linguístico. 9:4, 259-282.

    Wickman, P.-O., & Östman, L. (2002). Learning as discourse change: A sociocultural mechanism. Science Education, 86(5), 601-623.

    Download full text (pdf)
    fulltext
  • 111.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education. Uppsala University, Sweden.
    Larsson, Johanna
    Linder, Anne
    Investigating Undergraduate Physics Lecturers’ Disciplinary Literacy Goals For Their Students2017Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    In this presentation we use the concept of disciplinary literacy (Airey, 2011a; 2013) to analyse the expressed learning goals of university physics lecturers for their students. We define disciplinary literacy in terms of learning to control a particular set of multimodal communicative practices. We believe it is important to document the expressed intentions of lecturers in this way, since it has previously been suggested that the development of such disciplinary literacy may be seen as one of the primary goals of university studies (Airey, 2011a).

    The main data set used in this presentation comes from a comparative study of 30 physics lecturers from Sweden and South Africa. (Airey, 2012, 2013; Linder et al, 2014). Semi-structured interviews were carried out using a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011b), which enabled us to probe the lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals in the various semiotic resource systems used in undergraduate physics (e.g. graphs, diagrams, mathematics, spoken and written languages, etc.).

    The findings suggest that physics lecturers in both countries have strikingly similar disciplinary literacy goals for their students and hold similar beliefs about disciplinary semiotic resources. The lecturers also agree that teaching disciplinary literacy ought not to be their job. Here though, there were differences in whether the lecturers teach students to handle disciplinary-specific semiotic resources. These differences appear to be based on individual decisions, rather than being specific to a particular country or institution.

    Download full text (pdf)
    fulltext
  • 112.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Anne
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Mayaba, Nokhanyo
    Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
    Webb, Paul
    Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
    Problematising Disciplinary Literacy in a Multilingual Society: The Case of University Physics in South Africa.2013Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Problematising Disciplinary Literacy in a Multilingual Society:The Case of University Physics in South Africa

     

    John Airey1,3 Anne Linder1, Nokhanyo Mayaba 2 & Paul Webb2

    1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Sweden.

    2 Centre for Educational Research, Technology and Innovation, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa.

    3 School of Languages and Literature, Linnæus University, Sweden

    john.airey@physics.uu.se, anne.linder@physics.uu.se, nokhanyo.mayaba@nmmu.ac.za, paul.webb@nmmu.ac.za

    Abstract

    Over a decade has passed since Northedge (2002) convincingly argued that the role of the university lecturer should be viewed as one of leading students on excursions into the specialist discourse of their field. In his view, disciplinary discourses have come into being in order to create and share disciplinary knowledge that could not otherwise be appropriately construed in everyday discourse. Thus, Northedge’s conclusion is that in order for disciplinary learning to occur, students will need explicit guidance in accessing and using the specialist discourse of their chosen field. Building on this work, Airey (in press) argues that all university lecturers are, at least to some extent, teachers of language—even in monolingual settings. A radical approach to this claim has been suggested by Wickman and Östman (2002) who insist that learning itself be treated as a form of discourse change.

    In an attempt to operationalise Wickman and Östman’s assertion, Airey (2011b) suggests that the goals of any undergraduate degree programme may be framed in terms of the development of disciplinary literacy. Here, disciplinary literacy is defined as the ability to appropriately participate in the communicative practices of a discipline. Further, in his subsequent work, Airey (2011a) claims that all disciplines attempt to meet the needs of three specific sites: the academy, the workplace and society. He argues that the relative emphasis placed on teaching for these three sites will be different from discipline to discipline and will indeed vary within a discipline depending on the setting. In the South African setting two questions arise from this assertion. The first is: For any given discipline, what particular balance between teaching for the academy, the workplace and society is desirable and/or practicable? The second question follows on from the first: Having pragmatically decided on the teaching balance between the academy, workplace and society, what consequences does the decision have for the language(s) that lecturers should be helping their students to interpret and use? In order to address these two questions we conducted an interview-based case study of the disciplinary literacy goals of South African university lecturers in one particular discipline (physics). Thus, our overarching research question is as follows: How do South African physics lecturers problematise the development of disciplinary literacy in their students?

    The data collected forms part of a larger international comparative study of the disciplinary literacy goals of physics lecturers in Sweden and South Africa. A disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011a) was employed as the starting point for conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 20 physics lecturers from five South African universities. The choice of these five universities was purposeful—their student cohorts encompassing a range of different first languages and cultural backgrounds. The interviews were conducted in English, lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and were later transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were then analysed qualitatively. This involved “working with data, organizing it, breaking it into manageable units, synthesizing it, searching for patterns, discovering what is important and what is to be learned, and deciding what you will tell others” (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992:145).

    The main finding of this study is that all the lecturers mentioned language as being problematic in some way. However, there were a number of important differences in the ways the lecturers problematise the development of disciplinary literacy both across and within the different university physics departments. These differences can be seen to involve on the one hand, the lecturers’ own self-image in terms of whether they are comfortable with viewing themselves as language teachers/literacy developers, and on the other hand, their recognition of the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of their students. The differences will be illustrated and discussed using transcript excerpts. These findings are in contrast to parallel data collected in Sweden. In that particular (bilingual) setting, language was viewed as unproblematic, and the most striking characteristic was the very similarity of the responses of physics lecturers (Airey, in press). It is thus suggested that the differences in findings between Sweden and South Africa are a product of the latter’s diverse multilingual and multicultural environment. One pedagogical conclusion is that, given the differences in approach we find, inter- and intra faculty discussions about undergraduate disciplinary literacy goals would appear to have the distinct potential for reforming undergraduate physics. Similarly, an administrative conclusion is that a one-size-fits-all language policy for universities does not appear to be meaningful in such a diverse multilingual/multicultural environment.

    Finally, it should be mentioned that our choice of physics as an exemplar in this study has important implications for the interpretation of the findings. Drawing on Bernstein (1999), Martin (2011) suggests that disciplines have predominantly horizontal or hierarchical knowledge structures. Here it is claimed that physics has the most hierarchical knowledge structure of all disciplines. Thus, the findings presented here should be taken as illustrative of the situation in disciplines with more hierarchical knowledge structures (such as the natural and applied sciences). Kuteeva and Airey (in review) find that the issue of the language of instruction in such disciplines is viewed as much less problematic than in disciplines with more horizontal knowledge structures (such as the arts, humanities and, to some extent, social sciences). See Bennett (2010) for a provocative discussion of language use in such disciplines.

    Funding from the Swedish National Research Council and the South African National Research Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

    References:

    Airey, J. (2011a). The Disciplinary Literacy Discussion Matrix: A Heuristic Tool for Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education. Across the disciplines, 8(3).

    Airey, J. (2011b). Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education: Disciplinary Literacy and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Dynamic content and language collaboration in higher education: theory, research, and reflections (pp. 57-65). Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

    Airey, J. (in press). I Don’t Teach Language. The Linguistic Attitudes of Physics Lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25(2012), xx-xx.

    Bennett, K. (2010). Academic discourse in Portugal: A whole different ballgame? Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9(1), 21-32.

    Bernstein, M. (1999). Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. British Journal of Sociology Education, 20(2), 157-173.

    Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. R. (1992). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods. (2 ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

    Kuteeva, M., & Airey, J. (in review). Disciplinary Differences in the Use of English in Swedish Higher Education: Reflections on Recent Policy Developments  Studies in Higher Education.

    Martin, J. R. (2011). Bridging troubled waters: Interdisciplinarity and what makes it stick. In F. Christie & K. Maton (Eds.), Disciplinarity (pp. 35-61). London: Continuum International Publishing.

    Northedge, A. (2002). Organizing excursions into specialist discourse communities: A sociocultural account of university teaching. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century. Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 252-264). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

    Wickman, P.-O., & Östman, L. (2002). Learning as discourse change: A sociocultural mechanism. Science Education, 86(5), 601-623.

     

  • 113.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    A Disciplinary Discourse Perspective on University Science Learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes2008In: Journal of Research in Science Teaching, ISSN 0022-4308, E-ISSN 1098-2736, Vol. 46, no 1, p. 27-49Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In this theoretical article we use an interpretative study with physics undergraduates to exemplify a proposed characterization of student learning in university science in terms of fluency in disciplinary discourse. Drawing on ideas from a number of different sources in the literature, we characterize what we call “disciplinary discourse” as the complex of representations, tools and activities of a discipline, describing how it can be seen as being made up of various “modes”. For university science, examples of these modes are: spoken and written language, mathematics, gesture, images (including pictures, graphs and diagrams), tools (such as experimental apparatus and measurement equipment) and activities (such as ways of working—both practice and praxis, analytical routines, actions, etc.). Using physics as an illustrative example, we discuss the relationship between the ways of knowing that constitute a discipline and the modes of disciplinary discourse used to represent this knowing. The data comes from stimulated recall interviews where physics undergraduates discuss their learning experiences during lectures. These interviews are used to anecdotally illustrate our proposed characterization of learning and its associated theoretical constructs. Students describe a repetitive practice aspect to their learning, which we suggest is necessary for achieving fluency in the various modes of disciplinary discourse. Here we found instances of discourse imitation, where students are seemingly fluent in one or more modes of disciplinary discourse without having related this to a teacher-intended disciplinary way of knowing. The examples lead to the suggestion that fluency in a critical constellation of modes of disciplinary discourse may be a necessary (though not always sufficient) condition for gaining meaningful holistic access to disciplinary ways of knowing. One implication is that in order to be effective, science teachers need to know which modes are critical for an understanding of the material they wish to teach.

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  • 114.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics.
    Bilingual Scientific Literacy2008In: Paper presented at the Beyond Borders of Scientific Literacy: International Perspectives on New Directions for Policy and Practice Symposium at the Canadian Society for the Study of Education Congress Conference, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, May 31 - June 8., 2008Conference paper (Refereed)
  • 115.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy. Kalmar University College.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics.
    Bilingual Scientific Literacy?: The Use of English in Swedish University Science Courses2008In: Nordic Journal of English Studies, ISSN 1502-7694, E-ISSN 1654-6970, Vol. 7, no 3, p. 145-161Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    A direct consequence of the Bologna declaration on harmonisation of Europeaneducation has been an increase in the number of courses taught in English at Swedishuniversities. A worrying aspect of this development is the lack of research into the effectson disciplinary learning that may be related to changing the teaching language to Englishin this way. In fact, little is known at all about the complex inter-relationship betweenlanguage and learning. In this article we attempt to map out the types of parameters thatour research indicates would determine an appropriate language mix in one section ofSwedish higher education—natural science degree courses. We do this from theperspective of the overall goal of science education, which we suggest is the productionof scientifically literate graduates. Here we introduce a new term, bilingual scientificliteracy to describe the particular set of language-specific science skills that we hope tofoster within a given degree course. As an illustration of our constructs, we carry out asimple language audit of thirty Swedish undergraduate physics syllabuses, listing thetypes of input provided for students and the types of production expected from students inboth languages. We use this information to map out an ‘implied student’ for the courseswith respect to bilingual scientific literacy. The article finishes by identifying issues forfurther research in this area.

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  • 116.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics, Physics Didactics. Department of Human Sciences, University of Kalmar.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics, Physics Didactics. Department of Physics, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa..
    Disciplinary learning in a second language: A case study from university physics2007In: Researching Content and Language Integration in Higher Education / [ed] Wilkinson, Robert and Zegers, Vera, Maastricht: Maastricht University Language Centre , 2007, p. 161-171Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    There is a popular movement within Swedish universities and university colleges towards delivery of courses and degree programmes through the medium of English. This is particularly true in natural science, engineering and medicine where such teaching has been commonplace for some time. However, the rationale for using English as the language of instruction appears to be more a pragmatic response to outside pressures rather than a conscious educational decision. This situation has recently been challenged with the publication of the report of the Parliamentary Committee for the Swedish Language, Mål i Mun, which discusses the effects of so called domain losses to English.

     

    This paper gives an overview of the continuing debate surrounding teaching through the medium of English, and examines some of the research carried out in this area. In contrast to the wealth of studies carried out in the pre-university school world, very few studies have been identified at university level. One conclusion is that little appears to be known about what goes on when Swedish university students are taught in English by Swedish lecturers. The paper concludes by suggesting a number of research questions that need to be addressed in order to better understand this area. This paper will be of interest to anyone who teaches, or plans to teach, university subjects through the medium of English.

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  • 117.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics, Physics Didactics.
    Language and the Experience of Learning University Physics in Sweden2006In: European journal of physics, ISSN 0143-0807, E-ISSN 1361-6404, Vol. 27, no 3, p. 553-560Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    This qualitative study explores the relationship between the lecturing language (English or Swedish) and the related learning experiences of 22 undergraduate physics students at two Swedish universities. Students attended lectures in both English and Swedish as part of their regular undergraduate programme. These lectures were videotaped and students were then interviewed about their learning experiences using selected excerpts of the video in a process of stimulated recall. The study finds that although the students initially report no difference in their experience of learning physics when taught in Swedish or English, there are in fact some important differences which become apparent during stimulated recall. The pedagogical implications of these differences are discussed.

    Download full text (pdf)
    fulltext
  • 118.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics.
    Learning through English: further insights from a case study in Swedish university physics2008In: Paper presented at the Nätverk och Utveckling 2008 Lärande i en ny tid - samtal om undervisning i högre utbildning Conference, Kalmar, Sweden, 7-9 May., 2008Conference paper (Refereed)
  • 119.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Social Semiotics in University Physics Education2017In: Multiple Representations in Physics Education / [ed] Treagust, Duit and Fischer, Cham: Springer, 2017, p. 95-122Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In this chapter we discuss the application of social semiotics (Halliday 1978; van Leeuwen 2005) in the teaching and learning of university physics. For our purposes we define social semiotics as the study of the development and reproduction of spe- cialized systems of meaning making in particular sections of society. In our work we have used social semiotics as a lens to understand teaching and learning in undergraduate physics. There are many similarities between our social semiotic approach and the other representational work presented in the chapters of this vol- ume. The fundamental aim of this chapter is to introduce the supplementary and complementary aspects that a social semiotic perspective offers physics education and research in the area. Thus, in what follows, we describe our motivations for adopting a social semiotic approach and map out the similarities and differences to the extant body of work on multiple representations in physics education research. We then present a number of theoretical constructs that we have developed in our research group, and discuss their usefulness for understanding the processes of teaching and learning in undergraduate physics.

  • 120.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education. Uppsala University, Sweden.
    Linder, Cedric
    Social Semiotics in University Physics Education2017In: Multiple Representations in Physics Education / [ed] David F. Treagust, Reinders Duit, Hans E. Fischer, Springer, 2017, p. 95-122Chapter in book (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    In this chapter we discuss the application of social semiotics to the teaching and learning of university physics. Social semiotics is a broad construct where all communication in a particular social group is realized through the use of semiotic resources. In the discipline of physics, examples of such semiotic resources are graphs, diagrams, mathematics, spoken and written language, and laboratory apparatus. In physics education research it is usual to refer to most of these semiotic resources as representations. In social semiotics, then, disciplinary learning can be viewed as coming to interpret and use the meaning potential of disciplinary-specific semiotic resources (representations) that has been assigned by the discipline. We use this complementary depiction of representations to build theory with respect to the construction and sharing of disciplinary knowledge in the teaching and learning of university physics. To facilitate both scholarly discussion and future research in the area, a number of theoretical constructs have been developed. These constructs take their point of departure in empirical studies of teaching and learning in undergraduate physics. In the chapter we present each of these constructs in turn and examine their usefulness for problematizing teaching and learning with multiple representations in university physics.

  • 121.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Social semiotics in university physics education: Leveraging critical constellations of disciplinary representations2015Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Social semiotics is a broad construct where all communication is viewed as being realized through signs and their signification. In physics education we usually refer to these signs as disciplinary representations. These disciplinary representations are the semiotic resources used in physics communication, such as written and oral languages, diagrams, graphs, mathematics, apparatus and simulations. This alternative depiction of representations is used to build theory with respect to the construction and sharing of disciplinary knowledge in the teaching and learning of university physics. Based on empirical studies of physics students cooperating to explain the refraction of light, a number of theoretical constructs were developed. In this presentation we describe these constructs and examine their usefulness for problematizing teaching and learning in university physics. The theoretical constructs are: fluency in semiotic resources, disciplinary affordance and critical constellations.

    The conclusion formulates a proposal that has these constructs provide university physics teachers with a new set of meaningfully and practical tools, which will enable them to re-conceptualize their practice in ways that have the distinct potential to optimally enhance student learning.

     

     

    Purpose

    This aim of this theoretical paper is to present representations as semiotic resources in order to make a case for three related constructs that we see as being central to learning with multiple representations in university physics; fluency in semiotic resources, disciplinary affordance and critical constellations. We suggest that an understanding of these constructs is a necessary part of a physics lecturer’s educational toolbox.

     

    Why semiotics?

    The construct of representations as it is presently used in science education can, in our opinion, be unintentionally limiting since it explicitly excludes important aspects such as physical objects, (e.g. physics apparatus) and actions (e.g. measuring a value). Clearly, such aspects play a central role in sharing physics meaning and they are explicitly included as semiotic resources in a social semiotic approach. Van Leeuwen (2005:1) explains the preference for the term semiotic resource instead of other terms such as representation claiming that “[…] it avoids the impression that what a [representation] stands for is somehow pre-given, and not affected by its use”. Thus, the term semiotic resource encompasses other channels of meaning making, as well as everything that is generally termed external representations (Ainsworth, 2006).

     

    Why social semiotics?

    The reason for adopting social semiotics is that different groups develop their own systems of meaning making. This is often achieved either by the creation of new specialized semiotic resources or by assigning specific specialized meaning to more general semiotic resources. Nowhere is this more salient than in physics where the discipline draws on a wide variety of specialized resources in order to share physics knowledge. In our work in undergraduate physics education we have introduced three separate constructs that we believe are important for learning in physics: fluency in semiotic resources, disciplinary affordance and critical constellations.

     

    Fluency in semiotic resources

    The relationship between learning and representations has received much attention in the literature. The focus has often been how students can achieve “representational competence” (For a recent example see Linder et al 2014). In this respect, different semiotic resources have been investigated, including mathematics, graphs, gestures, diagrams and language. Considering just one of these resources, spoken language, it is clear that in order to share meaning using this resource one first needs to attain some sort of fluency in the language in question. We have argued by extension that the same holds for all the semiotic resources that we use in physics (Airey & Linder, 2009). It is impossible to make meaning with a disciplinary semiotic resource without first becoming fluent in its use. By fluency we mean a process through which handling a particular semiotic resource with respect to a given piece of physics content becomes unproblematic, almost second-nature. Thus, in our social semiotic characterization, if a person is said to be fluent in a particular semiotic resource, then they have come to understand the ways in which the discipline generally uses that resource to share physics knowledge. Clearly, such fluency is educationally critical for understanding the ways that students learn to combine semiotic resources, which is the interest of this symposium. However, there is more to learning physics than achieving fluency. For example:

     

    MIT undergraduates, when asked to comment about their high school physics, almost universally declared they could “solve all the problems” (and essentially all had received A's) but still felt they “really didn't understand at all what was going on”. diSessa (1993, p. 152)

     

    Clearly, these students had acquired excellent fluency in disciplinary semiotic resources, yet still lacked a qualitative conceptual understanding.

     

    The disciplinary affordance of semiotic resources

    Thus, we argue that becoming fluent in the use of a particular semiotic resource, though necessary, is not sufficient for an appropriate physics understanding. For an appropriate understanding we argue that students need to come to appreciate the disciplinary affordance of the semiotic resource (Fredlund, Airey, & Linder, 2012; Fredlund, Linder, Airey, & Linder, 2015). We define disciplinary affordance as the potential of a given semiotic resource to provide access to disciplinary knowledge. Thus we argue that combining fluency with an appreciation of the disciplinary affordance of a given semiotic resource leads to appropriate disciplinary meaning making. However, in practice the majority of physics phenomena cannot be adequately represented by one a single semiotic resource. This leads us to the theme of this symposium—the combination of multiple representations.

     

    Critical constellations – the significance of this work for the symposium theme

    The significance of the social semiotic approach we have outlined for work on multiple representations lies in the concept of critical constellations.

    Building on the work of Airey & Linder (2009), Airey (2009) suggests there is a critical constellation of disciplinary semiotic resources that are necessary for appropriate holistic experience of any given disciplinary concept. Using our earlier constructs we can see that students will first need to become fluent in each of the semiotic resources that make up this critical constellation. Next, they need to come to appreciate the disciplinary affordance of each separate semiotic resource. Then, finally, they can attempt to grasp the concept in an appropriate, disciplinary manner. In this respect, Linder (2013) suggests that disciplinary learning entails coming to appreciate the collective disciplinary affordance of a critical constellation of semiotic resources.

     

    Recommendations

    There are a number of consequences of this work for the teaching and learning of physics. First, we claim that teachers need to provide opportunities for their students to achieve fluency in a range of semiotic resources. Next teachers need to know more about the disciplinary affordances of the individual semiotic resources they use in their teaching (see Fredlund et al 2012 for a good example of this type of work).

    Finally, teachers need to contemplate which critical constellations of semiotic resources are necessary for making which physics knowledge available to their students. In this respect physics teachers need to appreciate that knowing their students as learners includes having a deep appreciation of the kinds of critical constellations that their particular students need in order to effectively learn physics

     

    References

    Ainsworth, S. (2006). DeFT: A conceptual framework for considering learning with multiple representations. Learning and Instruction, 16(3), 183-198.

    Airey, J. (2009). Science, Language and Literacy. Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 81. Uppsala  Retrieved 2009-04-27, from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A173193&dswid=-4725

    Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27-49.

    diSessa, A. A. (1993). Toward an Epistemology of Physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2 & 3), 105-225.

    Fredlund, T., Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2012). Exploring the role of physics representations: an illustrative example from students sharing knowledge about refraction. European Journal of Physics, 33, 657-666.

    Fredlund, T., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Linder, A. (2015). Unpacking physics representations: towards an appreciation of disciplinary affordance. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 10( 020128 (2014)).

    Linder, A., Airey, J., Mayaba, N., & Webb, P. (2014). Fostering Disciplinary Literacy? South African Physics Lecturers’ Educational Responses to their Students’ Lack of Representational Competence. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(3). doi: 10.1080/10288457.2014.953294

    Linder, C. (2013). Disciplinary discourse, representation, and appresentation in the teaching and learning of science. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 1(2), 43-49.

    van leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge.

     

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  • 122.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Linnaeus University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Languages. Uppsala University.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Sweden.
    Social semiotics in university physics education: Leveraging critical constellations of disciplinary representations2015In: Science Education Research: Engaging learners for a sustainable future / [ed] Jari Lavonen, Kalle Juuti, Jarkko Lampiselkä, Anna Uitto, Kaisa Hahl, European Science Education Research Association , 2015Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Social semiotics is a broad construct where all communication is viewed as being realized through signs and their signification. In physics education we usually refer to these signs as disciplinary representations. These disciplinary representations are the semiotic resources used in physics communication, such as written and oral languages, diagrams, graphs, mathematics, apparatus and simulations. This alternative depiction of representations is used to build theory with respect to the construction and sharing of disciplinary knowledge in the teaching and learning of university physics. Based on empirical studies of physics students cooperating to explain the refraction of light, a number of theoretical constructs were developed. In this presentation we describe these constructs and examine their usefulness for problematizing teaching and learning in university physics. The theoretical constructs are: fluency in semiotic resources, disciplinary affordance and critical constellations.

    The conclusion formulates a proposal that has these constructs provide university physics teachers with a new set of meaningfully and practical tools, which will enable them to re-conceptualize their practice in ways that have the distinct potential to optimally enhance student learning.

    Download (pdf)
    Presentation
  • 123.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. School of Languages and Literature, Linnæus University, Sweden.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Teaching and Learning in University Physics: A Social Semiotic Approach2016Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Social semiotics is a broad construct where all communication is viewed as being realized through semiotic resources. In undergraduate physics we use a wide range of these semiotic resources, such as written and oral languages, diagrams, graphs, mathematics, apparatus and simulations. Based on empirical studies of undergraduate physics students a number of theoretical constructs have been developed in our research group (see for example Airey & Linder 2009; Fredlund et al 2012, 2014; Eriksson 2015). In this presentation we describe these constructs and examine their usefulness for problematizing teaching and learning in university physics. The theoretical constructs are: discursive fluency, discourse imitation, unpacking and critical constellations of semiotic resources.

    We suggest that these constructs provide university physics teachers with a new set of practical tools with which to view their own practice in order to enhance student 

    References

    Airey, J. (2006). Physics Students' Experiences of the Disciplinary Discourse Encountered in Lectures in English and Swedish.   Licentiate Thesis. Uppsala, Sweden: Department of Physics, Uppsala University.,

    Airey J. (2009). Science, Language and Literacy. Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. Acta Universitatis   Upsaliensis. Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 81. Uppsala  Retrieved 2009-04-27, from   http://publications.uu.se/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=9547

    Airey, J. (2014) Representations in Undergraduate Physics. Docent lecture, Ångström Laboratory, 9th June 2014 From   http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-226598

    Airey, J. & Linder, C. (2015) Social Semiotics in Physics Education: Leveraging critical constellations of disciplinary representations   ESERA 2015 From http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn%3Anbn%3Ase%3Auu%3Adiva-260209

    Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). "A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical   constellation of modes." Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27-49.

    Airey, J. & Linder, C. (in press) Social Semiotics in Physics Education : Multiple Representations in Physics Education   Springer

    Airey, J., & Eriksson, U. (2014). A semiotic analysis of the disciplinary affordances of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram in   astronomy. Paper presented at the The 5th International 360 conference: Encompassing the multimodality of knowledge,   Aarhus, Denmark.

    Airey, J., Eriksson, U., Fredlund, T., and Linder, C. (2014). "The concept of disciplinary affordance"The 5th International 360   conference: Encompassing the multimodality of knowledge. City: Aarhus University: Aarhus, Denmark, pp. 20.

    Eriksson, U. (2015) Reading the Sky: From Starspots to Spotting Stars Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.

    Eriksson, U., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Redfors, A. (2014). Who needs 3D when the Universe is flat? Science Education, 98(3),   412-442.

    Eriksson, U., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Redfors, A. (2014). Introducing the anatomy of disciplinary discernment: an example from   astronomy. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2(3), 167‐182.

    Fredlund 2015 Using a Social Semiotic Perspective to Inform the Teaching and Learning of Physics. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.

    Fredlund, T., Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2012). Exploring the role of physics representations: an illustrative example from students   sharing knowledge about refraction. European Journal of Physics, 33, 657-666.

    Fredlund, T, Airey, J, & Linder, C. (2015a). Enhancing the possibilities for learning: Variation of disciplinary-relevant aspects in   physics representations. European Journal of Physics.

    Fredlund, T. & Linder, C., & Airey, J. (2015b). Towards addressing transient learning challenges in undergraduate physics: an   example from electrostatics. European Journal of Physics. 36 055002.

    Fredlund, T. & Linder, C., & Airey, J. (2015c). A social semiotic approach to identifying critical aspects. International Journal for   Lesson and Learning Studies 2015 4:3 , 302-316

    Fredlund, T., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Linder, A. (2014). Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation of disciplinary   affordance. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 10(020128).

    Gibson, J. J. (1979). The theory of affordances The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (pp. 127-143). Boston: Houghton   Miffin.

    Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as a social semiotic. London: Arnold.

    Linder, C. (2013). Disciplinary discourse, representation, and appresentation in the teaching and learning of science. European   Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 1(2), 43-49.

    Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York: Basic Books.

    Mavers, D. Glossary of multimodal terms  Retrieved 6 May, 2014, from http://multimodalityglossary.wordpress.com/affordance/

    van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge.

    Wu, H-K, & Puntambekar, S. (2012). Pedagogical Affordances of Multiple External Representations in Scientific Processes. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 21(6), 754-767.

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  • 124.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Linder, Cedric
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Tvåspråkig ämneskompetens? En studie av naturvetenskaplig parallellspråkighet i svensk högreutbildning.2010In: Språkvård och språkpolitik / [ed] Lars-Gunnar Andersson, Olle Josephson, Inger Lindberg, and Mats Thelander, Stockholm: Språkrådet/Norstedts , 2010, p. 195-212Chapter in book (Other academic)
  • 125.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Teaching and Learning.
    Patron, Emelie
    Linnéuniversitet.
    Wikman, Susanne
    Linnéuniversitet.
    Making the Invisible Visible: The role of undergraduate textbooks in the teaching and learning of physics and chemistry2023Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    As disciplines, undergraduate physics and chemistry leverage a particularly wide range of semiotic systems (modes) in order to create and communicate their scientific meanings. Examples of the different semiotic systems employed are: spoken and written language, mathematics, chemical formulae, graphs, diagrams, sketches, computer simulations, hands-on work with experimental apparatus, computer simulations, etc. Individual semiotic resources within this range of semiotic systems are coordinated in specific constellations (Airey & Linder, 2009) in order to mediate scientific knowledge. In this Swedish Research Council project, we are interested in the representation of scientific phenomena that cannot be seen. The question we pose is: How is scientific knowledge mediated when we cannot directly interact with the phenomena in question through our senses?  We adopt a social semiotic approach (Airey & Linder, 2017; van Leeuwen, 2005), to investigate the ways in which two phenomena—electromagnetic fields and chemical bonds—are presented in undergraduate textbooks. To do this we carried out a semiotic audit (Airey & Erikson, 2019) of eight textbooks (four in each discipline). We note that the individual resources used have a mixture of affordances—whilst the majority retain high disciplinary affordance, others are unpacked (Patron et al. 2021) providing higher pedagogical affordance. We discuss the ways in which the resources have been combined and orchestrated (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010) in order to attempt to make visible that which is invisible, and identify a number of potential problems. In earlier work, Volkwyn et al. (2019) demonstrated how experimental work with physics devices can make the Earth’s magnetic field accessible to students through chains of transduction. Thus, we propose that encouraging transductions across the semiotic resource systems provided in textbooks may help students to experience the invisible.

    References

    Airey, J. (2006). Physics students' experiences of the disciplinary discourse encountered in lectures in English and Swedish (Licentiate dissertation, Department of Physics, Uppsala University).

    Airey, J. (2009). Science, language, and literacy: Case studies of learning in Swedish university physics (Doctoral dissertation, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis).

    Airey, J. (2015). Social Semiotics in Higher Education: Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics. In In: SACF Singapore-Sweden Excellence Seminars, Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research in   Higher Education (STINT) , 2015 (pp. 103). 

    Airey, J., & Eriksson, U. (2019). Unpacking the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram: A social semiotic analysis of the disciplinary and pedagogical affordances of a central resource in astronomy. Designs for Learning, 11(1), 99-107.

    Goodwin, C. (2015). Professional vision. In Aufmerksamkeit: Geschichte-Theorie-Empirie (pp. 387-425). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

    O’Halloran, K. (2007). Mathematical and scientific forms of knowledge: A systemic functional multimodal grammatical approach. language, Knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspective, 205-236.

    Patron, E. (2022). Exploring the role that visual representations play when teaching and learning chemical bonding: An approach built on social semiotics and phenomenography(Doctoral dissertation, Linnaeus University Press).

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  • 126.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Sweden.
    Patron, Emelie
    Linnaeus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Education and Teacher's Practice. Linnaeus University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences.
    Wikman, Susanne
    Linnaeus University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences.
    Making the Invisible Visible: The role of undergraduate textbooks in the teaching and learning of physics and chemistry2023In: Designing futures: The 11th International Conference on Multimodality; Book of abstracts, London Conference, London: UCL , 2023Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    As disciplines, undergraduate physics and chemistry leverage a particularly wide range of semiotic systems (modes) in order to create and communicate their scientific meanings. Examples of the different semiotic systems employed are: spoken and written language, mathematics, chemical formulae, graphs, diagrams, sketches, computer simulations, hands-on work with experimental apparatus, computer simulations, etc. Individual semiotic resources within this range of semiotic systems are coordinated in specific constellations (Airey & Linder, 2009) in order to mediate scientific knowledge. In this Swedish Research Council project, we are interested in the representation of scientific phenomena that cannot be seen. The question we pose is: How is scientific knowledge mediated when we cannot directly interact with the phenomena in question through our senses?  We adopt a social semiotic approach (Airey & Linder, 2017; van Leeuwen, 2005), to investigate the ways in which two phenomena—electromagnetic fields and chemical bonds—are presented in undergraduate textbooks. To do this we carried out a semiotic audit (Airey & Erikson, 2019) of eight textbooks (four in each discipline). We note that the individual resources used have a mixture of affordances—whilst the majority retain high disciplinary affordance, others are unpacked (Patron et al. 2021) providing higher pedagogical affordance. We discuss the ways in which the resources have been combined and orchestrated (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010) in order to attempt to make visible that which is invisible, and identify a number of potential problems. In earlier work, Volkwyn et al. (2019) demonstrated how experimental work with physics devices can make the Earth’s magnetic field accessible to students through chains of transduction. Thus, we propose that encouraging transductions across the semiotic resource systems provided in textbooks may help students to experience the invisible.

    References

    Airey, J. (2006). Physics students' experiences of the disciplinary discourse encountered in lectures in English and Swedish (Licentiate dissertation, Department of Physics, Uppsala University).

    Airey, J. (2009). Science, language, and literacy: Case studies of learning in Swedish university physics (Doctoral dissertation, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis).

    Airey, J. (2015). Social Semiotics in Higher Education: Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics. In In: SACF Singapore-Sweden Excellence Seminars, Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research in   Higher Education (STINT) , 2015 (pp. 103). 

    Airey, J., & Eriksson, U. (2019). Unpacking the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram: A social semiotic analysis of the disciplinary and pedagogical affordances of a central resource in astronomy. Designs for Learning, 11(1), 99-107.

    Goodwin, C. (2015). Professional vision. In Aufmerksamkeit: Geschichte-Theorie-Empirie (pp. 387-425). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

    O’Halloran, K. (2007). Mathematical and scientific forms of knowledge: A systemic functional multimodal grammatical approach. language, Knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspective, 205-236.

    Patron, E. (2022). Exploring the role that visual representations play when teaching and learning chemical bonding: An approach built on social semiotics and phenomenography(Doctoral dissertation, Linnaeus University Press).

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  • 127.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. epartment of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE .
    Simpson, Zachary
    University of Johannesburg, ZA .
    Increasing Access to Science and Engineering: the Role of Multimodality2019In: Designs for Learning, ISSN 1654-7608, Vol. 11, no 1, p. 138-140Article in journal (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    The idea for this special issue of Designs for Learning emerged during the 8th International Conference on Multimodality (8ICOM), held in Cape Town in December 2016. During that conference, a special stream of papers was organised, all of which addressed the question of science and/or engineering teaching from a multimodal perspective. In this editorial we discuss the issue of multimodal access to science and engi- neering and introduce the papers in the special issue.

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  • 128.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University.
    Simpson, Zachary
    University of Johannesburg.
    Multimodal Science and Engineering Teaching: Perspectives from 8ICOM2018In: 9ICOM - Complete Book Of Abstracts, Odense, Denmark.: Syddansk Universitet, 2018Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    Multimodal Science and Engineering Teaching: Perspectives from 8ICOM

    The previous international conference on multimodality – 8ICOM – featured two sessions devoted to multimodal, social semiotic approaches to science teaching and learning (c.f. Halliday1978; van Leeuwen 2005, Airey & Linder 2017). What the papers in these sessions shared was the argument that such perspectives on science, and science teaching, can, at least in part, respond to calls to ‘democratize’ science education by recognising diverse sets of semiotic resources and, in so doing, seeking to address impediments to equal participation (Burke et al., 2017). 

    The 8ICOM science sessions were particularly noteworthy given the backdrop against which 8ICOM had been organised. In the months leading up to the conference, South Africa (and Cape Town, in particular) had experienced campus unrest aimed at ‘decolonizing’ higher education in that country. As part of this movement, the phrase #ScienceMustFall briefly trended on social media. This emanated from the claim that ‘science’ is a western, colonial construct that needs to be dismantled and replaced with the teaching of indigenous, African knowledge. Although the #ScienceMustFall slogan has since departed from the wider public consciousness, the questions it raises nonetheless remain: why, and how, should science be taught?  Is science more than just a western colonial construction and, if so, why? And, what can the concept of multimodality offer by way of answering these questions? 

    In this paper, we offer an overview of the multimodal science papers presented in the two sessions at 8ICOM in the light of these questions. This is done with a view to assessing where the multimodality community finds itself regarding science education, and how it might address questions of the legitimacy of western science in the future. It is thus an attempt, as the conference theme suggests, to ‘move the theory forward’.      

    References

    Airey, J. (2009). Science, Language and Literacy. Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. ActaUniversitatis  Upsaliensis. Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 81. Uppsala, Sweden.:   http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A173193&dswid=-4725.

    Airey, J. (2012). “I don’t teach language.” The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden.AILAReview, 25(2012), 64–79.

    Bernstein, B. (1999). Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. British Journal of Sociology Education, 20(2), 157-173.

    Lindstrøm, C. (2011) Analysing Knowledge and Teaching Practices in Physics. Presentation 21 November 2011. Department of   Physicsand Astronomy Uppsala University, Sweden.

    Martin, J. R. (2011). Bridgingtroubled waters: Interdisciplinarityand what makes it stick, in F. Christie and K. Maton, (eds.),   Disciplinarity. London: Continuum International Publishing, pp. 35-61.

    Volkwyn, T., Airey, J., Gregorčič, B., & Heijkenskjöld, F. (in press). Learning Science through Transduction: Multimodal disciplinary   meaning-making in the physics laboratory. Designs for Learning.

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  • 129.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education. Uppsala University, Sweden.
    Simpson, Zachary
    Multimodal Science and Engineering Teaching: Perspectives from 8ICOM2018Conference paper (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    The previous international conference on multimodality – 8ICOM – featured two sessions devoted to multimodal, social semiotic approaches to science teaching and learning (c.f. Halliday1978; van Leeuwen 2005, Airey & Linder 2017). What the papers in these sessions shared was the argument that such perspectives on science, and science teaching, can, at least in part, respond to calls to ‘democratize’ science education by recognising diverse sets of semiotic resources and, in so doing, seeking to address impediments to equal participation (Burke et al., 2017). 

    The 8ICOM science sessions were particularly noteworthy given the backdrop against which 8ICOM had been organised. In the months leading up to the conference, South Africa (and Cape Town, in particular) had experienced campus unrest aimed at ‘decolonizing’ higher education in that country. As part of this movement, the phrase #ScienceMustFall briefly trended on social media. This emanated from the claim that ‘science’ is a western, colonial construct that needs to be dismantled and replaced with the teaching of indigenous, African knowledge. Although the #ScienceMustFall slogan has since departed from the wider public consciousness, the questions it raises nonetheless remain: why, and how, should science be taught?  Is science more than just a western colonial construction and, if so, why? And, what can the concept of multimodality offer by way of answering these questions? 

    In this paper, we offer an overview of the multimodal science papers presented in the two sessions at 8ICOM in the light of these questions. This is done with a view to assessing where the multimodality community finds itself regarding science education, and how it might address questions of the legitimacy of western science in the future. It is thus an attempt, as the conference theme suggests, to ‘move the theory forward’.      

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    fulltext
  • 130.
    Airey, John
    et al.
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Urban, Eriksson
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics. Högskolan i Kristianstad.
    What do you see here?: Using an analysis of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram in astronomy to create a survey of disciplinary discernment.2014Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Becoming part of a discipline involves learning to interpret and use a range of disciplinary-specific semiotic resources (Airey, 2009). These resources have been developed and assigned particular specialist meanings over time. Nowhere is this truer than in the sciences, where it is the norm that disciplinary-specific representations have been introduced and then refined by a number of different actors in order to reconcile them with subsequent empirical and theoretical advances. As a consequence, many of the semiotic resources used in the sciences today still retain some (potentially confusing) traces of their historical roots. However, it has been repeatedly shown that university lecturers underestimate the challenges such disciplinary specific semiotic resources may present to undergraduates (Northedge, 2002; Tobias, 1986).

    In this paper we analyse one such disciplinary-specific semiotic resource from the field of Astronomy—the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. First, we audit the potential of this semiotic resource to provide access to disciplinary knowledge—what Fredlund et al (2012) have termed its disciplinary affordances. Our analysis includes consideration of the use of scales, labels, symbols, sizes and colour. We show how, for historical reasons, the use of these aspects in the resource may differ from what might be expected by a newcomer to the discipline. Using the results of our analysis we then created an online questionnaire to probe what is discerned (Eriksson, Linder, Airey, & Redfors, in press) with respect to each of these aspects by astronomers and physicists ranging from first year undergraduates to university professors.

    Our findings suggest that some of the issues we highlight in our analysis may, in fact, be contributors to the alternative conceptions of undergraduate students and we therefore propose that lecturers pay particular attention to the disambiguation of these features for their students.

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    Airey Eriksson 2014
  • 131. Akabori, M.
    et al.
    Hidaka, S.
    Iwase, H.
    Yamada, S.
    Ekenberg, Ulf
    KTH, School of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Optics and Photonics.
    Realization of In0.75Ga0.25As two-dimensional electron gas bilayer system for spintronics devices based on Rashba spin-orbit interaction2012In: Journal of Applied Physics, ISSN 0021-8979, E-ISSN 1089-7550, Vol. 112, no 11, p. 113711-Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Narrow gap InGaAs two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) bilayer samples are fabricated and confirmed to have good electronic qualities as well as strong Rashba-type spin-orbit interactions (SOIs). The 2DEG systems are realized by molecular beam epitaxy in the form of wide quantum wells (QWs) with thicknesses tQW∼40-120nm modulation doped in both the upper and lower InAlAs barriers. From the Hall measurements, the overall mobility values of μe ∼15 m2/V s are found for the total sheet electron density of ns ∼8 × 1011/cm2, although the ns is distributed asymmetrically as about 1:3 in the upper and lower 2DEGs, respectively. Careful low temperature magneto-resistance analysis gives large SO coupling constants of α ∼20 × 10 -12eV m as well as expected electron effective masses of m*/m0 ∼0.033-0.042 for each bilayer 2DEG spin sub-band. Moreover, the enhancement of α with decrease of tQW is found. The corresponding self-consistent calculation, which suggests the interaction between the bilayer 2DEGs, is carried out and the origin of α enhancement is discussed.

  • 132.
    Akan, Rabia
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Metal-assisted chemical etching for nanofabrication of hard X-ray zone plates2021Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
    Abstract [en]

    Hard X-ray scanning microscopes, or nanoprobes, make it possible to image samples and probe their chemical, elemental and structural properties at nanoscale resolution. This is enabled by the use of nanofocusing optics. Commonly used optics in nanoprobes for high resolution X-ray experiments are zone plates. Zone plates are circular diffraction optics with radially decreasing grating periods. Their performance depends on their geometrical properties and material. The width of the outermost zone, which today is in the order of a few tens of nanometers, defines the zone plate resolution, while the zone thickness and the material define the X-ray focusing efficiency. For hard X-ray zone plates, the required zone thickness is several micrometers. Therefore, high-aspect ratio nanostructures are a prerequisite for high-resolution, high-efficiency zone plates. The very small structures together with the high-aspect ratios make zone plates one of the most challenging devices to fabricate. A wet-chemical nanofabrication process that has proved its capability of providing silicon nanostructures with ultra-high aspect ratios is metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE). MACE is an electroless, autocatalytic pattern transfer method that uses an etching solution to selectively etch a predefined noble metal pattern into silicon. In this thesis, MACE is optimized specifically for zone plate nanostructures and used in the development of a new zone plate device nanofabrication process. The MACE optimization for silicon zone plate nanostructures involved a systematic investigation of a wide parameter space. The preferable etching solution composition, process temperature, zone plate catalyst design and silicon type were identified. Parameter dependencies were characterized with respect to etching depth and verticality, mechanical stability of zones and silicon surface roughness. Zone plate molds with aspect ratios of 30:1 at 30 nm zone widths were nanofabricated using the optimized MACE process. For use with hard X-rays, the silicon molds were metallized with palladium using electroless deposition (ELD). The first order diffraction efficiency of such a palladium/silicon zone plate was characterized as 1.9 %. Both MACE for the zone plate pattern transfer and ELD for the silicon mold metalization are conceptually simple, relatively low-cost and accessible methods, which opens up for further developments of zone plate device nanofabrication processes.

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  • 133.
    Akan, Rabia
    et al.
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Parfeniukas, Karolis
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Vogt, Carmen
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics. KTH, School of Biotechnology (BIO), Centres, Albanova VinnExcellence Center for Protein Technology, ProNova.
    Toprak, Muhammet
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Vogt, Ulrich
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Investigation of Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching for Fabrication of Silicon-Based X-Ray Zone Plates2018In: Microscopy and Microanalysis, ISSN 1431-9276, E-ISSN 1435-8115Article in journal (Refereed)
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  • 134.
    Akan, Rabia
    et al.
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Vogt, Ulrich
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Optimization of metal-assisted chemical etching for deep silicon nanostructuresManuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
  • 135.
    Akan, Rabia
    et al.
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Vogt, Ulrich
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Biomedical and X-ray Physics.
    Optimization of Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching for Deep Silicon Nanostructures2021In: Nanomaterials, E-ISSN 2079-4991, Vol. 11, no 11, article id 2806Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    High-aspect ratio silicon (Si) nanostructures are important for many applications. Metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) is a wet-chemical method used for the fabrication of nanostructured Si. Two main challenges exist with etching Si structures in the nanometer range with MACE: keeping mechanical stability at high aspect ratios and maintaining a vertical etching profile. In this work, we investigated the etching behavior of two zone plate catalyst designs in a systematic manner at four different MACE conditions as a function of mechanical stability and etching verticality. The zone plate catalyst designs served as models for Si nanostructures over a wide range of feature sizes ranging from 850 nm to 30 nm at 1:1 line-to-space ratio. The first design was a grid-like, interconnected catalyst (brick wall) and the second design was a hybrid catalyst that was partly isolated, partly interconnected (fishbone). Results showed that the brick wall design was mechanically stable up to an aspect ratio of 30:1 with vertical Si structures at most investigated conditions. The fishbone design showed higher mechanical stability thanks to the Si backbone in the design, but on the other hand required careful control of the reaction kinetics for etching verticality. The influence of MACE reaction kinetics was identified by lowering the oxidant concentration, lowering the processing temperature and by isopropanol addition. We report an optimized MACE condition to achieve an aspect ratio of at least 100:1 at room temperature processing by incorporating isopropanol in the etching solution.

  • 136.
    Akhmedov, Evgeny
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Theoretical Physics, Theoretical Particle Physics.
    Neutrino oscillations: Theory and phenomenology2011In: Nuclear Physics B - Proceedings Supplements, ISSN 0920-5632, Vol. 221, p. 19-25Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    A brief overview of selected topics in the theory and phenomenology of neutrino oscillations is given. These include: oscillations in vacuum and in matter; phenomenology of 3-flavour neutrino oscillations; CP and T violation in neutrino oscillations in vacuum and in matter; matter effects on ν μ↔ν τ oscillations; parametric resonance in neutrino oscillations inside the earth; oscillations below and above the MSW resonance; unsettled issues in the theory of neutrino oscillations.

  • 137.
    Akhtari, Mohammad Mehdi
    Umeå University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Physics.
    Accuracy of inverse treatment planning on computed tomography like images derived from magnetic resonance data2013Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesis
    Abstract [en]

    Treatment planning for radiotherapy involves different types of imaging to delineate target volume precisely. The most suitable sources to get 3D information of the patient are the computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET)/CT modalities. CT is a modern medical imaging technique that allows three-dimensional treatment planning and conformal treatment techniques. By combining CT images with efficient dosimetry software, accurate patient positioning methods and verification and quality assurance good results can be achieved. The CT images show how the radiation interacts with the material based on each tissue has a different attenuation coefficient, so the data can be used for dose calculations in treatment planning.

    Radiation oncology is therapeutic modality, in which irradiating cancer cells as target is the main goal while always try to limit the dose to healthy tissues and organs. CT images have good potentials because they can provide high geometrical accuracy and electron density information. Having said that, however, using CT images alone for planning does not provide enough information in order to delineate the target volume accurately because the attenuation in soft tissue is fairly constant therefore the soft tissue contrast is poor. Here, (MR) imaging can be very useful since it has superior soft tissue contrast especially in conditions such as prostate cancer, brain lesions, and head and neck tumors. It should be noted that MR images cannot provide electron density information that is required for dose calculations.

    It has been hypothesized that since MRI images have certain benefits in comparison with CT images such as its superior soft tissue contrast which improves contrast resolution between different types of tissues, it would be beneficial to use MRI alone for both target delineation and treatment planning to save time and costs. This was investigated by introducing substitute computed tomography (SCT) which can be interpreted as CT equivalent information obtained by MRI images.

    We used data from five patients with intracranial tumors, and reviewed their initial dosimetric treatment plans that were based solely on CT images, that data was also used to evaluate the dosimetric accuracy of our research treatment plans. Optimization plans that are based on CT images and substitute CT (SCT) was compared with each other in the first step. On the second step the treatment plan that was based on SCT images was transferred to the CT images without any changes and comparisons between the dose calculations on both data sets were made. The delivered dose to planning target volume (PTV) and risk organs was compared.

    Gamma index results between SCT and transferred plan showed no difference in the dose distribution map in PTV. The maximum difference was in the outer contour to the skull. The average and median dose delivered to PTV was within 0.35% difference studying in all patients.

    In conclusion for patients with intracranial tumors the dosimetric accuracy of treatment plans based on SCT and MR images were very accurate, and we demonstrated that it was possible to reach the same dose volume histograms by SCT compared to CT with minimal differences, which were not significant. 

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  • 138. Aksenova, N.A.
    et al.
    Isakina, A.P.
    Prokhvatilov, A.N.
    Strzhemechny, M.A.
    Soldatov, Alexander
    Sundqvist, Bertil
    Structural studies of C60 polymerized at high pressure1997In: Proceedings of the Symposium on Recent Advances in the Chemistry and Physics of Fullerenes and Related Materials: : [based on papers presented at the fourth symposium of the Fullerenes Group of the Electrochemical Society, held at the 192nd Meeting of the Electrochemical Society in Paris, France, from August 31 to September 5, 1997. This symposium, entitled Fullerenes: Chemistry, Physics and New Directions X ...] / [ed] Karl M. Kadish, Pennington, NJ: Electrochemical Society, Incorporated , 1997Conference paper (Refereed)
  • 139.
    Aksér, Marielle
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Didactics.
    Laborera i fysik, en självklarhet, men när?2014Independent thesis Advanced level (professional degree), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
    Abstract [en]

    The theoretical background in this essay made clear that the students’ knowledge about physics improve, and they express a more positive attitude towards physics as a subject, when they have access to a more laboratory-based learning style. The aim of this study is to research how the placement of the lab relative to the lecture affects the students’ experiences and level of knowledge. The study involved students in year eight and was carried out during four weeks. A total of four lectures were held in addition to a total of eight labs devided on four lab-lessons. The students were divided into two different groups, one where the students were given lectures before they preformed the labs and one where the students had the labs prior to the corresponding lectures. Tests were given at the beginning and end of the study to evaluate any difference in knowledge and in addition to this the students answered surveys regarding their attitudes and experiences. The data belonging to each group was then compared. The result showed that the two groups improved their knowledge by nearly the same amount and any differences found regarding qualitative or quantitative knowledge between the two groups was minor. The one difference that could be found dealt with the students’ attitudes towards their education. The students in the group that had their lab-lesson before the corresponding lecture perceived the lecture as easier to understand than the other group. The perceived difficulty of the labs could not be connected to whether the students had the lab or the lecture first.

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  • 140. Aktas, Ozan
    et al.
    Ren, H.
    Runge, A. F. J.
    Peacock, A. C.
    Hawkins, T.
    Ballato, J.
    Gibson, Ursula J.
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics.
    Interfacing telecom fibers and silicon core fibers with nano-spikes for in-fiber silicon devices2018In: Optics InfoBase Conference Papers, Optics Info Base, Optical Society of America, 2018, article id u12d3i3mConference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    We report fabrication of tapered silicon core fibers with nano-spikes enabling efficient optical coupling into the core, as well as their seamless integration with single mode fibers. A proof-of-concept integrated in-fiber silicon device is demonstrated. 

  • 141.
    Alakpa, Enateri V.
    et al.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Integrative Medical Biology (IMB).
    Bahrd, Anton
    Umeå University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Physics.
    Wiklund, Krister
    Umeå University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Physics.
    Andersson, Magnus
    Umeå University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Physics.
    Novikov, Lev N.
    Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Integrative Medical Biology (IMB).
    Ljungberg, Christina
    Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences, Hand Surgery.
    Kelk, Peyman
    Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Integrative Medical Biology (IMB).
    Bioprinted schwann and mesenchymal stem cell co-cultures for enhanced spatial control of neurite outgrowth2023In: Gels, E-ISSN 2310-2861, Vol. 9, no 3, article id 172Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Bioprinting nerve conduits supplemented with glial or stem cells is a promising approach to promote axonal regeneration in the injured nervous system. In this study, we examined the effects of different compositions of bioprinted fibrin hydrogels supplemented with Schwann cells and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on cell viability, production of neurotrophic factors, and neurite outgrowth from adult sensory neurons. To reduce cell damage during bioprinting, we analyzed and optimized the shear stress magnitude and exposure time. The results demonstrated that fibrin hydrogel made from 9 mg/mL of fibrinogen and 50IE/mL of thrombin maintained the gel&rsquo;s highest stability and cell viability. Gene transcription levels for neurotrophic factors were significantly higher in cultures containing Schwann cells. However, the amount of the secreted neurotrophic factors was similar in all co-cultures with the different ratios of Schwann cells and MSCs. By testing various co-culture combinations, we found that the number of Schwann cells can feasibly be reduced by half and still stimulate guided neurite outgrowth in a 3D-printed fibrin matrix. This study demonstrates that bioprinting can be used to develop nerve conduits with optimized cell compositions to guide axonal regeneration.

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  • 142.
    Alam, Syed Bahauddin
    et al.
    CEA Cadarache.
    Almutairi, B.
    Ridwan, T.
    Cambridge Univeristy.
    Kumar, Dinesh
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Applied Nuclear Physics.
    Goodwin, C.
    Uncertainty Quantification on Core Input Parameter for SFR Core Using Polynomial Chaos2019In: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, ISSN 0003-018X, Vol. 120, no 1, p. 871-874Article in journal (Refereed)
  • 143.
    Alam, Syed Bahauddin
    et al.
    Univ Cambridge, Dept Engn, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England.
    Kumar, Dinesh
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Applied Nuclear Physics.
    Almutairi, Bader
    Missouri S&T, Dept Nucl Engn, Rolla, MO USA.
    Ridwan, Tuhfatur
    Univ Cambridge, Dept Engn, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England.
    Goodwin, Cameron
    Rhode Isl Nucl Sci Ctr, 16 Reactor Rd, Narragansett, RI 02882 USA.
    Parks, Geoffrey T.
    Univ Cambridge, Dept Engn, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England.
    Lattice benchmarking of deterministic, Monte Carlo and hybrid Monte Carlo reactor physics codes for the soluble-boron-free SMR cores2020In: Nuclear Engineering and Design, ISSN 0029-5493, E-ISSN 1872-759X, Vol. 356, article id 110350Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Since the use of deterministic transport code WIMS can significantly reduce the computational time compared to the Monte Carlo (MC) code Serpent and hybrid MC code MONK, one of the major objectives of this study is to observe whether deterministic code WIMS can provide accuracy in reactor physics calculations while comparing Serpent and MONK. Therefore, numerical benchmark calculations for a soluble-boron-free (SBF) small modular reactor (SMR) assembly have been performed using the WIMS, Serpent and MONK. Although computationally different in nature, these codes can solve the neutronic transport equations and calculate the required neutronic parameters. A comparison in neutronic parameters between the three codes has been carried out using two types of candidate fuels: 15% U-235 enriched homogeneously mixed all-UO2 fuel and 18% U-235 enriched micro-heterogeneous ThO2-UO2 duplex fuel in a 2D fuel assembly model using a 13x13 arrangement. The eigenvalue/ reactivity (k(infinity)) and 2D assembly pin power distribution at different burnup states in the assembly depletion are compared using three candidate nuclear data files: ENDF/B-VII, JEF2.2 and JEF3.1. A good agreement in k(infinity) values was observed among the codes for both the candidate fuels. The differences in k(infinity) between the codes are similar to 200 pcm when cross-sections based on the same nuclear data file are used. A higher difference (up to similar to 450 pcm) in the k(infinity) values is observed among the codes using cross-sections based on different data files. Finally, it can be concluded from this study that the good agreement in the results between the codes found provides enhanced confidence that modeling of SBF, SMR propulsion core systems with micro-heterogeneous duplex fuel can be performed reliably using deterministic neutronics code WIMS, offering the advantage of less expensive computation than that of the MC Serpent and hybrid MC MONK codes.

  • 144.
    Alarcon, Alvaro
    et al.
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Argillander, Joakim
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Lima, G.
    Univ Concepcion, Chile; Univ Concepcion, Chile.
    Xavier, Guilherme B
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Few-Mode-Fiber Technology Fine-tunes Losses in Quantum Communication Systems2021In: Physical Review Applied, E-ISSN 2331-7019, Vol. 16, no 3, article id 034018Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    A natural choice for quantum communication is to use the relative phase between two paths of a single photon for information encoding. This method was nevertheless quickly identified as impractical over long distances, and thus a modification based on single-photon time bins has become widely adopted. It, how-ever, introduces a fundamental loss, which increases with the dimension and limits its application over long distances. Here solve this long-standing hurdle by using a few-mode-fiber space-division-multiplexing platform working with orbital-angular-momentum modes. In our scheme, we maintain the practicability provided by the time-bin scheme, while the quantum states are transmitted through a few-mode fiber in a configuration that does not introduce postselection losses. We experimentally demonstrate our proposal by successfully transmitting phase-encoded single-photon states for quantum cryptography over 500 m of few-mode fiber, showing the feasibility of our scheme.

  • 145.
    Alarcon, Alvaro
    et al.
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Argillander, Joakim
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Spegel-Lexne, Daniel
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Xavier, Guilherme B
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Dynamic generation of photonic spatial quantum states with an all-fiber platform2023In: Optics Express, E-ISSN 1094-4087, Vol. 31, no 6, p. 10673-10683Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    Photonic spatial quantum states are a subject of great interest for applications in quantum communication. One important challenge has been how to dynamically generate these states using only fiber-optical components. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate an all-fiber system that can dynamically switch between any general transverse spatial qubit state based on linearly polarized modes. Our platform is based on a fast optical switch based on a Sagnac interferometer combined with a photonic lantern and few-mode optical fibers. We show switching times between spatial modes on the order of 5 ns and demonstrate the applicability of our scheme for quantum technologies by demonstrating a measurement-device-independent (MDI) quantum random number generator based on our platform. We run the generator continuously over 15 hours, acquiring over 13.46 Gbits of random numbers, of which we ensure that at least 60.52% are private, following the MDI protocol. Our results show the use of photonic lanterns to dynamically create spatial modes using only fiber components, which due to their robustness and integration capabilities, have important consequences for photonic classical and quantum information processing.(c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

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  • 146.
    Alarcon, Alvaro
    et al.
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering. Univ Concepcion, Chile.
    Gonzalez, P.
    Univ Concepcion, Chile.
    Carine, J.
    Univ Concepcion, Chile; Univ Catolica Santisima, Chile.
    Lima, G.
    Univ Concepcion, Chile.
    Xavier, Guilherme B
    Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Coding. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
    Polarization-independent single-photon switch based on a fiber-optical Sagnac interferometer for quantum communication networks2020In: Optics Express, E-ISSN 1094-4087, Vol. 28, no 22, p. 33731-33738Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    An essential component of future quantum networks is an optical switch capable of dynamically routing single photons. Here we implement such a switch, based on a fiber-optical Sagnac interferometer design. The routing is implemented with a pair of fast electro-optical telecom phase modulators placed inside the Sagnac loop, such that each modulator acts on an orthogonal polarization component of the single photons, in order to yield polarization-independent capability that is crucial for several applications. We obtain an average extinction ratio of more than 19 dB between both outputs of the switch. Our experiment is built exclusively with commercial off-the-shelf components, thus allowing direct compatibility with current optical communication systems. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

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  • 147.
    Al-attar, Nebras
    et al.
    School of biosystems and food Engineering, University of Technology, Baghdad, 10066, Iraq; Laser and Optoelectronics Engineering Department, University of Technology, Baghdad, 10066, Iraq.
    Al-Shammari, Rusul M.
    School of Physics, University College Dublin Belfield, 7 Dublin, D04 N2E5, Ireland; Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin Belfield, 7 Dublin, D04 N2E5, Ireland.
    Manzo, Michele
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Quantum Electronics and Quantum Optics, QEO.
    Gallo, Katia
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Applied Physics, Quantum Electronics and Quantum Optics, QEO.
    Rodriguez, Brian J.
    School of Physics, University College Dublin Belfield, 7 Dublin, D04 N2E5, Ireland; Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin Belfield, 7 Dublin, D04 N2E5, Ireland.
    Rice, James H.
    School of Physics, University College Dublin Belfield, 7 Dublin, D04 N2E5, Ireland.
    Wide-field surface-enhanced Raman scattering from ferroelectrically defined Au nanoparticle microarrays for optical sensing2018In: Proceedings CLEO: Applications and Technology 2018, Optica Publishing Group , 2018Conference paper (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    The acquisition-time in optical sensors using SERS is vital value. Wide-field SERS is used to perform high-density of hot-spots of GNPs photodeposition on a periodically-protonexchanged- LiNbO3 which, leads to increase the sensitivity at ultralow probe concentrations.

  • 148.
    Albernaz, Daniel L.
    et al.
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Mechanics. KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Centres, Linné Flow Center, FLOW.
    Do-Quang, Minh
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Mechanics. KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Centres, Linné Flow Center, FLOW.
    Hermanson, J. C.
    Amberg, Gustav
    KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Mechanics, Physicochemical Fluid Mechanics. KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Centres, Linné Flow Center, FLOW.
    Thermodynamics of a real fluid near the critical point in numerical simulations of isotropic turbulence2016In: Physics of fluids, ISSN 1070-6631, E-ISSN 1089-7666, Vol. 28, no 12, article id 125105Article in journal (Refereed)
    Abstract [en]

    We investigate the behavior of a fluid near the critical point by using numerical simulations of weakly compressible three-dimensional isotropic turbulence. Much has been done for a turbulent flow with an ideal gas. The primary focus of this work is to analyze fluctuations of thermodynamic variables (pressure, density, and temperature) when a non-ideal Equation Of State (EOS) is considered. In order to do so, a hybrid lattice Boltzmann scheme is applied to solve the momentum and energy equations. Previously unreported phenomena are revealed as the temperature approaches the critical point. Fluctuations in pressure, density, and temperature increase, followed by changes in their respective probability density functions. Due to the non-linearity of the EOS, it is seen that variances of density and temperature and their respective covariance are equally important close to the critical point. Unlike the ideal EOS case, significant differences in the thermodynamic properties are also observed when the Reynolds number is increased. We also address issues related to the spectral behavior and scaling of density, pressure, temperature, and kinetic energy.

  • 149.
    Albrecht, Felix
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy.
    Numerical modeling and simulation of the deformation of wood under an applied indentation load2014Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesis
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  • 150.
    Albrecht, Felix
    Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy. Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Technology, Department of Engineering Sciences, Applied Mechanics.
    Numerical modeling and simulation of the deformation of wood under an applied indentation load2014Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesis
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