Measuring How Students Measure

Abstract: Physics education research in undergraduate laboratory courses is vital to ensure that these courses achieve their learning goals, such as developing hands-on technical skills and mastering concepts and practices related to measurement uncertainty. In this talk, I cover my role in developing a research-based assessment instrument, the Survey of Physics Reasoning on Uncertainty Concepts in Experiments (SPRUCE). I will highlight student proficiencies and challenges with measurement uncertainty along 10 different axes, such as propagating errors, estimating the size of uncertainty by considering instrument precision, and determining if two measurements agree with one another.